The Summer Before the War (11 page)

“Miss Nash?” Further inquiry stuck in his throat.

“I fell off my bicycle,” she said. “Rather a nasty tumble into a ditch.”

Hugh was careful to hide his relief. “Are you hurt?” he asked. Bones and blood he could bind up.

“My ankle,” she said. “I don't think it's broken, but it took a blow. I was afraid if I took off my boot I would not be able to get it on again.” She smiled, but her face was pale and he had an urge to gather her up like a bird with a broken wing.

“I'm going to carry you to the trap,” he said. “And once we have you settled, the boot needs to come off.”

“I think I can hobble,” she said, looking alarmed at his offer.

“I think not, given that the ankle is not yet examined,” he said. Speaking with authority came easily to him in the cottages of farm laborers, but not so smoothly in the face of this young woman's skeptical gaze. “Now do be sensible,” he begged.

As he hesitated, looking for the most efficient way to thrust an arm under her legs and another around her waist, she wrapped her skirt more closely about her legs, to subdue its volume, and cleared her throat. “I am not the tiniest of women to carry,” she said.

“And I am not the world's strongest man,” he said. “But I think I can manage to stagger a few yards.” With that he bent at the knees and gathered her up. The ribbing of her stays pressed into his flesh, and he could feel her back warm against his arm. She was not heavy as long as he pressed her close. He could feel her arms around his neck and smell the faint odor of soap under the more vivid scent of dirt and wildflowers. He resisted an unlikely urge to drop his head to her hair.

“My goodness, what on earth happened?” said his aunt as they approached the trap.

“Hurt an ankle,” said Hugh. His aunt gave him a sharp look, and he might have blushed but he was fully engaged in trying to figure out how to help Beatrice into the rear bench seat of a trap that had never looked higher off the ground. It required at least two good feet to step up. “Hold the horse steady, please.”

“However will we manage?” asked Beatrice. “I think you'd better put me down.”

“No, no,” said Hugh. “Just be ready with your left foot. I'm going to step up and sort of launch you upwards.” He stared with grim focus at the small, smooth iron step, no bigger than a child's foot, which protruded from the rear of the trap, and tried not to think of them both falling hard into the road should the horse move at the wrong moment.

“It is times like these that one regrets not owning a landau,” said Agatha. “Do be careful, Hugh.”

“Yes, do be careful, Hugh,” said Beatrice, and she was laughing, and Hugh was so delighted to hear her call him by his name that he almost lost his footing as he made the upward leap. In a rush of petticoats and a small squeak of pain, Beatrice was deposited on the hard bench, clutching for the railing as Hugh fell away and managed to land without twisting an ankle himself.

“I think we should push on to Little Hollow and get some cold spring water on that foot,” said Agatha, looking back from the front seat. “Does it hurt much?”

“I'm not sure that's a good idea,” said Hugh, who was now lashing the twisted bicycle to the rear of the trap with a spare leading rope. “They don't welcome strangers.”

“On the contrary, Hugh,” his aunt said. “I believe it would be taken as a sign of trust if we ask for help. This is our opportunity to show Maria Stokes that we value her knowledge.”

“But do you wish to shock Miss Nash with such an encounter?” asked Hugh.

“Miss Nash is a well-traveled and stouthearted woman and will not go into hysterics over meeting a few Gypsies,” said his aunt, but Hugh, climbing up to take the reins, noticed she eyed Beatrice with care for any sign of distaste.

“No indeed,” said Beatrice. She looked a little concerned, but not as much as he'd feared. Either she was an exceptional young woman or she had faith in his aunt's good judgment.

“On Wednesdays I do my sick visiting,” said Agatha as the trap began to move again. “Dr. Lawton likes me to stop in quietly on some of his more delicate or difficult patients.”

“He's saving them from the Ladies' Church Auxiliary,” said Hugh. “He told me so quite plainly.”

“It's true that some cases are too delicate to receive the full delegation of ladies,” said Agatha. “But they do good work and are not to be mocked, Hugh.”

“Last summer, Mrs. Fothergill gave her prune jam to a dysentery patient and nearly killed him,” Hugh said with a laugh.

