Death Is the Cure

by Slade, Nicola

  Lady Frampton nudged Charlotte at this point.

  ‘Get a move on, gal,’ she hissed loudly, her best teeth whistling and rattling loudly. ‘They’re off to the vestry and you’ll be wanted to sign the register. Stop day-dreaming there and shift yerself.’ She gave Charlotte a further push, urging, ‘’urry up, will you? I’m sharp set and wanting my vittles.’

  In the vestry Charlotte suffered the tearful embrace of the new Mrs Percy Benson and allowed Agnes to drip tears on to her neck. ‘Come, Agnes,’ she remonstrated at last. ‘Dry these tears and let me shake Percy by the hand. No,’ she warned, as a fresh outburst seemed impending. ‘I warn you, one more bout of weeping and I’ll throw a bucket of water over you, I promise you.’

  ‘That’s what I so admire about you, Charlotte,’ a low, amused voice came from behind her. ‘You’re always so tactful.’

  Charlotte whirled round to see a warm smile and a hand outstretched in greeting, as a tall, brown-haired man in his mid-thirties nodded to her.

  ‘Kit! Mr Knightley? When did you arrive home from London? I thought you were quite certain to be detained beyond the wedding.’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded, still holding her hand in his firm clasp. ‘I had telegraphed Elaine to that effect but my business matters suddenly drew to a conclusion this morning and a new idea came to the fore, so I jumped on to the first train heading south.’ He checked and shot her a grave look. ‘Did you see Elaine last night? Was she well? I came straight to the church and haven’t been home yet, though I won’t stay long after the wedding.’

  ‘I can do better than that,’ Charlotte reassured him in an undertone. ‘I was up very early this morning and took Lady Frampton’s dog for a walk over to Knightley Hall to enquire after Elaine’s health. I can inform you, sir, that your lady wife is in excellent spirits and assures me that she is in fine fettle.’

  He gave a wry smile, releasing her hand as he turned to nod a greeting to his old schoolfriend, Barnard Richmond, then took a step back towards her. ‘And how much of that am I to believe, Charlotte? We both know that my wife can be astoundingly untruthful about her state of health, if she doesn’t want me to be worried.’

  ‘I know.’ Charlotte laid her hand briefly on his arm. ‘I believe she was as well as she has been lately. I know that’s small comfort, but truly, Kit, I don’t think she is actually any worse just now.’

  He smiled and moved away to congratulate the bride and groom, his welcome assured as patron of the living and a prime mover in their engagement. Charlotte cast a brief glance at his retreating back and sighed. Elaine Knightley, her dearest friend, was dying, of that there was no doubt. The only question was how long it would take her.

  Several days after the wedding Charlotte took her usual roundabout route over the commons and hills a few miles south of Winchester, to visit the Knightleys. A fresh breeze made the countryside inviting, and the atmosphere at Finchbourne Manor was becoming oppressive, to say the least.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Gran,’ Charlotte had exclaimed after breakfast. ‘How can Lily, the least patient and long-suffering of women, bear that dreadful creature weeping and wailing all over her? I shall take to violence, I promise you, if Melicent Dunwoody sobs over me one more time. The woman is a bottomless well of tears and she turns them on at a moment’s notice.’

  ‘I ’ave to admit that she’s a tedious wench,’ agreed Lady Frampton, leaning back in the comfortable armchair positioned in the bay window of her bedroom where she could keep an eye on the comings and goings of visitors and family as they journeyed up the short front drive. ‘But she don’t bother me, I’m bound to say as much in ’er favour.’

  ‘Of course she doesn’t bother you,’ Charlotte burst out. ‘Because you are a very clever old lady, darling Gran, and you hide yourself away up here where even that encroaching watering pot dare not intrude. But I have no such refuge and it seems to be every five minutes that I’m waylaid about some slight that has been her lot. Yesterday it was the butler, poor Hoxton, who had offended by forgetting to offer her a second glass of wine at dinner. This morning it was Lily’s maid who “talked back” to Miss Dunwoody, when all she wanted was a little assistance in rejuvenating her best – her only silk gown – she being too poor, sadly, to afford another. I gather Lily’s maid was brutally frank in pointing out that she owed service to her own particular mistress only.’

