Page 30 of A Debt Inherited

Hill looked up quickly, as if to catch a change in Bennet’s face. Bennet reached for the chair and turned The Spectator a little so that the edge would sit square.

“There is more, sir,” Hill said, with a quiet pride that he tried and failed to make invisible. “It speaks of the number of men—though they put it too high, in my poor belief—and says you are to be thanked by the town.”

“Let them thank the rain,” Bennet said. His voice came easily; the ward had taught him to place sound sparingly, where it could do most. “And the lads at the pump.”

Hill’s mouth twitched; he lowered his eyes to the page as if to obey. “Shall I keep it, sir? Folded into your Cicero, maybe.”

“As you please.”

Hill folded the column with an exactness that would have pleased the hospital steward and slipped it into Cicero, between the second and third orations, where Bennet’s paper mark lay already. The chair creaked under his shift of weight. From the far end of the ward came the slow tread of the orderly carrying broth; spoons clicked once or twice, like small birds striking glass and thinking better of it. The Thames lay somewhere beyond the walls, patient and grey; when the door opened for a moment at the end of the corridor, a damp air came through and brought the river’s breath with it.

“You read me Plutarch yesterday,” Bennet said, not as a correction, only to set the room to rights again.

“Aye, sir. ‘Of the life of Cato the Younger,’” Hill answered, and coloured faintly. “He bore what was laid upon him.”

“He chose much of it,” Bennet said.

An orderly approached, his footsteps nearly silent. Bennet approved of the care taken.

“There is a gentleman to see you, sir.”

“Hill shall accompany him to me.”

The orderly departed, Hill in tow. The visitor returned with him. He took two steps into the ward, saw Bennet, and removed his hat.

“Captain Bennet,” he said, bowing. “Mr Gardiner of St Albans. I beg pardon for an intrusion in a sick-room.”

Bennet pushed his hand upon the mattress and rose enough to be decent. The surgeon disliked it, but the surgeon was not here. “Mr Gardiner.”

“I am ordered to you, sir,” Gardiner said, with the humility of a man conscious of business and uneasy to be bringing it among the lame. “The parish being disordered by sickness, the registers confused, the magistrate desired that I ascertain identity in person before placing certain papers in your hand. Letters were first directed to Barbados, then returned through the Office, and only last week did Chelsea answer our inquiry. The magistrate would not have the estate opened upon conjecture. Are you Captain Thomas Robert Bennet, son of Mr Robert Bennet of Longbourn, Hertfordshire?”

“I am.”

“Younger brother to Benedict Bennet.”

Unease filled Bennet’s chest. He leapt to the conclusion. “He is gone as well?”

Gardiner inclined his head; his hand went to his coat and brought out a folded packet with a blue wafer, which he held a moment as if it carried a weight not its own. His glance touched Hill and returned to Bennet. “If you will allow.”

Bennet held out his hand. Hill stepped half a pace back and looked at the window as if it had asked him a question. The packet lay cool against Bennet’s fingers; the seal had travelled without breaking. He did not open it.

“I have made haste,” Gardiner said. “I would have spared you, sir, had there been any other to bear it.”

Bennet watched the man’s mouth shape the next sentence; the words came first. Meaning followed slowly.

“Longbourn has been hard visited. The fever came on in the autumn. Your father was taken ill at Michaelmas and failed quickly. Benedict followed within a fortnight. The servants—but your pardon—” He stopped; the habit of politeness had overrun his sense of mercy. “The servants too; most of them. The house is kept at present by the steward from Netherfield Park. The parson has done what may be done. I am to say—” He drew a breath as if the next phrase had been written with a heavier hand. “I am to say the estate is now yours under the entail.”

The ward altered and did not move. Bennet felt the place where the mattress gave under his palm and the small hard ridge where the ticking had been drawn too tight. The fire clicked as a piece of coal eased itself. Hill’s cap turned once between finger and thumb and grew still.

“When was it?” Bennet asked.

“Your father—St Michael’s week. Benedict—St Luke’s. The parson buried four in one day and two the next. The clerk has a list; he keeps it folded inside his prayer-book because he says he sees it so often there he does not mislay it.”

“Did my father suffer?”

Gardiner’s lips pressed together. “Not long, they say. The apothecary bled him; it did no good. He had expressed a wish to write you, but his hand—” Again that brief refusal to finish a sentence that would only do harm. “He spoke your name very clearly.”

Bennet bowed his head a little, as if someone had given him leave to sit. He put the packet upon Clarendon and set his forefinger upon it as though it might move of itself if not checked. Cowper slid a fraction and righted again. Hill stood so still that the linen of his sleeve stopped creasing.