Page 43 of A Winter’s Romance

Fine Doings at my House! A rare Kettle of Fish I have discovered at last.

—Fielding, Tom Jones (1749)

T here was no further opportunity for private conversation for the next few days, and Eliza told herself she was glad of it. It was one thing to sympathize when she heard Mr. Thornton’s controversial history, and quite another to feel her growing liking for him. A liking she was certain he intended her to feel.

Sitting there, hour after hour, afflicted by pain and ennui —of course he must do something , Eliza thought. What was there besides flirtation to fill the time? Even Mr. Thornton’s abuse of “Hoghands” and “Bumblelow” occupied perhaps a cumulative hour and a half over the course of the day, and as the two footmen grew more adept with maneuvering him, they did not try his temper so sorely.

Moreover, Eliza had noted that, when Lady Arden awoke from her nap, Mr. Thornton retreated into cool, flawless courtesy, so much so that Lady Arden whispered to her later, “That was not so very bad. He must be feeling better, for he was not at all cross by the end. And I am heartened to see that our plan has worked—he is most proper with you, Eliza.”

Whether or not the continual presence of others played any part, Mr. Thornton’s model conduct continued. On succeeding days he listened to further installments of the Grubthorpes or Rimualdo without controversy and said nothing to Eliza to arouse comment, and she found herself almost disappointed.

It was not until Sunday after they returned from church that anything particular happened.

“Cook thought you might manage some thick soup,” Eliza said when she and Kirby entered with his dinner. “Would you like to try to serve yourself, as you do with the fork, or would you prefer us to serve you?”

“Better bundle me in a napkin and let me have a go,” he answered. While Kirby draped him, Eliza filled the spoon halfway and placed it in his outstretched hand. In this fashion, three sips were managed successfully before the drawing room doors flew open and Sir Miles was heard to say, “…Coming right along, and Ponsonby recommends amusement, diversion.”

The identity of his guest was not long a mystery, for the baronet led Mr. Marvin the clergyman straight to the lacquered screen. “And here he is. Thornton, I’ve got the parson Marvin here. He’s come to dine before his second service.”

“Miss Blinker—you here!” exclaimed the curate, his brows high to see her seated beside the patient.

“Mr. Marvin.”

“Sir Miles said you offered to assist with Mr. Thornton—good day, sir—but I did not expect…this!”

Without even glancing at the man in question, Eliza was aware of him stiffening, and fearing a tempest, she said hastily, “It is nothing. We have two teams. Kirby and I work together.”

“Seeing I could not attend church, have you come to sermonize, Marvin?” asked Thornton. “More of the soup, if you please. And if you would help me this time…?”

With an apologetic look to the maid, and ashamed of her own cowardliness in the face of Mr. Marvin’s disapproval, Eliza passed Kirby the spoon. But Kirby was awkwardly placed, leaning over Eliza, and the many eyes fixed on her made her clumsy. Carrying the spoon to Thornton’s mouth, her hand shook so that his mouth closed on air.

“Steady there, Miss Blinker,” he chuckled, his own hand rising to guide Kirby’s. His touch addled the poor servant further, increasing her trembles until drops of soup sprinkled the napkin tied about him.

“Erm—” began Eliza. Should she correct his misapprehension? She would have steadied the maid, but Mr. Thornton anticipated her. With both hands, he lightly took hold of Kirby at wrist and fingers and guided the spoon to his lips.

The maid’s eyes grew round as guineas, and she thrust the spoon back at Eliza the instant Thornton released her.

“How—how an audience does make things more difficult,” Eliza fumbled.

“We will go, then,” said Sir Miles, “but you must come too, Eliza. We dine early. Let Kirby manage the rest or send in that whatshername to assist her. Thornton, we’ll come back later, if you’ve no objection.”

Eliza rose to follow them, giving Kirby’s arm a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll send Shillbeer straight away.” But why, oh why, did she envy the maid getting to stay behind with Mr. Thornton? And—worse yet—why did she envy that brief moment when Mr. Thornton took Kirby’s hand between both his own?

