Page 14 of The Count’s Charade

The apothecary shook a gloomy head. “I suspicioned at the start as he’d lost too much blood, Miss Grace. And half of it on the King’s highway, from what Mr Mayberry is saying. Seemingly, he were shedding it all the way from the creek, for the men traced it back to that, and lost it there.”

“Joe said nothing was to be found of whoever it was who might have fired the shot, however.”

Dunmow looked disgruntled at having his thunder stolen away from him by the postman. “S’pose Joe Piper’s been here already, spreading the tale? Well, he don’t know as much as he thinks, seemingly, for they did find summat.”

That unnamed fear Grace had experienced before returned, stronger now. “What did they find?”

“Footsteps,” announced the apothecary importantly. “Marsh were trod down thereabouts, and Mr Mayberry thinks it were more’n one man.”

A memory flitted across Grace’s mind. They will kill for them. Henri had said “they”. How many did he number among his enemies? And where were they now?

Dunmow was waiting for her reaction. Schooling her features, Grace feigned surprise. “Do you say so indeed? Could he tell whence the footsteps came?”

The apothecary shook his head, deflated. “No more’n nobody could in them paths around the marshes. It were only by the creek where the mud were churned up as the men could find ’em.”

Grace could not withstand a feeling of relief. So certain was she that the man — or men, as it now seemed — who had shot at Henri were also French, that any discovery of them must inevitably lead the authorities to realise his nationality. Not that she could keep it from them for long, but at least let the truth lie while he recovered a little of his indubitably excellent strength.

Scarce had she rid herself of the apothecary than Mr Mayberry himself arrived, bringing tidings from his fellow official, the excise officer Wooferton, who had advised taking the matter to the great man of the neighbourhood, Sir James Levisham, Justice of the Peace. Sir James not only held in his gift the living of which the Reverend Mr Dovercourt was the incumbent, but he was Constant’s father-in-law to boot. The last man Grace wished to become mixed up in this affair. She might have known Mayberry would drag in Sir James, and Grace could only hope she would find a way to defer the inevitable. She was relieved to find Wooferton had not interested himself in the affair.

“He don’t think as he needs to involve hisself, Miss Grace. Left me to do as I see fit, except as he thinks as how we had ought to move this here feller soon as ever Doctor Ffrith agrees.”

He would involve himself fast enough did he know the man was French. But let that be for now. His advice was a less palatable matter. Grace sought to deflect Mayberry’s attention.

“I wish you will tell me yourself what you found on the marshes, Mr Mayberry. I have been given accounts by both Joe Piper and Dunmow, but I should prefer to hear it from you.”

To her consternation, the parish officer confirmed both accounts, adding that a hat had also been found. “Seeing as it were half buried in among the reeds, Miss Grace, I’d take it to belong to yon feller upstairs. But Mr Wooferton said as how I had ought to keep charge of it, case of it turns out to be evidence of the murdering fellows who near done for him.”

If Grace was at a loss to see how a hat could identify the murderers, she was less than happy with the notion it might serve to identify Henri as a Frenchman. Mayberry might take no account of fashion, but Wooferton, well travelled in the past, might recognise the difference between a piece of headgear made in France and one made in England.

She was recalled by Mayberry, requesting an update on the patient’s condition. “Not that I expected to find him alive, Miss Grace, after them traces of his blood was seen all the way down from the crossroads to the creek. How he made it to your back door is a mystery. It’s a pity he weren’t shot a bit further over to the east, when he might’ve seen my lights instead o’ yours. For that must have been what brought him here, I’d ha’ thought. Seemingly he was heading for this house as you put out your candles. Leastways, that’s how I read it.”

It was how Grace read it too, but she refrained from saying so, finding the idea too reminding of the neglect for which she could not cease to blame herself.

The doctor arriving before Mayberry had departed, the parish officer remained to hear Ffrith’s verdict. Grace sent up word by Mab that Reuben should leave the patient’s nightshirt off and remove the bandage, and then took the doctor up herself, wishing she might have had a moment with Henri on her own to reiterate her warnings. She took her time climbing the stairs, a whisper of alarm wreathing her breast.

From under half-closed lids, Henri watched the figure of the bespectacled man who was leaning over him. Raw from the heavy-handed ministrations — despite every appreciated effort to be gentle — of the hulking lad who had seen to his toilet, Henri could not withstand a groan at the doctor’s touch. Remembering, a trifle belatedly, Grace’s wishes, he pretended to sink into a state of semi-consciousness.

Allowing his eyelids to droop, he was yet able to keep the persons in the room under observation. The young fellow Reuben, standing respectfully to one side, to whom he felt indebted, had adopted a proprietary air towards him, and Henri noted the anxious look in the lad’s mild eyes as they followed the medico’s fingers. Nearer at hand, exuding an air of dangerous possession that was almost tangible, was Henri’s saviour. He felt it, and wondered that the doctor did not. Grace, whose instructions had been explicit. What did she fear, that she desired him so ardently to exaggerate his condition and conceal his nationality?

He had understood her to say that his being French must result in his being imprisoned. It was only what he had expected. He had meant, in any event, to turn himself in to authority, trusting in those documents to win him the acceptance that his activities could not. But that had been before he realised his erstwhile friends had found out his destination and followed him from France. Their presence endangered him in more ways than one, and while they remained at large in England, it could cost him more than his freedom to give himself up. Since he lived, it was imperative, if he was to stay alive, that he discover what had become of them after they chased him in the marshes.

Meanwhile, it suited his purpose better — and made it possible to placate his fierce hostess — if he were thought to be worse in body than he was. Not that his condition was much feigned. He might be more conscious than he allowed the doctor to realise, but as he had discovered when the lad Reuben had raised him in the bed to perform his ablutions, he was insufferably weak. Had not Grace said he had lost much blood? That would account for it. Better his blood than his head, he thought in morbid humour, which is what he would certainly have lost had he remained in France.

The doctor straightened. “There are slight signs that it is beginning to heal.”

Was there a note of dissatisfaction? Henri’s half-gaze shifted to Grace’s face, and found her looking at him. Impelled by an imp of devilry, he allowed one lid to close in a wink. Her eyes widened, and he thought a faint tinge of colour entered her cheeks. Her gaze went hastily to the doctor.

“How can you tell?”

“The blood is beginning to coagulate, and there is no evidence of infection.”

“Then we may dismiss the fear of fever?”

“If the wound is kept clean and dry, there is every hope of it,” said the physician, adding on a sombre note, “It is early to be counting our chickens, however. He looks less pale, but the heavy loss of blood cannot be discounted.”

“Then tell me what to do to build up his strength, if you please.”

Henri heard eagerness in Grace’s tone, though he noted that she refrained from looking at him. There was something changed about her, but it took him a moment or two to work out that she was wearing a different gown.