the alternative bride 12

 extreme cobra is now live

Nicky as in @Nickcay, are you there? 

 

Chapter 12

 

Gerard was glad to sleep after the ordeal of removing to a new house, and awoke to welcome smells of hot food.  Apparently the cook-housekeeper knew her way around cooking.

Gerard yelled for Jelves, who came running.

“I need the utensil, I want to dress for dinner, and I mean to eat downstairs in whichever salon my lady has designated as a dining room,” he said.

“Oh, my lord, I am glad you’re well enough to sound tetchy,” said Jelves.

“Tetchy?” demanded Gerard.

“It sounds better than ‘peevish,’ my lord,” said Jelves.

“Damn you,” said Gerard, without heat.

“I believe I probably am, by now,” said Jelves, unperturbed. “My lady is fast asleep on the day bed in the south salon; I will have a table of some sort up in a jiffy in the north salon, and food will come from the west, as you might say.”

“As indeed you did say,” said Gerard. “Thank you for not waking her ladyship. She bore the brunt of a difficult night.”

“Well, that’s all behind us, my lord,” said Jelves. “I sent out a wheelwright and coachmaker to fix the coach, and I also rode to catch the mail with the letter on your behalf from her ladyship, which you bespoke her to do, on account of how I know Mr. Eversfield’s address for her to send it, and franking it on your behalf.”

“You are a cheeky fellow,” said Gerard. “Well, I would have franked it, though I’m not sure how steady my signature would be.”

“I made it a little shaky on purpose,” said Jelves.

 

 

“Oh, I did sleep deeply,” said Jane, coming to herself to find her husband in an armchair, smiling quizzically. “Do I snore?”

“You snuffle like a little mouse exploring leaves,” said Gerard. “Dinner will be, I believe, in half an hour. Alice is upstairs waiting to dress you.”

“Oh, my! Back to the toils of civilisation,” said Jane.

“We don’t have to dress for dinner in our own house,” said Gerard.

“But you have done so, so it behoves me to join you,” said Jane. “But we shall have some days when we do not, and it shall be our own guilty secret.”

“How splendid to have guilty marital secrets!” said Gerard. “No, I am not laughing at you, I can feel you poker up; I meant it.”

“I am glad you like the idea. I will be back soon; Mrs. Marsh, who asked me to call her Beulah, and Mr. Marsh, who rejoices in the name Jerusalem Hallelujah, are Quakers, and are lovely people, but I endured a lecture on the evils of slavery, and how coffee and sugar are produced by slaves. I asked her to acquire sugar that is not made by slaves, but that I was not going to ask you to give up coffee.”

“Quite right!  I’m happy to speak in the house about full emancipation, and I’ll put up with paying more for the slaves to be paid, but give it up I will not.”

“I am glad I judged your reaction correctly,” said Jane. “Quakers have no food prejudices outside of that, so you will not have to have fish days or go without bacon or anything.”

“Thank goodness for that,” said Gerard. “What’s for dinner?”

“A nice leg of mutton with a haricot of beans and peas of various kinds as the main. I think there’s local fish caught by Marsh, green pea soup, removed with a fricassee of pigeons with cabbage and roast onion.  I said that we did not require grand meals.”

“That sounds delicious. You may have to help me to eat, though.”

“I will.”

 

Gerard managed well enough when Jane had cut up his fish and meat, and suggested that he ate with a fork and spoon. He enjoyed the meal, and sent his compliments to the cook.

“We’ll soon have your lordship built up,” said Beulah Marsh. “Nasty goings ons, as I understand it, but you mustn’t fret yourself; I’ve taken it to the Lord, and He will sort matters out.”

Gerard did not make a facetious comment about being more reliable, if slower, than the courts of justice.

One did not irritate a good cook.

 

 

“Jane,” said Gerard, when they had gone to bed for the night, “Do you think me foolish in wishing to see if I might be healed and whole before I make love to you?”

“I quite understand that, Gerard,” said Jane. “But perhaps I could stroke your monster, and get to know him?”

“I... think I would like that,” said Gerard. “I am sorry that he purrs very loudly through my voice.”

“Any tiger is entitled to do so,” said Jane.

She discovered that mice might also squeak if pleased enough by caresses, and both fell asleep with a degree of satisfaction.

