Cousin Prudence

by Waldock, Sarah

  He nodded and strode towards the back door.

  The oldest Fellowes girl – Emma had told Prudence that she was named Kate – was very light and it was easy to strip and bathe her emaciated body. Prudence burned each garment as she removed it; the wretched Fellowes woman had not even put her daughter into a shift let alone a nightgown and had left the poor child in her own filth. Prudence wrinkled her nose; but did not flinch. There was an unpleasant rash all over the child’s body but she seemed not to notice any pain when the hot water Prudence used washed her thoroughly all over. Prudence was as thorough as might be without scrubbing the girl and was as gentle as she could be on the welts on the girl’s back visible despite the ugly rash. There was no rash on her face or palms of her hands or soles of her feet; otherwise she was covered. Mr Perry had said the rash typical; so it was a sign to recognise another time. Prudence, having put the nightgown that quite drowned poor Kate onto the young girl, which made her look even more vulnerable, laid her on the bed. She went downstairs and nodded to Alverston, emerging from the scullery.

  “Mrs Hodges is heating you more water,” he said. “She said she will help you bathe and has a copper of boiling water to drop your linen into as you strip. She permitted me to use a screen.”

  “Ah the woman is obviously the soul of tact,” said Prudence; and went in to find a steaming hip bath.

  “Off with those nasty clothes, Miss Prudence,” said Mrs Hodges, a motherly woman, “I make no doubt but that his Lordship is right about those horrid lice; and there’s little to pick between Fellowes and anything that lives on

  him if you ask me. It’s as hot as you can bear and probably the more pleasant in this weather. I was none too sure about having a noble lord stay here when Mr Knightley told me at first, but he’s that pleasant a gentleman! And caring about poor Kate whose life is more blows than sweetmeats, I can tell you!”

  “I fancy she will end up as my maid if she survives,” said Prudence, stripping obediently, “for having seen the state of her back and backside I will not be happy about her going home to such a place!”

  “Fellowes is a drunken lout,” said Mrs Hodges, “and as his wife fights back that poor girl takes the brunt… some do say she undertakes the duties of a wife for him when Mrs Fellowes denies him, poor creature; but what can anyone do?”

  Prudence gasped.

  “Are there truly people so sinful?” she asked.

  “Ah Miss Prudence, there are sinners of all kinds and I would not disbelieve the blackest of sins laid at the door of that man,” said Mrs Hodges. “There now, Miss Prudence, into the water and I shall wash your back for you and help you with your hair too.”

  “And after, Mrs Hodges, I shall help you with your hair; for you must take like precaution for standing close to help me” said Prudence.

  “Bless me! I had not considered!” said Mrs Hodges “I should get one of the girls to help me…”

  “Not at all Mrs Hodges; for I am one who has been exposed,” said Prudence. “We women must stand by each other.”

  Clean and clad in fresh clothing and having aided an embarrassed Mrs Hodges to wash her hair and deposit her clothes in the hot copper, Prudence sallied out, her shawl over her head like a mill girl so that the cold did not strike through her still wet hair. She threw a small pebble at the stable-room window.

  Alverston’s head emerged as he opened the small leaded pane.

  “All well?” she asked.

  “Indeed; the poor girl is seriously dehydrated. Will you ask Mrs Hodges to make up some weak – very weak – lemonade? She needs fluid and the slight taste might persuade her to drink. And a baby’s weaning cup if she has one, or an invalid’s cup. Making her drink is hard, but I have seen this with sick dogs and it will kill her more surely than the typhus. Her mother is an evil old baggage!”

  “I will do as you ask. Gervase?”

  “What my dear?”

  “I have never loved you more,” said Prudence softly.

  Chapter 30

  Prudence joined Alverston by Kate’s bedside next morning.

  “How is she?” she asked.

  “She has been able to pass fluids through,” said Alverston, “she will have no recollection of needing aid from a man; if she knows you have been part of her good aid it will be enough for her self esteem. I have found that once the system is working adequately survival from that complication is usually fairly well assured so long as fluids continue to go in. Will you be with her? I could do with some sleep.”

