the scholar#s sweetheart 21

 

Chapter 21

 

Eusebius had no idea that the gypsy camp had been burned out; he had been disappointed that none of them were there for him to kill, and had wondered where they had gone; and had decided in his own mind that they were probably at a fair, stealing from the public, and had left their tents for their return. He really knew very little about the gypsy community. However, it is doubtful that he would have changed his plans had he known that Crowy Heron had thought along similar lines since in Eusebius’s mind, he was cleansing, not attacking.

The rector kept a year’s supply of lamp oil in an outhouse, along with firewood, kindling, lamps, charcoal for chafing dishes and the like. Puzzled as to how to carry things, Eusebius raided the milking shed of Widow Hodges, stealing the milkmaid’s yoke he found there. The kindling was tied in bundles and Eusebius managed to get several bundles hung off his back like a kindling seller in any town, and entirely spoiled the buckets on the yoke by filling them with lamp oil. He prepared a torch and stuffed it into his belt Then he lifted the heavy yoke onto his shoulders. He tottered and spilled some lamp oil onto his trousers. How hard could it be to carry the damned thing? He thought. Women did it so it must be easy.

It wasn’t easy, and Eusebius cursed the perversity of women that they were so contrary as to use contraptions that were awkward for men to use. He stumbled along until he got the hang, more or less, of letting the weight go with his movement instead of fighting to keep it level. He got more oil on himself.

It was damnably heavy; but Eusebius gloried in the pain of the effort. He felt that he was walking in the steps of his Saviour carrying His own cross to save the world. Eusebius was planning to save this corner of the world and the weight on his shoulders seemed meet and fit.

He made his way up the front drive, mentally cursing when his uneven gait made him stumble and make a sound on the gravel.

 

oOoOo

 

A momentary break in the cloud permitted a thin, unwilling shaft of moonlight to show the fantastical hunched figure that was Eusebius with his load.

“What on earth?” muttered Evelyn.

“Milk pails?” said Toby. “Why milk pails?”

“Carrying something,” said Imogen. “His back looks like a hedgehog, has he got some sort of armour?”

“Sticks,” said Jasper. “Fire! He...he’s going to burn us all like Crowy burned....” His eyes were wide and terrified.

Evelyn wrapped his arms tightly around his son.

“No, he isn’t,” he said. “We have buckets and washtubs ready filled, and wetted blankets to beat out flames, and more people than usual able to lend a hand. The house is so rambling we have places to go if it gets a hold anywhere, and failing anything else, we can go into the cellar which opens into an underground ride to the church which is blocked at the far end by the perversity of my sire, but at least has air vents along it.”

“Really?” said Jasper, momentary panic overcome by a twelve-year-old boy’s not unnatural fascination for underground tunnels.

“I exercise the horses there in inclement weather,” said Evelyn. “It’s wide enough to turn. I tell you what, Jasper, have the children, pregnant women, and nursing mothers go down into the cellar; past the brandy, there’s a door to the left which goes under the stables and the tunnel starts under one of the loose boxes, which has a folding floor, and a slope down.”

“Oh! I know where it comes out; there’s an archway in the rise towards the woods, with metal gates, and there’s a load of earth come down to stop it being more than a foot or two deep, so not even much use as caves go,” said Jasper. He ran off to do his father’s bidding, and Evelyn sighed in relief.

“Skittish around fire?” asked Toby.

“He got to Crowy and his cousins before I did,” said Evelyn, grimly. “Don’t despise him; He’s too young to have had to kill. And it’s recent, and he hasn’t even had a proper night’s sleep since.”

Toby nodded.

“He did what he had to do,” he said. “You could of taken credit, and I reckon he’d of let you.”

“Officially, they caught themselves in their own trap and semi-officially, I helped them do so, but he has reason to dislike fire.”

Toby just nodded. He could recognise a man who wanted to protect his son, and himself, from the law – if any law officer cared a jot about dead gypsies. Which Toby doubted; and moreover, most magistrates would not bother with gypsy testimony telling the truth of the matter, so the marquis was safe enough in telling him.

 

oOoOo

 

Eusebius made his way round to the side, where he knew he could easily get into the house via the terrace. He made his way most of the way up the steps, and then stopped to kindle a flame and light his torch. He had slopped some more oil onto the steps, but there was plenty in the buckets to hurl around into carpets and soft furnishings. He got the torch burning well, dipped in pitch as it had been, something else the rector kept, for repairing tarpaulins, and for treating the mounts of any of his parishioners who came to church, if they had occasioned any cut from loose stones on the road.  Then he moved on up the rest of the steps, and cried out as his foot caught in something, and he measured his length on the stones of the terrace, his cry muffled by having pierced his lip with a tooth. This, however was the least of Eusebius’s worries, as the lamp oil spread out across the flags, and as he fell, first the fumes, then the oil, ignited as the torch contacted the flammable material, and flared up, engulfing him, flame leaping into the clothes drenched in oil, and to the bundles of kindling on Eusebius’s back. Frantically, he scrabbled to his feet, slipping in the oil, abandoning the yoke, and ran, a human torch, for the steps, with some idea of throwing himself into the ornamental lake.

