Page 20 of The Case at Castle Rock Cove (Beau Monde Secrets #4)

“W hat do you mean, Mr. Radcliffe is not accepting callers? He is expecting me this afternoon.” Willa lifted her chin, hoping she looked confident rather than confused.

She did not normally stoop to arguing with servants. If a butler claimed an acquaintance was not at home, she accepted the social lie. But she could not imagine Ben turning her way. Could he have somehow forgotten their meeting?

“I am very sorry, my lady.” Graves’s limpid brown eyes looked genuinely regretful. “Mr. Radcliffe was taken ill late last night.”

Willa put a hand to her mouth, but she was not quick enough to hide a gasp of dismay.

“I do not believe he is gravely ill, ma’am,” Graves assured her. “His current indisposition appears similar to the digestive ailment he experienced some weeks ago.”

“Oh.” Willa frowned. “May not I visit the sick room? Only to take a peek at him?”

The somber look on Graves’s face gave away the answer even before he shook his head. “I am afraid not, my lady. At the moment, he is too unwell to receive visitors. However, I will inform him of your call.”

Willa walked back to town, trying to keep her disappointment from ruining the rest of the day. She had seen her fiancé only two days ago. It would not harm her to go another day without him.

She had looked forward to reading with him again, though. She was not convinced that Ben’s “training” regimen would really lessen her aversion to the ocean, but she enjoyed sitting outside in pleasant weather, listening to his clear, sweet reading voice. She hated wasting such a clement day in early June. Who knew when they would again see such clear skies?

Willa fully expected to hear good news when next she called at Marlowe Tower. But the next day, the entire village buzzed with rumors about the ill-health at the Tower. Mr. Marlowe had fallen ill, too. Some people said he was at death’s door. Others said no, it was his grandson who’d been most afflicted.

Finding it impossible to maintain her optimism in the face of these rumors, Willa dashed off a note to Miss Marlowe, asking if there was any way she might help. She hoped to receive a reassuring message in return.

Instead, Sir Lewis Radcliffe paid an unexpected morning call. He was as tall as Ben, but built more broadly, and he seemed to take up an inordinate amount of space in Cousin Sarah’s little sitting room.

His presence there unsettled Willa. He was almost a stranger, but he would someday be her father-in-law. She had absolutely no idea how to speak to him.

Fortunately, Sir Lewis was at no loss for words. “I wish I were the bearer of better news, my dear, but Benjamin is very, very sick. I have sent to London for a better physician, as I am not satisfied with the medical man my father-in-law employs.”

“No doubt there are physicians in London with far more learning,” Willa agreed. “His illness is very serious, then?” She cast a nervous glance toward her mother, whose look of dismay probably mirrored her own.

“If you mean, is Benjamin in grave danger, no.” Sir Lewis spoke slowly, apparently choosing his words with care. “But I do not like the fact that this is his second attack of severe dyspepsia. Nor do I like the way the attacks seem to worsen.”

Willa gulped. She had not thought of that. It did seem ominous. Did that mean Ben might get even more sick in the future?

Mama put a hand to her mouth. “Do you think it is something constitutional?” she whispered. “I have known people who suffer from life-long dyspepsia. It can make for a rather miserable life.”

“Indeed.” Sir Lewis sounded grim. “I certainly hope we are not dealing with anything like that.” He studied Willa for a moment. “Though, if that is the case, it would be better for you to find out now, Lady Wilhelmina.”

Willa wrinkled her forehead. Surely, he didn’t mean that she should break the engagement on account of Ben’s illness? What happened to “in sickness and in health”? She glanced towards her mother to gauge her reaction. To her surprise, her mother nodded in agreement.

“He is right, Wilhelmina. You would not wish to find yourself married to a perpetual invalid.” Mama smiled reassuringly. “But I am sure Mr. Radcliffe has no such problems, especially since he is not the only one in the family who has fallen ill. There must be some other cause for the illnesses.”

Such as what? It did not seem likely that tainted food was the problem since the gastric attacks had occurred several weeks apart. She could only hope that the London physician, when he arrived, would have a better theory.

*

When Ben was finally declared well enough for visitors, Willa called on him, bringing a book about the Sandwich Islands and a letter from her mother’s solicitor, outlining the progress that had been made on the settlements. Mr. Pritchard believed everything would be neatly tied up in time for a wedding at the beginning of July.

She found Ben sitting up in bed, a Paper Mache writing desk on his lap.

He eschewed traditional greetings in favor of exclaiming, “Willa! You’re never going to believe what Dr. Gladwell thinks is making me sick.”