  “Certainly,” said Prudence, “how often do I give her this lemonade?”

  “Every hour, half a cup to a cup if you can make her swallow so much,” said Alverston. “You are a remarkable woman.”

  “And you a remarkable man; few enough would do this for one of their own dependants let alone some poor girl who is nothing to you.”

  “Mr Perry cares only to make notes on her and on the manner of her demise,” said Alverston. “You, in your compassion, had undertaken to care for her; so she became my responsibility too. And I could not leave her in the squalor that is the Fellowes hut….. I should have taken them all if I could have hoped to keep them safe. The others must take their chances. Children who are not otherwise sickly have remarkable recuperative powers, but this one is on the cusp of adulthood.”

  He brushed his lips across Prudence’s forehead and was gone, to bathe and then to sleep.

  Kate still muttered in delirium and tossed; and Prudence bathed her forehead with a cool rag gently scented with eau de cologne – Alverston thought of everything, she reflected – and settled down to watch. She

  had brought up a newspaper to read that might be burned with less profligacy than a book; and with that she whiled away the hours between bathing Kate’s head and making her drink. It was more wearisome work than any kind of strenuous activity!

  Alverston relieved her that she might go and eat and – he ordered – go for a brisk walk. Prudence was glad to comply, washing all over – there was probably no need for an immersion now – and changing her clothes, taking them to wash directly.

  “You are good to undertake this extra washing, Mrs Hodges,” she said.

  “Well Miss Prudence, I take it kindly that you and his lordship do as Mr Knightley and Mrs Emma would do if Mr Woodhouse were not poorly and Mrs Emma in such a condition as would make it unwise,” said Mrs Hodges who could, as she would herself have put it, see further than a nod and a wink.

  Prudence sallied forth into the sullen drizzle, walking on the Donwell estate rather than towards the village. There was a footpath she knew to the nearby hamlet of Langley across the home meadows but she did not expect to meet anyone.

  That there was a figure on the footpath made her heart sink; for it was Mrs Elton.

  “Why! Miss Blenkinsop; surely you have not removed to Donwell?” asked Mrs Elton.

  “Oh most certainly not,” said Prudence, “that would be most improper with Lord Alverston in residence; he is renting the house from Cousin George. I but take the air as a respite from my turn at nursing Kate Fellowes; for her mother is but little use it seems and I will not see a fellow being suffer so.”

  Mrs Elton gave a little cry of fear.

  “But Miss Blenkinsop! It is said that Kate Fellowes has TYPHUS!” she said.

  “Yes, that is quite true,” said Prudence, “the rash is quite typical, Mr Perry says; I have not seen a case before so it is instructive to know what to recognise if indeed there is a serious outbreak as some predict. The poor girl is more comfortable in clean surroundings out of that awful cottage.”

  “But – Miss Blenkinsop! You have not been so thoughtless as to have her taken to Hartfield? The risk to Mr Woodhouse! Why if he caught Typhus and died you would be almost a murderess! Or had you not considered that?”

  Horror and spite warred on the face whose fortunate disposition of features was quickly becoming marred in its handsome looks for the disagreeable lines that slowly and imperceptibly were becoming
etched upon it.

  “Oh! What made you think I should do such a thing? Cousin George has loaned outbuildings on his land as a place to take her,” said Prudence. “I take every precaution of hygiene for Uncle Henry’s good health; you need not fear. I shall wash and change my clothing before I return to Hartfield; as Mr Perry does when he has been to see infectious patients. I take his advice most seriously.”

  “You mean you have not yet washed and changed?” said Mrs Elton nervously. Prudence, who had meant that she would do so a second time, smiled brightly and moved towards her holding out a hand.

  “You will perhaps as the vicar’s wife wish to come and visit poor Kate as one of the sick of the parish,” she said, “and of course you and your husband will remember her in your prayers.”

