“Cac!”
Máire Mullen swore softly to herself as she struggled to right the stone cherub she had just overturned. She rarely visited the grounds adjacent to the house—her duties were limited to the scullery—and she had not anticipated the many decorative obstacles that now blocked her path. Like most large estates, Pratt’s had several acres to the rear of the house that were devoted entirely to flowerbeds and shrubbery and fruit trees that bloomed but never bore fruit. The garden was separated from the rest of the property by a low stone wall; it was dotted here and there with pretty, useless bits of statuary and furniture that looked well enough but never appeared to be used. The entire garden seemed to lie idle despite the care given to it by the staff. At least, Pratt never took pleasure in it himself, and he certainly did not invite his neighbors to do so.
So why am I even looking for him out here? Máire wondered impatiently. He never sets a foot out-of-doors that I’d know—
Of course, the answer to that was simple: she was looking for him out here because she had been told to do so. Because Bridget had found Pratt’s room empty that morning when she went to do the fires, and because his bed had not looked slept in. Because all of them knew about the doctor’s visit the afternoon before and most could work out what it had meant.
“Do we think he’s done himself in?” Máire asked suddenly. The housekeeper walking beside her suddenly took on a look of mild disgust.
“I hardly think such speculation is appropriate,” she snapped. “See to the task at hand.”
And the task at hand, of course, was to find him. Máire chewed on her lip and wondered if her own lack of concern meant a hardened spirit. Certainly, Pratt had not been a terrible master to have. He was cold, as befitted those beneath his position, but he wasn’t cruel or demanding. He paid well. Should she not have some sympathy towards a dying man?
However, when she looked at the opulence around her, it was difficult to feel stirrings of pity. Pratt may well have had a short life, but—in her mind, at least—there was no doubt it had been a good one.
William woke to sunlight in his eyes and damp grass at his back, the faint hum of voices speaking urgently and not so very far away. His neck felt stiff and his head ached, and he winced as he slowly pulled himself into a sitting position. For a long moment afterward, he hadn’t the faintest idea where he was.
Then he did know, and he was alone, and his disappointment was so great—so utterly ludicrous—it almost made him laugh.
How stupid you are, he scolded himself. You knew all the time it was only a dream.
Of course it had been a dream. How could it be otherwise? Strangely dressed young women did not roam the countryside in the middle of the night, looking for men with whom to converse. Aside from this, he was next to the stone bench, near to the garden wall, in the very same spot he had lain himself the previous night, right before the girl made her appearance. It was only common sense to recognize he must have fallen asleep and dreamed her up.
But it felt so real, not like a dream at all.
Naturally, it had felt real. That had been the work of the laudanum, hadn’t it? That was something for which it was known: vivid dreams, hallucinations.
Madness.
Agitated, he fumbled the bottle from his frockcoat pocket, turning it in his hand. He thought he ought to despise it for tricking him so, yet when he fingered the cork and smoothed the paper label, his hands were gentle, almost caressing.
“Poison,” he whispered, as if to remind himself. Only it had not felt that way at the time, not poisonous or dangerous, not terrible in the least. He closed his eyes and tried to recall, but it was all so fuzzy now, his memory of the girl as indistinct as that of any less mercurial dream. Rather than details, most of what he could recall was the feelings they inspired.
And those feelings were incredible—it was like being alive.
What an odd notion, yet there seemed little point in trying to disabuse himself of it. He pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and rubbed at his tired eyes. A faint green scent clung to his fingertips, accompanied by a sharper smell usually associated with horses. He knew it must be his imagination, the aftereffects of the laudanum, yet he could not help but feel a vague sense of excitement.
Watch yourself, Pratt. You might very well being going mad.
And what if he were? Did it matter anymore?
With his heart pounding in the base of his throat, William crawled across the grass, parting the dewy blades with his fingers, searching for something—anything—that would prove her existence. Footprints or hoof prints, some small article dropped from her pocket. Yet he found nothing, and when he sat back against base of the stone wall, he almost felt as if he would cry.
Instead, his chest tightened and he began to cough.
It was fully as bad as before the laudanum, perhaps even worse. He dropped his head and pounded his chest with his fist, hacking and choking until his breath—and his strength—was entirely gone. He was trembling against the wall, taking in shallow sips of air, when the servants happened upon him.
The little scullery maid—he didn’t know her name—made a startled curtsy and dropped her eyes to the ground, but Margaret, the housekeeper, stooped down in the grass beside him.
“Sir, may I send for the doctor?”
He looked into her brown eyes, which held an expression of genuine concern. He liked Margaret. She was a stout older woman, motherly in appearance but so unwaveringly professional, so disciplined, she often sent lesser servants into terrors with her demands for greater competence. Of all the servants, she was the only one who had been with him in London, the only one who had known his mother.
“Sir,” she said again, and William realized he had never answered her question. He braced his palms against the wall and slowly climbed to his feet.
“Thank you, but that isn’t necessary.”
“At least let me have them run you a bath, then?” She posed it as a question, gently, and held out one meaty arm so that he could steady himself against her. He might have done so had the scullery maid not been watching them.
“Thank you,” he told her again. His breath hitched as he tried to stifle a cough, and he saw both women flinch slightly. He wondered how he must look to them: thin and red-eyed and grass-stained, hardly respectable. The scullery maid was staring at him out of the corner of her eye, and he could perceive a sense of uneasiness there. No doubt, she was wondering if her employer had gone mad.
Margaret saw the flustered look he threw her and she snapped at the girl: “Go to the house and tell John to prepare his master’s bath. Then you may begin your own morning duties.”