If there was any consolation, Eliza must find it in the realization that at least the curate did not appear to have any designs upon her. Apart from (or perhaps because of) his initial disapprobation on finding her beside Mr. Thornton, Mr. Marvin hardly spoke to her throughout the dinner, and when they returned to the drawing room he even carried on a conversation with Sir Miles during her performance on the pianoforte.

In contrast, Mr. Thornton asked for the screen to be folded and put aside, that he might hear better, and he proceeded to listen intently, head bent and silent.

When Eliza finished, Sir Miles applauded, loud in his praise, Mr. Marvin joining in with more moderation, but it was Mr. Thornton’s small smile which flooded her with delight—delight followed rapidly by chagrin. Oh, dear. Was she really, despite Lady Arden’s precautions and her own good sense and maturity, developing a tendre for the man? Thank heavens he was blind. Now if only everyone else might remain as blind metaphorically, until she had mastered herself!

Was it that he had confided in her, teased her, listened to her? So did others in her life, but Eliza had to concede that those who did were all of them female—and she could count them on one hand and not even require all her fingers.

He has nothing else to do and no one else to talk to, and he fears being blind for life, she reminded herself ruthlessly as she lay in bed that night. Had he met you of an evening in company at Ardenmere, he would have paid you scarcely more heed than Mr. Marvin did.

But it was one thing to talk firmly and sensibly to herself and quite another to experience any change of heart.

The following morning, Lady Arden decided Shillbeer and Mrs. Simmons might handle breakfast as well, leaving Eliza free for other activities. Activities such as weaving a wreath of the greenery the gardeners collected while Lady Arden oversaw the making of mince pies for the Christmas boxes. Eliza should have been relieved, even grateful, at the temporary reprieve from danger, but she was not. In fact, as she sat in the kitchen, braiding and twisting, ignominious tears threatened, as if she were a girl denied staying up for her first ball.

A commotion at the kitchen door interrupted the women at their work, and the next moment Cook opened to the gardener having words with a tall, slender man whom Eliza would have described as elegant if he were not red-faced and furious. “Where is Mr. Thornton? He will vouch for me! Admitted at the kitchen door, what rubbish!”

Seeing Lady Arden frozen with amazement, Eliza set down her completed wreath and hurried forward.

“Miss Blinker, this fellow wants to see Mr. Thornton,” explained the gardener. “Said his name is Kettle.”

“We sent for you at the Crest and Comb the day of Mr. Thornton’s accident,” said Eliza, “and had long since given you up for lost. But come, I will take you to him.”

The drawing room waited in its usual gloom, and as the maids had finished serving Thornton his breakfast, he was alone, mouth grim and hands clenching the arms of the chair.

“Good morning, Mr. Thornton,” she said quickly. “I have—”

“Oh, there you are, are you?” he growled, sounding quite as surly as he had the very first day. “Has tending to a cross, infirm, blind man begun to pall on you, that you now pass off the whole business to a pair of butter-fingered excuses for maids?”

She smiled in response before she could prevent it. He had missed her? And though Thornton could not see it, the smile transformed her. “Lady Arden asked me to help her make a wreath. It is nearly Christmas, you know, and there is much to be done on a great estate like Ardenmere. As I am here almost as much by sufferance as you, sir, I must do what I am bid.”

His resentment faded upon hearing this explanation in her warm, happy voice, though he tried to cling to the appearance of it. “Is that so, Miss Blinker? Then I will have our hostess number me among your duties. It’s dangerous to leave me at Mrs. Simmons’ mercy. She talks so unceasingly of her children that I fear I will injure my eyes further from rolling them so often.”

Laughing, Eliza turned to Kettle. “I have another attendant you might like better, Mr. Thornton. Your own man.”

“What? Kettle? Where?”

“Here, sir.”

“I will leave you two to talk,” she said, backing away.