  “My goodness! It is getting on – I must hurry home or my caro sposo will indeed wonder what has become of me!” declared Mrs Elton, “naturally we shall pray for the poor girl’s recovery!”

  She rushed passed Prudence a fast as she might without running.

  Prudence sat on a stile and laughed until the tears ran down her face.

  That had refreshed her quite as much as the walk; and when she went back and shared it with Alverston he laughed too, for Prudence had told him about Mrs Elton.

  Kate tossed in fever for another full week round; and Alveston and Prudence met at her bedside. As neither showed any signs of symptoms they became less cautious though they did not reduce the strict hygiene regimen. They sat together however and talked; Alverston described his lands to her and she spoke of her interest in her father’s business; and he told her how his man in Lincolnshire was doing with covering some of the spring cereals with glass, planted too close, that might perhaps be thinned later if the weather improved, extra work for the labourers but for the chance of a fair harvest work they would willingly undertake. In return she explained what George had done with his land, and too encouraged Robert Martin, his tenant, to do; they raised but little wheat anyway, so George was growing oats for their hardiness instead and concentrating on raising the strawberries for which Donwell was justly famed under glass as a crop likely to pay well enough to bring in enough to cover the extra cost of wheat and bread.

  “Abbey Mill Farm – which is rented by Mr Martin – has at the farmhouse a fine big summer house and George has persuaded Mr Martin to give that over to growing strawberries too, to increase his own income so that George will not feel that he is dunning him over the rent,” said Prudence. “Most of his farming efforts are in a fine big flock of sheep, and in cattle; which will not thrive through the cold, but with turnips laid down will not starve, even if the grass and clover are not of the best. And it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good for the sheep have thicker and longer fleeces than usual which is an asset, though Mr Martin has delayed shearing them

  until he is certain it will not kill any of them with a sudden

  hard frost. As has William Larkins on behalf of George’s flock. There were losses amongst the lambs born this year,” she added soberly, “and that will reduce the profit from wool next year because the first shearing of a yearling brings almost twice as much weight of wool as subsequent shearings.”

  “I too have sheep,” said Alverston, “though I fancy as you know them from the weaving side we may have much to learn from each other.”

  “Oh I am looking forward to spending my life learning from you and perhaps being able to tell you some things too!” said Prudence.

  The conversation was somewhat curtailed whilst they occupied themselves with tender kisses.

  Mrs Elton’s tongue had been busy in the village.

  Apart from her fright over Prudence’s exposure to the dread disease she had assimilated – and later realised that she had assimilated – the fact that George Knightley had rented Donwell to someone referred to as ‘Lord Alverston’. This was a marvellous piece of gossip; though to add too that Miss Blenkinsop was selfishly risking her family in the nursing of Kate Fellowes could not be resisted. Indeed Mrs Elton asked Emma in spurious regard for her health if SHE were also involved in so risky a venture.

  Emma smiled brightly.

  “Well I would have been under normal circumstances; for it is only Christian to aid the sick, is it not? But as Mr Knightley and I are anticipating a Happy Event it would be an undue risk of my health. Naturally we are supportive of Cousin Prudence and her betrothed in this matter. He is quite immune to the disease as he has already suffered it when serving in the Peninsular War where privations were common; and he ensures that Prudence takes every precaution. Naturally he takes the night watch so that

  Prudence may be at home under the roof of Hartfield in the hours of darkness,” and she smiled brightly. “It is good of them, is it not, that they see but little of each other for nursing this poor girl, that they give up their time together; but as a vicar’s wife of course you understand such dutiful charity.”

  Nobody could smile with more false brightness than Emma when she put her mind to it; and put her mind to it she did.

