Page 23 of Hearts at Home
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G wenillan Hughes had to chuckle at the expression on Captain Wrath’s face as he sped toward his horses. Embarrassment and irritation mixed, and her keen ears heard the salty words he muttered as he tore past.
He didn’t need to fret. Peppermint and chamomile were tough, and would grow again—and besides, she had plenty more in her herb garden.
She followed more slowly, ready to help if he could not control the two animals one-handed. One arm was strapped to his body just above the elbow, with the forearm held across his chest in a sling that was also bandaged in place across his chest. However, it didn’t appear to slow him down, and she was cautious of offending his pride. Men could be touchy about what they saw as weaknesses.
“I must apologize, Miss Hughes,” he said over his shoulder, as he tugged the first horse away from the barrel and led it a few steps away to the hitching rail. “I heard a little of what was happening inside and just let them go. I should have remembered them sooner.”
“I’m glad you came to my rescue,” she reassured him. “I could have handled him on my own, except that my father tried to intervene, and then he pulled out a pistol…” she shuddered. This was not the first time a stranger in town had thought her trousers made her a harlot, but it was the first time she’d been threatened with a gun. Slapping their face usually worked, and her backup plan was a hammer between their legs. In one case, lacking a hammer, she had chased a man away with her gelding irons.
It was only the strangers. The men of Reabridge did not see her as a woman at all. Apart from one man the year after Evan disappeared, and he had proved to be a disappointment.
He was one of the few men of her class in the town as tall as she was and had been courting her, she thought. His increasingly passionate kisses promised marriage, for they were both respectable people. Suddenly, with no explanation, he stopped visiting, and when she managed to corner him after chapel meeting one Sunday, he did his best to back away, his eyes darting in every direction for an avenue of escape.
“I’m sorry, Gwen, but you can’t have thought I meant anything by it,” he told her. “I’m betrothed to the dressmaker’s daughter.” The dressmaker’s daughter was at least eight inches shorter than Gwen and would never dream of lifting any implement heavier than a needle.
It took Gwen nearly two years to decide she’d had a lucky escape. A man who will cheat on one woman will cheat on another. Still, no-one else had ever shown an interest.
The second horse decided to dispute the need to move, and Mr. Wrath applied his attention to changing its equine mind. He soon had it under control, using a firm calm voice that expected obedience just as much as the strength of his left arm, which must be considerable.
Gwen was used to large men. Her father and her brother Evan were both taller and broader than most. But Jack Wrath was not just their equal in size. He had a presence that made him seem larger still.
Perhaps that came from being in the army. Would Evan have learned the same way of filling a space and demanding attention? Would she ever know? For a moment, the pit of devastation yawned. Evan was gone. They had not heard from him since he left, six years ago. Had he married the girl he ran off with? Had he joined the army as he longed to? Was he still alive?
Mr. Wrath was standing before her with the horse, and had said something.
“I’m sorry,” she had to admit. “I was wool-gathering.”
He replied without a hint of irritation. “I said these two horses need to be reshod, Miss Hughes. I believe you received a message from Dr. Wagner’s stables. Are you or your father able to manage them now?”
Bother. She had seen no message. Whoever brought it must have given it to Father, and no doubt he forgot all about it as soon as it was delivered.
“We can manage them now,” she acknowledged. “Would you like me to see to this lovely fellow first?”
“In the orphanage, they told us that Handsome is as handsome does ,” said Captain Wrath. “Sister Joy would not at all approve of calling this stubborn and wilful beast ‘handsome’.”
Captain Wrath had grown up in an orphanage? Gwen filed that piece of information away. “Do you work for Dr. Wagner?” she asked, as she led the way back inside the farriery.
“I am a guest at his house,” Captain Wrath replied.
Father had left the workshop, leaving the door to the cottage open behind him. Should she fetch him? He was happiest when he was working, and she encouraged it, not least because it was easier for her, in some ways. He mostly remembered his craft, even if he forgot everything else. Though his skill with his hands was waning, his ability to control an awkward horse was still second to none. And when he was here, she did not have to worry about what else he might be doing.
On the other hand, at the moment, only their closest neighbours knew of his problems, and they had no idea how confused he was getting. The more people who saw him, the more likely the townsfolk would discover that his wits had gone wandering. Then, it would only be a matter of time before the farrier in the upper town made her father’s condition an excuse to shut her down so he could have the custom of the whole of Reabridge.
“Go check on your father,” Captain Wrath advised. “I can wait until you have seen to him.”
Gwen opened her mouth to say her father was fine, just as there was a roar of rage from inside the house. She took off at a run, and a crash from the kitchen sped her steps.
What a mess! Da must have become frustrated with something on the dresser, for all the contents of one shelf were on the flagstone floor, most of them in pieces, and Da was sitting in the midst of them. Somewhere in the last few minutes, he must have removed both slippers and socks, for he was weeping over a cut foot.
“Ellen,” he said as she entered, slowing her steps to avoid alarming him. “Ellen.” As was happening more frequently, he took her for her mother. He lost track of the words he wanted to say, another alarming recent development. He pointed to his bleeding foot. “Hurts,” he said.
“Oh, Da.” Ellen wanted to weep, too. She grabbed an old apron off the pile of unfolded laundry, tore off a strip, and wadded it into a ball as she squatted down to look at the foot. The blood welling from the cut made it hard to tell how deep it was, but she didn’t think anything was still stuck in it. She pressed the ball of fabric onto the cut and he did not flinch. “Hold that tight, Da, and I will sweep this lot out of the way before you get hurt again.”