The maid curtsied again and fled toward the house. It wasn’t until she was out of sight that Margaret leaned down to retrieve something from the grass at their feet. The bottle of laudanum, as it turned out. William had dropped it during his coughing spell and forgotten about it in the misery afterward. Margaret handed it to him without comment, and he slipped it into his trouser pocket.
They began the slow walk back to the house in silence, but after a few dozen paces Margaret suddenly paused and said, “Sir, if I may—”
William tensed, half-expecting her to question him about the laudanum, his illness, or why he had chosen to spend the previous night sleeping in the garden, none of which he was prepared to discuss. However, she did not. Instead, she reached out and took hold of his arm, pressing the callused pads of her fingers against his wrist. His flesh was hot and damp with sweat, but his pulse beat steadily and she withdrew her hand with an expression of relief.
“You must take care not to tax yourself,” she told him, as they fell into step once again.
William glanced at her. Her expression was fixed, unreadable, but he did not wonder at her show of concern. If he died, she would lose her situation. They all would. He found a certain comfort in that, the knowledge that his death would affect so many.
The bath water was cool and pleasant, fragrant with lavender and milky with saleratus. William lay with his head resting against the tub’s pewter ledge, his legs stretched and his arms floating, weightless. His eyelids were leaden, and he could feel his fever dropping off by degrees. All around him, the house was quiet.
It was odd how soothing the silence was, when noise could be so lonely. Yet it had always been this way for him; the clamor of the servants—their conversations and their quarrels, their laughter—had never failed to make him feel desolate. Like any gentleman of means, he felt himself above them, yet he could not help but envy their camaraderie, their flirtations. The work of domestic staff was either backbreaking or mind numbing—for the unluckiest few, it was both—yet they never seemed more than marginally unhappy. They were never lonely.
I don’t have to be lonely. Not now. Not if I don’t wish to be.
The thought came unbidden, and he felt himself flushing, embarrassed to be having such an unnatural desire. Still, it persisted.
It doesn’t matter. No one cares. A dying man, one who lives alone—why should anyone bother over what he does? I could take more laudanum if I wished. I could take it right this minute and—
And what? Did he really think she would reappear, just like that? Opium or not, a dream woman was unlikely to be so accommodating.
And even if she were, you wouldn’t want her coming to you now, for God’s sake. Not while you’re in the bath.
More than anything, it was this last thought that kept him from it.
Nevertheless, the bottle was in his trouser pocket and his trousers were on the floor. When he stepped out of the bath, William stooped down to retrieve it. He set it on the ledge of the tub and looked at it as he toweled himself off, as he dressed. He put on fresh clothes although he had only worn the other suit twice. He knew this was odd and wasteful; most of his personal habits were. The servants often talked of it. Margaret had once told him he would catch his death from washing so much and that the frequent laundering of his garments would make them unfit for wear—they wouldn’t keep out the cold and wet nearly so well, she claimed. He didn’t care what they thought or what they said. He didn’t care if Margaret was right, and he certainly didn’t stop. The habit had formed years earlier, and it was too deeply engrained to be altered. Back then, he was trying to rid himself of the stink of his mother’s illness. It was horrible—the sweet black smell of death, of rot. The servants had sworn they couldn’t smell it; Margaret insisted he was being fanciful, and the doctor thought it hysterics. But they were wrong; it was there and it clung to everything. He had loved his mother, adored her, held her at the very end, even though by that time she was so wasted she hardly appeared human—but he hated that smell.
Suppose I smell like that now? Would I even know it? The very notion of it filled him with horror and he doused himself liberally with cologne. He shaved and cleaned his teeth, then spent an extra few moments wrestling with his hair—a useless venture, given that his curls always managed to look tousled, defying even the most rigorous combings. He did it all out of habit, for there was no one in his house who cared what he looked like and very few who would even notice. However, in the very back of his mind he couldn’t help thinking of the girl. If he saw her again—he wouldn’t, naturally. Dreams didn’t work like that—but if he did, he would want to look nice. He would want her to think him handsome.
And she did think he was handsome. He wouldn’t have believed that had she not said it straight out, just before parting. So many of the night's events were murky, yet he remembered that clearly. She’d bid him goodbye and gone to mount her horse, but afterward she’d only sat in the saddle and stared at him. When he asked her about it, she'd shrugged.
It’s just something I do, she had told him. I stare at handsome men. It’s an awful shortcoming.
She said it lightly enough, but the compliment had made him shiver with pleasure. With a pathetic eagerness he later regretted, he asked her if he would see her again.
She’d looked at him, then. Buffy Summers, with her flaxen hair and her wistful smile—her green eyes full of something he couldn’t quite understand. And she’d answered him thusly: You know what, William? I can almost guarantee you will.
The night before, he’d tasted delight in her promise; now he found himself dwelling pessimistically on a single word. Almost. Why had she said “almost”? Why had she not said “certainly” or “absolutely,” something more substantial that befitted a guarantee?
More importantly, why did he continue to dwell on it when he knew it was nothing but a bloody dream?
Annoyed with himself, William pocketed the laudanum and trudged out of the dressing room. The footman was waiting for him just outside the door.
“Laying breakfast, sir,” he said. Then, because it was often not the case, he added, “That is to say, if you’re in a need for it—”
William nodded before the man could finish. Maybe it was just because he hadn’t eaten well yesterday—maybe it was the laudanum or the cool bath, or those strange, surreal memories he had of the girl—but whatever the reason, he wanted his breakfast. He was hungry now.
To be continued...