  Oddly, Mrs Elton had not put together the visit of Lord Alverston and the incidence of Prudence having a betrothed. In her mind, Prudence was a nasty girl from dubious Northern origins who wasted her time and her money – such a scandalous amount of money that Augusta Elton could have found other uses for – in London who had doubtless contracted a betrothal with some army doctor, who might even have been a horse doctor before turning to the soldiery’s ills, and who was doubtless wasting his time on a female like the Fellowes girl because he could not attract decent folk as his patients. It had been said that Miss Blenkinsop had visited Mr Perry with a shambling mound of a fellow, not dressed in a gentlemanly way at all – Augusta Elton interpreted such from the descriptions of a tall, broad man dressed soberly – so presumably the Blenkinsop female had endeavoured to foist this fellow onto Mr Perry as a partner and had been turned down, so he took on this hopeless case that in the unlikely event Kate Fellowes should survive he would claim it as due to his cures. And shabby of the fellow to involve his betrothed; and foolish of Miss Blenkinsop to permit him to do so!

  She dropped in to take a dish of tea with Mrs and Miss Bates, for Miss Bates was the biggest gossip in the village and would be sure to know all that was to be known about this Lord! So far as Miss Blenkinsop and her betrothed Mrs Elton did not care; Prudence was of no account to her. Emma’s news was of course worth passing on; and that too she resolved to do.

  It so happened that the servants at Hartfield, beyond Cowley, Jennifer and Prudence’s own servants, knew very little about Lord Alverston; and Cowley was discreet as were the personal maids of Prudence and Emma; and if Joseph had ever changed his nature to gossip it would be doubtful that the other servants in Highbury would have understood his thick Yorkshire brogue in any case. Thus the fact that Miss Prudence and Lord Alverston were betrothed was not yet an occurrence about which the servants gossiped; which meant that no such news had spread to Miss Bates either, for the Hartfield residents were keeping the news quiet. Especially, as Emma said to George on returning angrily from her encounter with Mrs Elton, in light of that spiteful tabby’s nasty tongue.

  As for the servants and others at Donwell, William Larkins was close mouthed and uncommunicative to all; even cross grained in his apparently surly nature to any but those he called friend. He was accounted a good friend by Miss Bates however and had confided that Lord Alverston was a decent man and knew what he was talking about and had recommended that he, William, and his own Bailiff should have much to talk about if his lordship might arrange it. Gervase has spoken pleasantly and knowledgeably to Mr Larkins and impressed that taciturn man greatly; and so William Larkins was more than ready to mind his own business so far as My Lord’s acts of kindness to that wretched girl Kate were concerned and to stay mumchance about his kisses with Miss Prudence who was a nicely spoken young lady who had, according to Mr Knightley, been the one to come up with using glass to improve the chance of getting any cro
p this year.

  As for Mrs Hodges, she positively adored his lordship. she knew how matters stood between My Lord and Miss Prudence; but fond as she was of a good long talk, there were things that were other folk’s business, and My Lord had asked her to be discreet and discreet she knew how to be. Especially for such a lovely pair, putting themselves

  out for the daughter of that worthless couple. And Kate the best of the bunch of that family, taking odd jobs here and there to bring in more money because her worthless mother would not let her go into honest service, claiming that she needed her at home helping with the laundry. My Lady Alverston taking her into service would be a different matter; Mrs Hodges had no doubt that Miss Prudence, whether married or no at the time, would rout Mrs Fellowes horse and foot whatever that may mean but it sounded decisive!

  She spoke enthusiastically of My Lord of course; and that much had reached Miss Bates.

  “It is wonderful, is it not, Mrs Elton to have a real Lord staying in our little village?” she said “Of course none of us have seen anything of him yet, but Mrs Hodges says he is a fine, well set up and handsome fellow, if a little dark of complexion for true beauty; and we have besides received a letter from dear Jane whose Frank has heard of Alverston and declared him a very arbiter of fashion in London, one of the wealthiest people! And he is a marquess and though we do not precisely understand what that means, mother and I, we believe it to be one of the more superior kinds of aristocracy. Is it not exciting news?”

  “It is indeed” said Mrs Elton, who had a fair idea of the precedence of the aristocracy. If the Marquess might be induced to meet her husband, attend church perhaps, and see what a fine and well educated man Philip Elton was, there might be a sinecure of a living to be had from it. “And have you heard Emma Knightley’s news?”