  Charlotte flung herself around the stuffy, comfortable bedchamber, dark with its Elizabethan oak panelling. She wondered for a moment whether to wrestle open the small, leaded casement window, partly obscured by heavy brocade curtains, but knew that such an action would bring the old lady’s wrath down on her head. ‘I swear to you, Gran, that I feel a truly murderous desire at least five times a day, to throttle that woman!’

  Lady Frampton clapped her hands in amusement but offered no sympathy. ‘Get on with you, you silly wench, I think you must be feeling liverish. Go for a walk or something and get rid of these megrims in your silly ’ead. As far as I can make out Barnard allowed Melicent Dunwoody to weep and wail over him until he agreed in self defence that she could stay and not even Lily can shift him from that stance. You know, we all know, ’ow bull-’eaded ’e can be when he’s forced into a corner, so you might as well admit defeat.’ She shifted herself into a more comfortable pose and closed her eyes, her large capable hands folded over her imposing belly. After a moment she opened them again. ‘What, you still ’ere, madam? Be off with you, I’ll warrant Mrs Knightley would enjoy your tale of the wedding goings-on.’

  ‘So there you are, Elaine.’ Charlotte sprawled inelegantly but comfortably on the cushions of a long wooden chair in the rose garden of Knightley Hall where her friend lay shaded from the afternoon sun. ‘Lady Frampton shooed me off without ceremony to talk to you, rather than interfere with her afternoon nap.’

  ‘I’m delighted that she did so.’ Elaine Knightley’s grey eyes gleamed with affection as she looked at the younger girl; so much more relaxed now compared to the taut anxiety that had been noticeable on her arrival in England only three months ago at the end of April. ‘How did Agnes bear it all? Did she weep? How foolish of me, of course she wept! How did she look? Kit, dreadful man, had no idea at all what the wedding dress was like, or how Agnes carried herself. All he could tell me was that the food served at the wedding breakfast was a vast improvement on previous repasts he had suffered at the manor.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’ Charlotte nodded with a complacent smile. ‘Lily drove the kitchen staff mad, in this her first entertainment since assuming the mantle of Lady of the Manor, and she harried and chivvied the kitchen and the gardeners and all the maids into laying on a feast fit for a royal wedding. At least, that was what Cook declared it to be and when I remember the peculiar, universal brown tinge to all the food that was served up at the manor on my arrival in this country, I feel a glow of pride at my patience in teaching Cook how to dish up food that is neither brown, burnt or boring.’

  ‘Indeed, my dear girl, you have worked miracles,’ Elaine agreed, shifting her position slightly, with a barely perceptible frown. As Charlotte started up, Mrs Knightley shook her head, with a forbidding glance. ‘No, it’s all right, I’m quite comfortable now. Sit back in your chair and relax. Tell me about your plans; when are you and old Lady Frampton to move into the house in the village?’

  ‘That’s another irritation.’ Charlotte sighed in frustration. ‘First of all the house Barnard has offered us, Rowan Lodge, was to be fumigated after the previous tenant’s cats had colonized the place. After that came the decoration and now, at this late stage, Barnard informs me that there’s a new problem with the kitchen drains which may take weeks to resolve. And worse even than all the rest, as the house is next door to the vicarage, the drainage problem is common to both houses, so Dora Benson is to take up residence at the manor this very afternoon. Not to mention poor Agnes and Percy Benson when they return from their honeymoon on the Isle of Wight in three or four weeks’ t
ime.’

  She leaned over the side of her chair to pick a handful of daisies and started to loop them into a chain. ‘I tell you, Elaine, I’m already having to watch my tongue with Miss Dunwoody, but when Dora Benson becomes resident in the house, I think I shall certainly need a scold’s bridle – for myself if not for her. The woman is a walking history book, which is perfectly admirable; I like history myself, but not morning, noon and night. If that were all I could bear her, but she is bent on improving us along with it. When she came to tea yesterday she even tried to contradict dear Gran on some point about Queen Caroline in spite of Gran informing her haughtily that she had seen with her own eyes the poor lady barred from her husband’s coronation. Even though Dora was routed, I could see that she still felt a glow of superiority. She will be quite impossible in the house, all day, every day.’