“Does he blame your illness on food gone off?” Someone had placed a padded armchair beside the bed. Willa sat down, giving her skirt a surreptitious twitch to make it settle properly.

Ben’s face fell. “How did you guess?”

Willa shrugged. “Since you are not the only one experiencing the digestive upsets, it can’t be something constitutionally wrong with you.” Thank goodness for that! “And if it were a contagious disease like cholera, wouldn’t people outside of your household be getting sick, too?”

“That is exactly what he said.” Ben’s face brightened. “Did you know that you could think like a physician? I doubt most women can do that.”

Willa raised her eyebrows. Did he realize what he had just implied? “I am merely thinking logically! Despite the nonsense people utter about the ‘weaker sex,’ women are just as logical as men. And just as illogical, too, sometimes,” she admitted. “I don’t think my mind is all that different from any other woman’s.”

Ben looked unconvinced. “I suppose you would know better than I how women think. I am sorry if I offended you. I merely meant to compliment you on your reasoning.”

“It is not a compliment if it implies that others of my sex are in some way inferior. I do not think men and women differ much when it comes to powers of the mind. ‘Excellence is pretty fairly divided between the sexes,’” she quoted.

He frowned. “I don’t recognize that. What is it from?”

“ Northanger Abbey . Henry Tilney says that to Catherine when they talk about whether women write better letters than men.” She had always liked Henry’s answer much more than the false chivalry that praised women for supposedly feminine skills while denying their abilities in more important matters.

“Women are sometimes better at replying to letters than men are,” Ben pointed out. “But I suppose that is because they are encouraged to keep up a voluminous personal correspondence.”

“Precisely. I believe many of the differences between women and men come down to education and upbringing rather than nature.” What a comfort it was to be able to say things like that to Ben! In Willa’s experience, many gentlemen disliked having their supposed superiority challenged. But Ben’s thoughtful expression did not change.

“You may be right,” he granted. “It would be a difficult subject to investigate scientifically, though. Unless one decided to rear one’s sons and daughters identically and then see whether any of the supposedly natural differences still existed—”

Willa interrupted before he could become too invested in that idea. “I am not sure it is appropriate to use one’s children in a scientific experiment.”

“I suppose not.” A crooked smile slanted across his face. “But it would be even worse to experiment with someone else’s children, wouldn’t it?”

She put a hand to her mouth to conceal her own smile. “Very true,” she agreed. “But setting aside the morality of performing experiments on children, does the new doctor have any suggestions about how to avoid this illness?” At the moment, that seemed a far more pressing concern.

Ben grimaced. “Dr. Gladwell suggested that Grandfather fire Mrs. Kirby. She’s our cook,” he added, though Willa had guessed as much. “But she has worked here for over ten years, so it doesn’t make sense to blame her for the recent illnesses. If she were doing something wrong, people ought to have been sick before now.”

Willa nodded. She understood why Dr. Gladwell might blame the cook, but unless there were recent changes in how Mrs. Kirby managed the kitchen, that theory made little sense.

Ben leaned forward, resting his elbows on the writing desk. “ My guess is that someone is selling adulterated food or drink.”

She blinked. “Adulterated? How so?”

“Have you heard about the way people sometimes water down milk, then add chalk to make it look white?”

Willa wrinkled her nose. “Chalk? Ugh! Could that be what made you so sick?

He shook his head. “No, Dr. Gladwell says chalk would not irritate one’s digestive system that much. Believe me, I asked about it—not that I think our dairyman would do such a thing.”

“Oh, right. You probably get your milk from your own farm.” Probably most people who could afford to keep their own dairy cattle did. Willa had always assumed that keeping dairy cows was a matter of convenience and economy. It had never occurred to her that there might be health risks involved in buying milk from someone you could not trust.

But people in cities could not keep cattle. What, she wondered, happened to children who grew up drinking adulterated milk?

“Yes, precisely. But there are other substances more harmful than chalk that can be mixed into food. Dr. Gladwell mentioned that there have been tragic poisonings when someone mistook rat poison or weed killer for a cooking ingredient.”

Willa shuddered at the prospect of eating rat poison, but for some reason, Ben’s face brightened. “Dr. Gladwell was not able to answer all of my questions about common poisons, so I sent off to London for a treatise on toxicology,” he confided. “I hope it gets here next week.”

She pursed her lips, wondering why the possibility of poison excited him so much. Then she remembered that he liked complicated problems. He’d told her as much, weeks ago. It was why he’d first become interested in her phobia.