“But you are to bring my dinner, Miss Blinker,” he commanded, “and to read to me the further adventures of the weeping Miss Fairfax or the virtuous Rimualdo. I’m not particular. Lady Arden may come and doze if she likes, but you must come.”

“I had better not promise,” she answered, still retreating, “but I will pass on your request. ”

When she opened the door, light from the passage brightened the room briefly, giving Kettle a clear view of Eliza glancing back and Thornton’s own lifted head and parted lips. After the door shut behind her, Thornton heaved a barely audible sigh. Then he turned to the unpleasantness at hand.

“Where have you been all this time, Kettle?”

“Around and about,” replied his valet carelessly. “I heard about your accident, sir, and that you were fetched away here, where I knew you would be well cared for. So I thought it a good time to keep clear.”

“Take care, Kettle. I repeat: where have you been ?”

His man waved a hand before the bandages and appeared satisfied with the result. Noiselessly he took a seat on the sofa, stretching his legs along it. “I think you’ll understand, sir, when I say there was a pretty barmaid at the Crest and Comb who invited me on holiday, in a manner of speaking. And as you were laid up, and as I knew you yourself had an eye for a charming face and form—”

“You thought you might shirk both your duties and your employer’s company?” Thornton finished for him. “You have my pocketbook, I trust.”

“I do, to be sure.”

“And if I were to ask Sir Miles or Lady Arden to count what it contains, they would find the amount I carried down with me?”

“There was the inn bill to be discharged,” said Kettle sullenly.

“Naturally.” Thornton tried to sit up straighter, only to be rewarded with a stab of pain. He gave it up, panting, furious that he must sit blindfolded and impotent when he would gladly have loomed over the criminal servant to throttle him. “Well, I invite you to empty the pocketbook of all but the smallest banknote and the coins.”

Kettle stared, swinging his legs back to the floor. “Why would I do such a thing?”

“Because I am dismissing you. No—hear me. While you are far superior at shaving and dressing me than the makeshift dolts the Ardens have enlisted in your absence, in every other respect I am better off without you. I have overlooked the occasional disappearance of money or shining gimcrack—I knew you had your vices, as I have had mine—but that is all behind me now.”

“The blindness is permanent, then?” asked Kettle, when he recovered from his astonishment at this treatment. His fists were clenched as if he would gladly have taken a swing at his erstwhile master. “Or the crippling?”

“The ‘crippling’ will pass. The blindness remains to be seen. No, Kettle. I meant I am leaving behind company such as yours and even the general pursuits with which I have whiled away the past decade. I am starting a new chapter of my life, Deo volente . Thank you for your past service, and perhaps the less said about your lapses, the better.”

Kettle kicked out at the sofa. “This is the thanks I get for, what, seven years? A few notes from your pocketbook and a fare-thee-well?”

“That and, again, what you have helped yourself to, all along.” The words were calm, but there was a rising note in Thornton’s voice which, had he been his usual self, would have Kettle turning tail while he still could.

“All right, then,” the manservant snapped, cowed in spite of himself. Withdrawing the pocketbook in question from his coat and rifling through it, he snatched a sheaf of notes and tucked them in his waistcoat. Then he slung the depleted item back on the sofa—let Thornton grope for it! “I’m going. Far be it from me to stand in the way of your sudden reformation.”

A parting thought struck the manservant, and his lip curled with sudden malice. “But I’ll say, if this idea of amendment has anything to do with that Miss Blinker person who was just in here, well, you might want to pray you never get your vision back. What you don’t know—or don’t see can’t hurt you. Unless to be made a laughingstock for blindly marrying a dumpy, plain pudding of a dowd hurts.”

Thornton gave a roar, his hand groping just as Kettle had imagined, but in this instance for something he might hurl at the villain’s head. “Get out!” he bellowed. “Out! And pray I never find you again!”