It had not occurred to Eusebius that he had tripped on some physical obstacle, since his progress had been uneven to say the least in any case; as a result of which, he tripped again on the simple tripwire, blackened with tar, which Woodlock had set as part of his traps. Soon, fire would find the tar and burn it away, but it was still good, and Eusebius, running in panic, in the terror and pain of being on fire, tripped on it again, and went head first down the steps, mercifully ending his agony in breaking his neck as he landed.

Servants and gypsies streamed out of various rooms with buckets, tubs, and wet blankets to work on dousing the fire before it caught on the painted wood of doors and windows onto the terrace, and some from the kitchen regions to beat out the flames on the rapidly blackening thing which had once been Eusebius, his arms outstretched but the elbows bent and the knuckles clenched, looking more as if he was seeking a fight than in supplication. Henri D’Auxerre crossed himself, more out of the habit of his youth, it may be said, than any religious fervour, since the cook’s favourite litany was, ‘Another bottle of Chambertin from the cellar, my girl, and a glass for me to test it.’

None of them had heard of the ‘pugilist’ reaction of tendons to extreme heat, leading to the bending of the elbows and clenching of the fists, and looked on this aggressive seeming position in horror.

Evelyn pushed his way through the crowd of servants staring at Eusebius.

“Is he dead?” he asked.

“And burning still in Hell,” said Henri.

“That’s between him and his maker,” said Evelyn. “For my own part, I think him a sick, sick man, for whom death is perhaps a release. I’d better break the news to Cornelius, then we must take him to the church and tell his father.”

“I’m here,” said Cornelius. “You and I will carry him.”

 

 

With the blackened body, well disguised in a linen wrapping, laid in the chapel, Evelyn and Cornelius went soberly to the rectory.

There were no lights burning, as Eusebius had not bothered to light any candles or lanterns, waiting merely for it to be dark to execute his plan. Cornelius called out, and a faint call answered him.

Quickly kindling candles, the two young men followed the sound of the weak call to the study. Cornelius stared at his father’s haggard face in the pale candlelight.

“Papa! Whatever happened?” cried Cornelius.

“Cornelius! Be aware! Eusebius has returned and he has lost his mind, he is talking of killing you... he swore he would come back and thrash me for taking your side, to beat the demons out of me!”

“Papa, oh, papa! He... he is dead,” said Cornelius, sobbing as he undid his father’s bonds.

“Oh, Cornelius! It came to that? I should have hoped that you could subdue him,” said Augustus, sounding disappointed.

“Nobody had any time for that, he was dead before anyone could approach him,” said Cornelius. “And if you ask me, a mercy in a way.”

“Did you fire the fatal shot, then, thinking it a mercy?” demanded Augustus.

“Fatal shot? What are you talking about?” asked Cornelius.

“You said you had killed him,” said Augustus.

“Papa! I never said any such thing!” said Cornelius, indignantly. “You are leaping to conclusions again, have you a touch of the same madness that has afflicted my brother?”

Augustus paled.

“I... you said he was dead, and... and I could not think of anything else...”

“I would have shot him like a mad dog to protect my wife and my children but none of us had to,” said Evelyn. “How ready you are to see planks in the eyes of others, sir! Eusebius came after dark, by stealth, with buckets of lamp oil, kindling, and a torch, planning to burn down the hall. Providentially – and I do believe Providence had a hand in it – he stumbled, spilling oil, and set light to himself and spilling most of the oil on the flagstones. He ran in fear and fell down the steps, and by the angle of his neck, he broke it on falling. My people tried to douse the blaze, in case he lived, but it was too late. Cornelius and I brought him to the church, and I strongly advise that you do not undo the wrappings. I can get more bed linen, let it do as a shroud.”

“I... I am sorry,” said Augustus, putting a hand to his face. “Oh, my poor son, to die in the commission of such a sin!”

“I don’t think he is a sinner so much as a sick man,” said Evelyn. “And surely his poor broken mind can be healed by the grace of our Lord in Heaven? We will pray for his soul, and for him to become the soul he should have been before the madness took him. And in the meanwhile, I think you should come with us; Cornelius will pack a valise for you. You should not be alone. You shall have a nice hot bath, and a light meal in bed, and sleep in. I will write to the Bishop to send a locum, so you may take a repairing lease, with us, or at the seaside, as you choose.”