 

oOoOo

 

Belwether raised an eyebrow at the direct, boyish hand on the letter addressed to him, franked by his lordship. Or by Jelves, who could forge his lordship’s hand well enough... and usually better than the rather wobbly signature.

 

“My dear Mr. Eversfield,

This is Jane, Lady Wintergreen writing, for his lordship, since he is temporarily blind.  I will explain how this came to be, presently, and in the meantime, thank you for your undertaking to sort out my finances for his lordship, and to collect my personal effects. I think it is not petty of me to want what is mine?  If my stepfather were as scholarly as my father, I would have no hesitation in leaving the library for his use, but I have hated seeing him use the room to smoke and drink, and even propping up his feet on a pile of books to doze. Fortunately, he chose books of relatively low value, but only out of ignorance. And I resent Helen taking anything of Mama’s to which she took a fancy. I hope they were much discommoded.

As to what has happened here...” Jane described, concisely, the circumstances of the meeting with Whittington, and the subsequent mishaps which she laid at his door, culminating with the circumstance of the blinding of Gerard.

“We have taken a small cottage named Rose Cottage, on the Oxford Road, and have been considering the purchase of a slightly larger house as a pied à terre to use when travelling. Gerard is much shaken by the machinations of this horrid youth, as I am sure you can imagine; it has struck his sense of self-worth deeply, and I am hoping to build this up again before we need to deal with people he knows. However, if you are able to come to join us, and bring any needful paperwork [and I would like my dressing-table set and writing slope, and a couple of gowns I can do housework in] I would be very grateful. If you cannot, then, obviously, we understand that you are a busy man.

Thank you again,

Jane Hen Wintergreen.”

 

“A nice, straightforward sounding girl,” said Belwether to himself. “A nasty little poltroon they have fallen in with; but at least I can take the girl’s clothes, and that girl, Minnie, for doubtless a maid whom the poor child knows will be useful to her.”

 

 

oOoOo

 

 

Gerard awoke, thinking that it was a nice bright day, even if the nights were cold.

He sat up, and realised that the bandage over his eyes had come off during the night, and that he could, indeed, see brightness outside the window. He managed not to knuckle his eyes, thinking that Jane would scold him if he managed to pull off the healing, tender skin on his eyelids.

There was a flyblown looking glass in the corner of the room, and Gerard went to examine the damage. It was painful to keep his eyes open, but he wanted to know the worst.

The burns were ugly, but relatively superficial. The flash of the muzzle had been too short a blast to damage it any worse; and once the lid burns healed, the damage would probably be invisible. Some specks of powder had been driven under the skin on the right hand side of his face; well, it was not as bad as pock marking, and would show less with his quite swarthy skin than had he been pale. And Jane... bless her, she gave no indication that she was revolted by his appearance.

“Gerard?” Jane awoke.

“I was looking at the damage,” said Gerard. “It is not as bad as I feared it might be.”

“Are you being vain about it?” asked Jane.

“Of course I am,” said Gerard. “A newly-wed man is sensitive about his looks, and how his wife sees him.”

“I would still love you, even if you were horribly scarred,” said Jane. “But it will fade.”

“I was coming to that conclusion with a peacock’s delight in the thought, and humbled by your love as well,” said Gerard.

“Let me renew the honey comfrey ointment,” said Jane.

“I won’t argue; it’s not comfortable keeping them open, though I fancy that, too, will improve in short order.”

Jane smeared on the ointment.

“And now, my wife, since I can see you, I think I might recall a conversation we had about cats, and washing,” said Gerard.

Jane squealed a lot, very happily, and then experimented with her own washing.

The happy couple rose, reluctantly, to the smell of bacon.

“Where do the Marsh couple sleep?” asked Gerard.

“There’s a rather cramped room in the roof of the kitchen,” said Jane. “They know it’s not long term, so they are ready to put up with it. Alice has a folding bed in the kitchen, by the range, and is probably more comfortable than anyone else.”

“I hope Bel can come up and help out, but at least I can see now,” said Gerard. “You have no idea how beautiful your face is, especially to a man starved of sight.”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder?” said Jane.

He laughed, a little shakily.

“I’ve become very attached to your face,” he said.

“‘Item; two lips, indifferent red...’” quoted Jane.

