Page 5 of The Count’s Charade

“Seemingly Doctor Ffrith will wish to look at it.” Having done the work he had balked at, Dunmow appeared as pleased with himself as if it had been all his own intention. “Don’t see as he’d a’ done better hisself, only he’ll know as how to mend the feller if he gets into a fever.”

“Is there something I may do to prevent that?” asked Grace, a renewal of dismay entering her breast at the thought of further danger to the Frenchman.

The apothecary shrugged. “Only blooding, but he’s near as nothing got rid of most of his blood without that.”

With which Grace was in full agreement. Nothing would induce her to allow anyone to deprive her patient of any more of his precious blood. She trusted Doctor Ffrith might have a better suggestion, and turned her attention to expressing her gratitude to Dunmow. He received it, along with her assurance he would be paid presently, with all the air of having done her a favour. Having learned the value of keeping in well with the locals, Grace refrained from reminding him of his initial reluctance and ushered him out of the chamber with profuse words of thanks.

“Well, I done it, Miss Grace, but I don’t say as it’ll do no good,” stated Mr Dunmow, resuming his pessimistic view as he hesitated on the landing. “He ain’t out o’ the woods, not by a long chalk, he ain’t. And so Doctor Ffrith will tell you, I’ll warrant. Best let him pronounce judgement, for if it fell to me to say it, I’d not fancy his chances. I wouldn’t vouch for him being alive this night.”

It was all Grace could do not to thrust him tumbling down the stairs. Her determination to keep the Frenchman alive intensified. But scarcely had she returned to the chamber where her patient lay than she was assailed by a fresh problem.

A heavy tread up the stairs should have warned her, had her attention not been concentrated upon ensuring the Frenchman had not died in the brief period she had been out of the room. Next moment, her old nurse trundled in.

Mrs Mabel Lamport, a stout dame with an ample bosom and a quantity of chins, was apt to forget that her erstwhile nurseling was a woman of eight and twenty, who had been fending for herself for near five years since the death of her last surviving parent, and had held household for some time before that. From fifteen years of age, Grace had kept house for the Reverend Mr Dovercourt, his wife’s death and his son’s move to the living of Rainham having left him bereft. The circumstance of her disability having long convinced her that she need not look for marriage, Grace had moved smoothly into her mother’s place and taken over the reins.

Mab had scarcely left off grumbling over the waste of her youth when Mr Dovercourt had passed away. But her recalcitrant nurseling, instead of seeking protection at her brother’s house, as was right and proper in a woman of gentility, had scandalised Mab by electing to purchase a little house on her own account, where she proposed to live with only the nurse for company. The outcry had been thorough.

“You won’t never, Miss Grace! Lordy, to think what your sainted father the Reverend would say!”

“He would tell me to do just as I chose,” had said Grace obstinately. “You know very well Papa never concerned himself with the proprieties.”

“Well, think of poor Mr Constant then. I’ll lay my life he won’t be suited!”

It had indeed taken some persuasion to make her brother accept her decision. Having pointed out, to no avail, the added burden of expense she would prove when he already had his wife and a growing family to support, Grace had been obliged to fall back upon the disadvantages attendant upon her short right leg.

“Dear Constant, much as I appreciate your concern for me, I beg you will only consider my situation. Were I to accept of your offer and come to live with you, I could have nothing to look forward to except ever to be an adjunct in your household. With the best will in the world, Serena could not but begin to depend upon me for assistance — which I would willingly give, but that you know my abilities are limited. And truly, brother, I could not endure daily to be reminded of that domestic felicity I never expect to enjoy. I should so much prefer to be permitted to make a life for myself in the only way open to me.”

It had taken a good deal of argument in this strain before the Reverend Mr Constant Dovercourt had been persuaded to give the scheme his sanction. Not that he had any legal right to prevent Grace from doing anything she wished: she had been of age, and the small legacy left to her by her father had given her that hint of independence. Although she had not intended to drop her resolve, it was ever Grace’s way to tread over heavy ground as lightly as she could.

Mab had never reconciled herself, however, and Grace strongly suspected the only inducement that had operated upon her nurse to marry herself off to Mr Lamport was her morbid fear of becoming a charge upon Grace in her old age. Her fondness for Mab had not prevented Grace from rejoicing at this unlooked-for liberation from her scoldings and complaints. They had abated not one jot, but she was only obliged to listen to them at intervals, Mab’s duties at her husband’s alehouse demanding far more of her attention than she had anticipated.

That Mab had come here this morning occasioned no surprise in Grace, for it had been inevitable she would do so the moment she heard of the descent upon her nurseling of so dangerous an affliction as a man with a bullet in his shoulder. Unfortunately, the Bear Inn was situated at East Hall, and Jemima having gone there to fetch Dunmow, she had evidently thought it behoved her to inform Mrs Lamport of the circumstances without any loss of time. It was a pity, but it could not be helped, and Grace braced for battle.

“Lordy, here’s a to-do, Miss Grace, but I do trust and hope Mr Mayberry will take the feller out of it before anyone thinks to question his being here,” began Mab without roundaboutation.

“Keep your voice down, pray,” rejoined Grace, pushing the nurse away from the bedside towards the window opposite. “He is exhausted from the operation and I don’t wish him to wake.”

Mab peered around her, trying to see the patient for herself. “Pity he chose to foist himself on you, Miss Grace, but I suppose it can’t be helped. You’ll be rid of him soon enough, never fear.”

“But I don’t want to be rid of him! Nor have I the slightest intention of allowing anyone to remove him from here. He is far too ill.”

Her old nurse turned red in the face. “You won’t never keep him here! Why, whatever will people say?”

“I have no interest in what anyone may say, Mab, and if you have come here only to scold and fret, you may go away again.”

Mrs Lamport drew herself up. “It’s of no use to be losing your temper, Miss Grace, for you know well I’m in the right. You’ve your reputation to think of and —”

“For heaven’s sake, Mab, the man is at death’s door! What possible danger could he be to my reputation?”

Mab sniffed. “He don’t have to be doing nothing to make people talk.”

“Then let them talk.”

Balked, the nurse ruminated for a moment. “Well, if you’re set on keeping him, I’d best come and stay while he’s here.”

That was the last thing Grace needed. “You can’t, Mab. There is no room, for one thing. And for another, you cannot possibly leave Mr Lamport to manage for himself at the Bear.”

“He can do without me for a day or so.”