Ben might view this illness as an intellectual challenge, but to Willa, it was a real threat. What if the next attack proved fatal—if not to Ben, then to his aunt or grandfather? It had taken his aunt weeks to recover after her illness. So far as she knew, Mr. Marlowe was still very ill.

“Does Dr. Gladwell have any guesses about what substance could be making everyone sick?” she wondered.

Some of the light faded from Ben’s eyes. “He listed a few possibilities, but he says that without a sample of the contaminated food, there’s no way to determine what pollutant is involved.”

“He could take samples of all the food in the kitchen... I suppose that isn’t practical, is it?” Willa frowned as she thought about the problem. “Is there any way to narrow down which foods are most likely to have been tainted?”

“That is what I was working on before you showed up!” Ben handed her a sheet of paper with neatly labelled columns. “I am trying to list everything we ate the day before I fell sick. I will need Aunt Faith’s help, though, because I do not know what she and Grandfather ate.”

Indeed, the only one of the columns that had been filled out was the one under Ben’s own name. Willa’s mouth watered as she read over the list: rolls, butter, and tea with milk for breakfast; cold meat, bread, and cucumber salad at luncheon. The extensive dinner menu included fresh fish, a casseroled chicken, spring lamb with spring peas, and duckling with carrots and spring potatoes. The meal had been accompanied by both red wine and white wine and followed by port, cheese, and biscuits.

By the time she finished the list, Willa’s stomach was starting to rumble. She had to forcibly remind herself that something on this list had made Ben very, very sick. Apart from that, it all sounded quite appealing.

“Did your grandfather eat most of the same foods?” she wondered.

Ben shook his head. “He did not eat the lamb, because it was too fatty, nor the fish, because he was afraid it might not be fresh enough. I do not remember whether he ate all the other foods. But the servants would have finished off whatever we did not eat, so it is surprising that none of them are ill.”

She handed him back the list. “This is going to be an enormous task, isn’t it?” She felt tired merely thinking about all the people Ben would have to interrogate in order to figure out who ate what. And of course, most people wouldn’t remember what they ate after so much time had passed.

“Yes.” The lines in his forehead deepened as he looked over the list. “Even I cannot be sure whether I tasted everything on the menu. I usually dislike food cooked à la casserole , but I had to leave that dish on the list because I could not remember if I tasted it.”

“What do you have against chicken à la casserole ?” Willa thought it sounded delicious, but maybe that was only because she was hungry.

He shuddered. “I do not like foods that mix different textures. Except pies, I suppose. I like meat pies. But foods that have a layer of this and a layer of that, or that mix soft foods with firmer ones—they often bother me.” He pulled a rueful smile. “I know that probably sounds strange, but I have always been that way. Some foods simply do not feel good in my mouth.”

“Interesting.” She probably ought to write these kinds of preferences down, Willa thought absently. No point in having their future cook prepare food à la casserole if Ben never ate it! “And you ate nothing after dinner? No tea or coffee?”

“Hmm? No, I don’t think—oh, I had a cup of chocolate just before bed! Thank you for reminding me.” He scrawled that at the bottom of the list. “I remember asking Mrs. Kirby to use extra sugar. I was in the mood for something sweet that night.”

“Chocolate seems innocent enough,” Willa mused. “But it uses milk and sugar and spices. Any of those could have been adulterated.” She gnawed on her lip, and her stomach gurgled again. “I don’t suppose there are any biscuits in the kitchen?” she asked hopefully.

“Don’t eat anything here!”

Her jaw dropped. She had never heard Ben speak so sharply. “What on earth...?”

Ben ran a hand through his already-unruly hair. “Sorry. I did not mean to snap. But since we have no idea what might be making us sick, you should not eat anything from our kitchen. Just to be safe.”

Willa felt touched by his concern, though she hoped it was unnecessary. “I suppose you are right to worry.” Then a new idea struck her. “If I did get sick, that would help you figure out which food was contaminated, wouldn’t it? Maybe—”

“Absolutely not.” Perhaps he didn’t quite glare at her, but he came closer to glaring than she’d ever seen. “You must not experiment on yourself.”

She pretended to pout for a moment before giving in. “Very well. But that might mean I have to go home for my tea.”

“My aunt will probably kick you out of my room soon anyway,” he warned. “She thinks I am too ill for long visits. But will you come back to see me tomorrow?”

“Of course!” She leaned forward to brush a kiss against his cheek before she left.

On the way home, it occurred to her that though Ben was concerned for her safety, he might be tempted to experiment on himself. Next time she saw him, she must make him promise not to do so. He was by no means expendable.