“It might have been the bedside lecture rather than the jam,” said Agatha in an equable tone. “But without such visits, many a sickly child would go without beef tea and milk pudding.”

“My aunt is ever the diplomat,” said Hugh. “When she knows you better she will tell you tales to stand your hair on end.”

“Dr. Lawton has been visiting old Maria Stokes for several years,” said Agatha. “She is considered a healer among Romanies in the county, and Dr. Lawton sometimes asks me to bring her supplies. They don't trust most people.”

“Dr. Lawton is the only doctor for miles who will come to them,” said Hugh. “And none of the other ladies would stoop to visit.” The small clan of Romanies showed up reliably every summer to camp in Little Hollow and work the various harvests, beginning with strawberries and ending with the hops. Then they left as quietly as they came, and Hugh had often wondered why no one seemed to know what paths they took, or to what distant parts they traveled.

“The farmers could not do without their help,” said Agatha. “But most of the town treats them like thieves and vagabonds.”

“You do not think them thieves?” asked Beatrice.

“Dr. Lawton jokes that the Stokeses' annual arrival is the start of the poaching season for locals,” said Hugh. “He says when they start blaming a Gypsy you can be sure they have a rabbit stuffed down each trouser leg.”

“Hugh!” said Agatha. “There's no need to be crude.”

“Sorry,” said Hugh.

“The truth is that I would not leave my silver lying about when any stranger comes selling heather at the back door,” said Agatha. “But they are no less Christian than Bettina Fothergill, and Maria Stokes is a particularly impressive woman. Were she not a Romany she would have made a fine district nurse.”

Little Hollow was well hidden from the road by a slight fold in the cliffs from which the road turned away. Beatrice noticed that Hugh had some difficulty finding the narrow dirt path and coaxing the nervous horse between thick trees and undergrowth. In a small clearing, two lean dogs emerged barking from under a dark wooden caravan with a black tar roof. A shaggy horse tethered to a long rope looked sideways from one large eye but did not bother to take his mouth from the long grass. The old woman sitting on the caravan steps was as wizened as a dried apple and, though the day was hot, was wrapped in several shawls. Yet her hands were swiftly stripping lavender buds from their stalks into her apron while her eyes, squinting from the smoke of a black pipe, met Beatrice's with a piercing stare. Nearby, an iron pot sat on a tripod above a small, smoky fire and a small child slept on a straw pallet under a primitive tent of canvas draped over bent tree branches. Further down the path, a glimpse of another caravan roof and the smoke of another fire indicated others were nearby.

Calling the dogs to heel by some strange word, the old woman carefully shook the contents of her apron into a basket and stepped forward to meet them as Hugh helped his aunt down from the trap.

“Good day, Mrs. Stokes,” said Agatha. “How is the poor child?”

“Middlin' fair,” said Mrs. Stokes. She looked pointedly up at Beatrice.

“Glad to hear it,” said Agatha. “I have brought you some of my cook's best junket and some beef jelly.” Mrs. Stokes said nothing but continued to stare at Beatrice in silence.

“We rescued our young friend, Miss Nash, along our way,” Agatha continued. Beatrice thought she detected a note of uncertainty in Agatha's voice, as if she were conscious that bringing Beatrice might undo some delicate relationship. “She fell off a bicycle and banged her ankle quite severely.”

“We would be grateful for your assistance,” said Hugh. “I want to get the swelling down and we are far from home.”

“Best be setting her down then,” said Mrs. Stokes. She pointed at a fallen log set beside the caravan. It was covered with a thin cotton rag rug, the colors almost washed and beaten out of it. “I'll have the boy see to the horse.” With that she set off towards her caravan without a backward glance. Agatha was left to hoist the baskets of food, and Beatrice had to submit once again to the less than dignified operation of being lifted down from the trap and carried by Hugh.

The ankle's throb had merged into a continuous ache, and Beatrice felt her boot like a vise squeezing at the leg. She sat down and bent to undo the long rows of laces, but her ankle was so swollen that the pressure of her fingers on the tight knot made her flinch.

“It hurts,” she whispered.

“The boot needs to come off,” said Hugh. “Aunt Agatha, hold her comfortably please and I'll do it.” Agatha sat on the log beside her, and Beatrice felt the pressure of her enfolding arms.