“I... I... thank you, I do not wish to remain here,” said Augustus. “The study... someone will need to clean it...”

“Don’t worry, I will see to it all,” said Evelyn.  He helped the old man to his feet... no, he thought, not an old man, not even sixty yet, though he looked as if he was in his seventies.

 

Spalding helped Augustus Reckitt to bathe, and put on a nightshirt, installed tenderly in a guest bedroom with a hot brick, and Henri rose to the occasion to produce a fricassee of chicken with rice alongside the green goose cooked for the family, and a good mutton stew for the gypsies, who had been disrupted from their normal habits.  Larkin also was served the fricassee, as was Lementina, both of whom were the major invalids.

“You rise to the occasion magnificently, Henri,” said Imogen, who knew when to lard on the compliments. “And goatsmilk porridge for the infants? Splendid, I don’t know what I would do without you!”

Henri preened.

Cornelius sought out Shuri and flung himself on the floor by her chair to bury his face in her lap, choking out what had happened until he broke down and began to sob. She stroked the back of his neck and murmured comforting words.

“Why am I crying?” asked Cornelius. “I don’t even like Eusebius. What am I crying for?”

“Hush, it doesn’t matter,” said Shuri. “You are crying for the big brother you wanted and never had. And you are crying that your father always saw him, not you, that the only notice he took of you was to punish you for some slight or imagined transgression. I can’t believe that he would automatically assume you had killed him! And even if you had, he surely knows you would only do so to save others.”

“I think Papa has a touch of the same madness Eusebius had, seeing sin all around,” said Cornelius. “But he has it mostly under control. I gave up long ago expecting him to give me attention for doing something right. I thought I had stopped trying to please him but it still hurts when he puts on his disappointed face.”

“Well, then! Assuming that your go-between pleases me, you will know how to be a better father than he is,” said Shuri.

“You would like more children than Jasper?”

“I think so. He is not, and in some ways, never has been mine, as he’s always been the lord’s son,” she said.

“Yes, I see,” said Cornelius. “Our children would be reared as gentlemen and ladies. And I’ve a mind to adopt Silas as well.”

“Oh, that would be nice,” said Shuri. “He is my brother, though, so he could live with us as such.”

“That would be better,” said Cornelius. “I had better go and tell Theo; but I will go and see how Papa is first.”

“You are a better son than he sometimes deserves,” said Shuri. “I will go and spend some time with Lementina; she will also be pleased that her grandson who needs it most will live with her.”

 

Augustus had regained some colour, but looked very frail sitting in bed. He was agitated however, and when Cornelius went in, he burst out, “Oh, Cornelius, how could you?”

Cornelius froze as if slapped.

“How could I what, sir?” he asked. “Not knowing what I am supposed to have done to earn your ire, I am unequal to addressing the matter.”

“Why, I am told that you purpose to move into a cottage not just with the woman Shuri, but another woman, named Lamentation or some such!” cried Augustus.

Cornelius had had enough. He managed to ape his father’s look of disappointment.

“Why, sir, I had thought better of you,” he said.

“You mean it is not true? But I have heard you planned to adapt the old gatehouse to accommodate her.”

“Why, yes, most certainly,” said Cornelius. “And her name is Lementina. She is Shuri’s grandmother, and is too old to travel with the tribe. Surely you do not have so filthy a mind as to suppose I would install a mistress along with a wife? I confess I am disappointed that you would listen to gossip and interpret it in such a fashion.”

“I... You... you are disappointed in me? I... well, I... oh, dear.”

Augustus was broken.

Cornelius ran to his side and buried his head against him.

“I am sorry,” he cried. “I... I wanted you to know what it felt like.”

Augustus was aghast.

“I keep failing you,” he said, sorrowfully. “The world is so full of wickedness,  I seem to look for it in my boys.”

“It’s one reason I want my own cottage,” said Cornelius. “I don’t want my authority with my children and Shuri’s brother to be undermined by living in the rectory and having you assuming that I am misbehaving in some way and saying so in front of them.”

Augustus wept.

“If it had only been I who died, not Eusebius!” he cried.

“But it was not, which means the Lord still has a use for you,” said Cornelius. “So, you will have to get well, in order to fulfil it. I am going to break the news to Theo.”

“I... my blessings on you in doing so. I... I will write to Emilius,” he added.

“Thank you, papa,” said Cornelius, intending to read such a letter and hope that it would not be about his father’s sorrow over Eusebius dying, and implied criticism that Emilius had not got himself killed in the dangerous occupation of soldiering.