  Elaine’s smile had an absent air as she looked suddenly thoughtful, but she made no comment and Charlotte continued, ‘Do you know, Dora has actually had the impertinence to scold the servants for calling me Miss Char? She informed me, in her calmest, most superior voice, that such a form was quite incorrect and that I should be addressed as Mrs Frampton Richmond. I bit my tongue and replied politely that the servants and I were perfectly conversant with the correct forms of address, but that we were all happy and comfortable with the more friendly style, so she countered this by remarking that in that case, they should pronounce my name with a soft Ch as in Charlotte, instead of a hard one – Char short for Charlie – as they do.’

  Charlotte grinned at her friend across the low garden table between them. ‘I’m thinking of hiring myself out as a lady’s companion for a few months just to get away from the manor. I tell you that but for the fact that Barnard would be so mortified and hurt, I promise you that is exactly what I’d do.’

  ‘Really?’ Elaine sat up with a surprisingly vigorous movement. ‘Are you in earnest, Char? Oh, not about hiring yourself out, I realize that was a joke, but about wishing you could have a change of scenery for a while?’

  ‘I … suppose so.’ Charlotte also sat up and stared at the sudden colour in her friend’s normally pale cheeks and at the sparkle in her wide grey eyes. ‘Why, what is it, Elaine? Do you know someone who would like me to help them? For you know I would be more than happy to do what I could.…’

  ‘Yes, my dear goose.’ Elaine smiled. ‘Before your very eyes you see a woman who stands in dire need of a congenial companion for a week or so, possibly even as much as a month, but certainly no more than that. Will you come with me to Bath, Char? To keep me company so that Kit need not dance attendance on me? I know that he would trust you to take the greatest care of me, as he would trust no other, and although he threatens to leave the harvest and the men to their own devices to be at my side, I know it will break his heart if he has to do so at such a busy time. Will you come with me?’

  ‘With the greatest pleasure. You know that. I’ve always dreamed of going to Bath for when I was a child in Australia my godmother used to tell me stories about the city’s delights and her adventures there as a young girl.’ Charlotte was intrigued. ‘But why Bath? And why now? Do you have a sudden whim to visit the city? Or is it a long-standing desire?’

  ‘Oh no, it’s just Kit.’ Elaine sighed and moved her hands in a fluttering gesture of despair. ‘He has come home from London full of some wonderful new medical advances and treatments now available in Bath that he insists I must try. I’ve tried to remonstrate with him, but he’s convinced himself that this medical galvanism, or Faradism, or whatever it is called, will succeed where all else has failed and I just can’t dissuade him.’ She shifted restlessly again and met Charlotte’s concerned gaze with a level and noncommittal stare. ‘He’s filled with such enthusiasm and hope that I cannot bear to disillusion him even though I know, and so does he in his heart I’m quite sure, that there is no treatment that will bring me a miracle cure. I can think of nobody else whose company I should so relish, so will you come with me, dearest Charlotte, in order to put Kit’s mind at rest about me?’

  It was as well that Charlotte had the excitement and interest of planning her first trip away from home since her arrival in England in the spring, for the two invading governesses failed signally to hit it off and little more than a week later Lady Frampton prophesied that it would soon be open warfare between the two women.

  ‘Before those two are done it’ll be parasols and pin-cushions at dawn, you mark my words, it’s as good as going to the play,’ she chortled in high glee, when Charlotte escaped to the old lady’s room one afternoon. ‘Did you ’ear ’em at each other’s throats this morning, Char? First Miss Melicent tells a tale, with sighings and gaspings, of some deathly ailment she’s suffering, then what must ’appen but Miss Dora wades in, all brisk and bullying, and tells ’er she ort to be out in the fresh h’air to cure ’er ills.’

  She snorted with amusement. ‘Well, Miss Melicent won that bout when she laid a trembling ’and to ’er bosom and declared ’ow greatly she envied Miss Dora’s robust health.’