When the drawing room doors slammed open and Kettle sprinted forth as if demons pursued, Thornton’s curses rang out, extensive and colorful. In the morning room Lady Arden squeaked in horror, her hands flying to her ears. “Gracious heavens! What can it mean, Eliza?”

Eliza gripped her tambour frame so tightly it nearly snapped. “I suppose he is not very happy that Kettle disappeared for so many days. Should we—send in Sir Miles to see if Mr. Thornton requires anything?”

“Tut, send in Sir Miles! On such a fine day he will not be seen until dinner.”

“Then we must do it, Lady Arden.”

“But how can we? The Trentons and the Halletts both declared they would call. They will be here any moment. ”

“We must! Or I must. What if he and Kettle came to blows, and Mr. Thornton is even now lying on the carpet with his ribs truly broken? Or suppose he should roar like that when they are here? They would think you keep a menagerie at Ardenmere.”

That drew a giggle from the baronet’s wife. “I daresay they are calling in hopes of seeing our beast. Very well. You steal in and peep around the screen and see if he is in any state to receive callers. If not we will just have to keep the drawing room doors shut tightly and swear he is asleep.”

Her heart thumping half in anticipation and half in wariness, Eliza slipped into the drawing room.

“Who’s there?” he snarled at once.

“It’s not Kettle, at any rate,” she replied, “so you needn’t bite my head off.”

“Ah. It’s you, Miss Blinker. You heard that outburst, I take it.”

“I did. You nearly frightened Lady Arden to death.”

“My apologies. In my rage I forgot greater care must be taken around old ladies. Which includes you, does it not, my dear Miss Blinker? Do stop creeping like that and come over here! I took the measure of your hand and wrist the other day and know you’re no frail, withering crone. If anything, your wrist was thicker than mine, and if the rest of your form matches it, I would wager you come within a stone of my own size.”

It was on the tip of Eliza’s tongue to retort, “That wasn’t my hand you measured, Mr. Know-All!” but she caught herself in time. If he did not believe the ruse about her age, he had better continue in this new mistake. He was right about one thing: Kirby was indeed a tall and sturdy young woman and probably within a size with him .

Instead she said, “I am glad to find you in your usual place, Mr. Thornton. From the sound of it, I thought you might have tried to struggle up, the better to murder your man Kettle.”

“Don’t think I didn’t consider it. And he’s no longer my man Kettle.”

“What—have you dismissed him?”

“I have. You might not credit it in my present condition, but I am ordinarily a natty fellow, and Kettle kept me spruce. But he had his faults as well, which I am no longer inclined to tolerate.”

Her gaze slid to the open pocketbook on the sofa. “Was it…dishonesty, sir?”

“From time to time. Has he left my pocketbook somewhere about? He flung it down after taking his wages. Thank you,” he added, when she placed it in his lap. “No, his twitching fingers were not what broke me. Say rather that he reminds me of how idly and emptily I have spent my years since my unfortunate broken engagement. And even then I would not have lost my temper so, if not for—” He broke off.

“If not for the fact that your hold on it might generally be described as ‘feeble,’” teased Eliza.

“Minx,” he muttered, but he smiled, turning his head toward her. “Where have you gone? Come closer. Why should I have to shout?”

“You can hear me perfectly where I am. In any event, apart from ensuring that you are not in the throes of apoplexy, Lady Arden sent me to ask if you would be willing to entertain visitors. Just some neighbors, purportedly paying calls of the season, but more likely curious as to how you fare. Now, don’t growl so. We would merely open the curtains a little wider and fold back the screen, and, after greeting them, you might sit there and be as misanthropic as you please.”

To her surprise, he nodded. “Certainly. For how does the carol go?” He began to sing in a pleasant tenor, “‘Tis ill for a mind to anger inclined, to think of small injuries now…’”

“‘If wrath be to seek, do not lend her thy cheek, nor let her inhabit thy brow,’” Eliza joined him.

“They sing that one in Winchester, then?”

“I have heard it. And now I hear the callers arriving. Let me welcome them.”