“I've got you,” she said. As Beatrice turned her face, like a child, into Agatha's broad bosom, she could not hold back a sudden welling of tears. She could only hope they would think it from the pain and not the exquisite and almost forgotten sensation of being held. It had been so long since her father's last embrace, reduced to a tentative stroking of her hair, his hands papery and blue-veined. In the months since his death, she now understood, she had enjoyed no human touch beyond the occasional shaking of gloved hands.

Agatha supported her while Hugh, with no thought for his clothes, sat cross-legged on the ground and took her foot gently across his lap, stripping off his driving gloves to work the stubborn leather laces through their tiny brass grommets. Beatrice felt pain and then relief as, inch by inch, the boot released its grip from her flesh.

“I'm going to manipulate the foot now to make sure it is not broken,” said Hugh. His voice was low and kind. She could feel his warm fingers through her thin lisle stockings, pressing gently as he moved her foot slowly in multiple directions. “I don't think it's broken.”

“We'll be needing to get that stocking off,” said Maria Stokes, coming back with a boy who carried two large buckets of water on a yoke as if they weighed nothing. The lean dogs gave him a raucous welcome, and Beatrice recognized, with some shock, that it was Snout, the boy she was to tutor. He seemed not at all pleased to see her. He set down the buckets hard enough to make the water slop.

“I'll want to look at the bruise before we bind it up,” said Hugh.

“I'm sure you will,” said Maria Stokes in a way that made young Snout grin and Hugh Grange turn red.

“Well, perhaps if Snout will see to the horse, I should check on the child,” said Hugh. He handed the boy a coin, and Snout whistled to the dogs and slopped away to the trap with one of the buckets.

Beatrice soaked her foot in the cold spring water and drank strong, hot tea out of a porcelain cup and saucer which, though of florid design, were edged thickly with gold and obviously costly. Maria Stokes preferred to drink from a large tin mug she kept at her belt. When the tea was done, the ankle was examined in Maria Stokes's rough hands and pronounced to be only badly bruised.

“I got a salve for that if 'ee care to take it,” she said.

“Oh, I'm sure…” began Beatrice.

“That would be most kind,” said Hugh, as he returned to them and peered at the ankle from a respectable distance. “Mrs. Stokes is famous for her remedies.” And so Maria Stokes produced from her caravan a small wax-sealed jar of a thick, pine-scented salve, spread it liberally on Beatrice's rapidly darkening bruise, and covered it in tidy fashion with rough strips of linen bandage.

“It's quite pungent,” said Hugh, who peered with a frown of professional interest at Maria's ministrations. “Do I smell rosemary?”

“Maybe you do,” said Maria. “Be sure to use it dawn and dusk,” she added to Beatrice.

“For how long?” asked Beatrice.

“When the jar be empty you'd best stop,” said Maria. “And it be good luck to return the jar wi' something in it.”

“Thank you,” said Beatrice.

“How d'you find the babe?” Maria asked Hugh.

“Much improved,” he said. “The lungs sound quite clear now. I think with rest and careful diet he'll be running around in a week.”

“Thank 'ee,” she said. “I'm afeared of nothing except when the children get the fever in the lungs, and then I go all to pieces with worry. Tell the doctor I'm grateful he came out.”

“I will.”

“And thank 'ee, ma'am, for coming,” she added, pressing Agatha's hands. “Precious few ladies would put themselves out for a child o' ours, and us don't forget.”

“We must thank you for helping our young friend,” said Agatha.

“The boy can go back with you and take the machine to his father if you like, miss,” said Maria.

“Oh, I'm sure it's too much bother,” said Beatrice, in a hasty manner she hoped would not betray her reluctance.

“No trouble, miss,” said Snout. “Bicycle is going to need some hammering out and a new chain.”

“Save 'im a long walk if you've no objection to my great-grandson on your step,” added Mrs. Stokes.

“That's settled then,” said Agatha smoothly. “Mr. Sidley is the very best in all mechanical repairs.”

The rooftops of Rye were ahead of them, the sun indicating the lateness of the afternoon, and Beatrice's head nodding with exhaustion when Hugh stopped the trap in a small turning before the river. Snout hopped down from his precarious perch on the rear step and untied the bicycle.