  ‘Don’t remind me, Gran.’ Charlotte sighed and smiled at the memory. ‘They’re at each other’s throats again in the drawing-room even now, which is why I ran away. The Lord only knows how Lily puts up with them, but she seems to thrive on the squabbles. I could almost suspect her of setting them at each other deliberately just for the fun of it. If only Dora could contain herself and forbear from lecturing me, I could tolerate her quite well. She’s perfectly correct about Melicent’s silly fads and fusses – even though she does have a false leg she could quite easily walk about the garden and the park. Just a gentle ramble daily would blow some welcome fresh air through her empty head.’

  She leaned back in her chair, stretching lazily. ‘Thank heaven for the Knightleys and Elaine’s invitation to Bath,’ she purred. ‘I swear it’s only that prospect that stops me boxing Melicent’s ears and being so plainly rude to Dora that even that monument of self-satisfaction could not fail to recognize the insult.’ She shot the old lady an amused glance. ‘You’ll be safe enough, Gran, so I shan’t commiserate with you for a single minute. You can always plead your age and infirmity, but my heart bleeds for poor Agnes, she’ll never be able to escape. Poor dear, she’ll come home expecting to move straight into the vicarage and settle down to married bliss with Percy, and instead she’ll walk straight into a hornet’s nest!’

  ‘Quite right, you needn’t commence to worry about me, young Char.’ Lady Frampton wheezed and chuckled, her eyes half-closed and slitted in amusement, her cheeks – already rosy – assuming an alarming brick-red hue. ‘My shoulders are broad enough, the Lord knows, and I’ll keep an eye out for our Agnes. If she starts to suffer, mark my words I’ll make my views strongly known to Barnard. He’s a kind-hearted lad and turning into a proper squire now he’s let alone to get on with it. He won’t let them distress ’is only sister.’

  She heaved herself round in the low, comfortable chair, upholstered in a delicate pale blue, incongruous when set against the vast, big-boned bulk that was quite undiminished by her eighty years.

  ‘Tell me what arrangements ’ave been made so far,’ she commanded. ‘What ’as Mr Knightley decided about travelling? Do you plan to take the train from Winchester to London and then to Bath?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Charlotte confessed. ‘That’s the most direct route but I think Kit is reluctant to expose Elaine to the rigours of travelling across London to Paddington. He says the capital is a stinking pit at the best of times and at its foetid worst in August.’

  ‘Strong words,’ commented Lady Frampton with a haughty sniff and a glare of disapproval. ‘I’ll ’ave you know, young woman, that I lived all my life in London till a few years ago and you can see it didn’t do me no ’arm. Still, I suppose Mrs Knightley is in delicate ’ealth, poor soul, and it wouldn’t do to take chances, so I can’t blame ’er ’usband. What alternative does ’e propose?’

  ‘Several,’ Charlotte explained. ‘We could drive t
o the junction and take the train to Salisbury, changing there to link with the main line to Bath, or we could, as I understand it, take a veritable cross-country trip, zig-zagging merrily on our way to our destination. I shan’t care at all, the only train I’ve ever travelled on was from Southampton to the junction here, on my way from the boat when I first arrived in England. It will be an adventure to go to Bath by train, whichever route Kit and Elaine decide on.’

  She grinned down at the old lady. ‘I have three particularly pressing reasons for visiting Bath, Gran.’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘First of all I am only too happy to act as companion to dear Mrs Knightley. She has been the best possible friend to me since I arrived in this country and it gives me great pleasure to think I can be of some assistance to her.

  ‘Secondly, it will afford me both pleasure and relief to escape the clutches of the warring governesses here at the manor. And thirdly’ – she sighed a little, but shook herself – ‘I can’t help but wish my godmother could be with me, and Ma, of course. They brought me up on Miss Austen’s novels and would be delighted to know about this trip, so I shall do it for them.’

  Standing on the platform at the station in Salisbury, in the neighbouring county of Wiltshire a couple of weeks later, Charlotte recalled her words to Lady Frampton and gnawed at her bottom lip in anxiety as she positioned herself behind Kit Knightley, hoping that his broad-shouldered frame might conceal her from view. Why does that man stare so? she fretted, and shrank in retreat under the brim of her new straw bonnet so that the inquisitive stranger a few yards down the platform would be unable to see her face.