“I’ll sweep,” said a voice from behind her. It was Captain Wrath, leaning over her shoulder to look at her father’s strong fingers holding the cloth against his foot. “You see to your father. Where is the broom?”
Gwen thought of objecting to his invasion of her privacy, but it was too late and she needed help too much. “In the scullery,” she told him. “Through that door. Now, Da, let me have a look, then we’ll see about moving you to your chair.”
She sang to him as she checked the cut—an old song that Ma had often sung while she worked. Da was calmer when she sang from her mother’s repertoire. Except when he remembered that Ma was no longer with them, and became distressed.
Today, the song worked its magic, and she was able to take a good look under the cloth. The cut was still oozing blood but not as deep as she’d feared. Da must have stepped on a sharp edge of the broken china that Captain Wrath was swiftly and efficiently sweeping away from her father, one-handed. He had cleared the path to Da’s chair. She supposed he guessed the correct one because it had been made to fit her father’s proportions.
“Should I fetch the physician?” her uninvited guest asked, as she finished tying the cloth on firmly. He had picked up a few items that had miraculously survived the fall and set them on the table, had swept the pieces into a heap out of the way, and had found a hand brush and pan so he could clean any shards out of the cracks between the flagstones. How he would manage those one handed, she did not know.
She idly wondered how a gentleman learned to sweep a floor—for all his talk about an orphanage, he was an officer so he must be a gentleman. “I don’t think it is deep, Captain Wrath. Come on, Da. Let me help you up. Once you are sitting in your chair, I will bandage your foot for you.”
Da shook his head, but he co-operated when she took his hand to pull him to his feet. Captain Wrath didn’t wait to be asked to help, but put his working hand under Da’s other arm, supported him to stand, and gave Da his support as they hobbled across the kitchen.
Captain Wrath chattered the whole time. “Well, Mr. Hughes, that was a bit of an accident, wasn’t it? Never mind. Your fine lass here will bind it up and it will mend, good as new. Here, let me fetch this box for you to put your foot on. A cushion under it to make it more comfortable? I’ll put some of this fabric over the cushion, Miss Hughes, shall I?” He was suiting action to words, and Da seemed mesmerized by the sound of his voice.
Once Gwen tried to take the cloth away from the foot again, though, Da objected, batting her hand away. “No. Don’t touch. It hurts.”
“I need to bandage it, Da.”
“Don’t call me Da,” he objected. “It makes me sound old. A chit like you should have better manners.”
He had forgotten who she was again. She kept her sigh internal. “I need to bandage it, Mr. Hughes.” She made her voice firm and business-like, though she wanted to lie down and howl.
“There will have been many a time you’ve bandaged a cut on a horse’s leg, Mr. Hughes,” Captain Wrath commented. “What would you recommend for a poultice in such a case as your foot? I had a farrier with my troops who swore by turnip.”
That distracted Da. “Epsom salt and bran is good for drawing inflammation,” he proclaimed. “Warm, of course. For a fresh wound, honey is best, I find. You are a cavalry man? I’m sorry I don’t think I caught your name.”
“Jack, Mr. Hughes. Just call me Jack. Yes, I’ve been twenty-five years a lancer, man and boy.”
Gwen let out the breath she did not know she was holding. At moments like this, when he could draw on the knowledge he learned as a boy at his father’s knee, Da sounded almost like his old self. But the disappearing memories of his recent past made him confused and angry.
Da was expressing regret for the cruel life of a war horse, and Captain Wrath agreed with every word. “Mind you, I’ve owed my life to my horse many a time, Mr. Hughes. One thing about this stupid shoulder is that I won’t have to see another horse killed in battle.” His voice was grim, and his gaze fixed on something that wasn’t in the room.
The dark mood seemed to shake Da out of his enthrallment with this new friend. Gwen was spreading honey on the cut, and he tried once again to push her hands away.
“Let me tell you about my Tabby,” Captain Wrath said, suddenly cheerful. “I named all my best horses Tabby, after my mentor, Truth Bridgeman. We called him Mr. Bridgeman to his face, of course. But behind his back we called him Tabby.”
Da was listening, intent on every word. Gwen hurried to wrap a proper bandage around the foot, splitting it at the end so she could tie it into a tight knot behind the calf where, she hoped, her father couldn’t find it to undo it.
Meanwhile, Captain Wrath kept talking. “When I made it to trooper and bought my first horse with my first prize money, he had a mane the same colour as old Tabby’s hair, and a way of looking down his nose as if I’d disappointed him. I called him Tabby as a private joke, and somehow it seemed as if the man himself was with me. My horses have been Tabby ever since.”
Gwen sat back on her heels, confident the bandage would hold. “Which one of those outside is Tabby?” she asked.
Captain Wrath shot her a quick smile. “Neither,” he confided. “They both belong to Dr. Wagner.” The smile faded. “I lost Tabby the Fifth at Waterloo, and I haven’t had the heart to replace him.” He met Da’s eyes and sighed. “War is a terrible thing for men, but it is worse for horses.”
Da matched the sigh, then suddenly announced, “It is time for bed.” He got up and walked across the kitchen, hobbling only a little. Gwen followed him, to guide him to his own bed if he got confused and finished up in hers or on the sofa in the parlour.
If he made it to a proper bed, he might give her two or three hours to shoe the waiting horses and to do a few other chores. Then he would probably be up in the night, and, dear merciful heavens, she would give her right arm for a good night’s sleep.
She rescinded the thought. With Captain Wrath’s damaged arm as a horrible example, that was not a bargain she was prepared to make, even as a silent joke.