“Leave that idiot, Olivia, out of things,” said Gerard. “None of the main protagonists in ‘Twelfth Night’ had any sense, if you ask me. Orsino was an idiot, and what Viola saw in him I do not know; any more than I can see what Sebastian saw in Olivia. A spirited girl like Viola deserved a better husband.” He quirked one eyebrow, and then winced. “She reminds me of you; superficially shy, but managed to rise to the occasion.”

“It’s easier to be brave when you are playing a part,” said Jane. “And it feels still a bit like playing a part to be Lady Wintergreen.”

“You’ll soon grow into it,” said Gerard.

“Your man of business will think me very silly,” said Jane. “I started to sign the letter to him as Jane Henderson and had to cross it out.”

“Oh, I am sure he will think it sweet that you are not yet accustomed to being married,” said Gerard, laughing, and kissing her fingers. “I am glad to be navigating that steep staircase by myself, though.”

“Yes, I imagine it must be quite nerve-wracking,” said Jane. “When might we look for him?”

“Bel? He will have got it first thing so I should imagine he will arrive around tea time.”

“Good. I am nervous about looking for a house to buy. Even with you, looking, too.”

“Bel is good at that sort of thing.  Shall we make a list of what we want? Oh, good morning, Mrs. Marsh, now I can see you to say thank you, properly.”

“Praise the Lord!” cried that worthy.

“Praise Him, indeed,” said Gerard. “I want to find the nearest church to give thanks; and my man of affairs will be coming later, I hope, so I can arrange an endowment for a school for the blind.”

“You are a righteous man, my lord,” said Mrs. Marsh. “A man of practical turn like that can be forgiven small vices like coffee-drinking.”

“As men of my estate go, I’m relatively vice-free,” said Gerard, mildly. “I don’t get drunk, I am not a glutton, I pay my taxes and make sure my dependents are looked after. I can speak in the House about the slavery of those already in its toils, and their descendents, but I doubt that giving up coffee will do much good.”

“Thank you sir,” said Mrs. Marsh, who was genuinely grateful for a moderate master, but who knew when to stop banging the pulpit.

 

After breakfast, they argued over what was required in a house, and decided that it needed four bedrooms and servants’ rooms, a salon, a study, a dining room and a kitchen and decent stabling and a small garden. Gerard was hungry enough to enjoy a small nuncheon, and then, with much advice and many directions, Gerard and Jane set out for the Priory Church of St Peter. The grand Norman door was spectacular, and the stonework of the many niches.

“I suppose Cromwell’s men defaced or removed the saints from their niches; it’s sad that they should have feared statuary,” said Jane.

“It may have been during the Reformation; I don’t know,” said Gerard. They went inside, and knelt to pray, giving thanks for Gerard’s sight.

“I’ll be glad to get back in and rest my eyes, though,” said Gerard, when they departed. “My eyes are a little tired.”

“Hardy surprising, using them again at first,” said Jane. “But the eyes themselves are undamaged, which is a mercy.”

“That balm did wonders,” said Gerard. “Just as well there aren’t still levellers and the like, Goodie Hallicutt might be burned as a witch.”

Jane laughed.

“Yes, it is good that we are too sophisticated for such nonsense these days,” she said. “I am glad to take a walk, though, it has been rather stuffy for the last few days.”

“Oh, you are born to be a country girl,” said Gerard.  “Hello! That’s Bel’s coach outside the cottage; he must have pushed the pace.  And, by the look of it, he used my team as a change, very wise of him.”

“Gerry! My dear boy! I was horrified when I heard you were blind, but it looks as though it was temporary? Nasty scar, but it will heal,” said Belwether. “My lady, congratulations to both of you on your nuptials.  I brought all the fabrics and clothes and your personal effects; Minnie helped me, and she would like to be your maid.”

“Oh! Well, I have a maid in young Alice, but perhaps Minnie would like to learn to be my dresser, I shall probably need both,” said Jane. “My goodness! I’ve gone from acting the slavey to having an embarrassment of servants! But where is she going to sleep?”

“We do need a decent sized house,” said Gerard. “She will have to sleep on the day bed in the parlour for now, for Bel must have the other bedroom.”

 

 

The light was going, as the day came to an end when there was a knocking on the door.