Quickening

The following days fell into a pattern but one to which Quentin was not entirely averse. He rose early and spent a fretful hour at his desk, trying to get his three-volume novel off to a start before dressing for elevenses with the latest seemingly eligible young lady and her mother - for Aunt Fanny was keen to pursue her project of marrying her youngest nephew off - and, the visitors duly despatched and crossed off the list, he hurried out to the clearing for his daily practice with the stable boy. At first, relations between the two had been frosty for reasons Quentin was unable to fathom, but Francis soon thawed, taking full advantage of the opportunity to castigate and cajole the young master under the guise of tutelage.

“You seem distracted, nephew,” Aunt Fanny observed one morning as they waited for their guests. “You rub your wrist in quite a distracted manner. Have you incurred an injury in some way? Too much poetry, I expect.”

“I beg your pardon, Aunt. If you must know, it is quoits practice.”

Aunt Fanny was aghast. “That frightful, vulgar game! You shall end up with a forearm like a navvy’s! Really, Quentin, this will not do. And you appear to have caught the sun - your face is becoming as brown as a berry. No, I shall not have this. You are the son of a squire not some farmhand toiling in the noonday sun. You shall keep indoors until your natural pallor returns.”

“Forgive me, Aunt, but I shall not. The tournament is merely days away.”

“I see you are quite determined and I know your father wills it. But you must take precautions, at least. You may borrow my parasol. Birkworth may stand behind you to hold it.”

“Birkworth!”

“You take exception at Birkworth?”

“He is an altogether inestimable person, I am sure, but he would only get in the way of my tossing arm.”

Aunt Fanny gasped in dismay. “So vulgar! You are not to mention any of this when My Lady Shaver arrives. In fact, it were better you say nothing at all. It does not do for young men to prattle on so. A man who holds his tongue exudes an air of wisdom; a man who lets his flap freely is an insufferable boor.”

“Yes, Aunt.”

The inestimable person himself announced the arrival of Lady Shaver and her daughter, Miss Charlotte. Remarkable, thought Quentin: neither of them appears to be peculiar. Through that door had passed tall girls, short girls, emaciated girls, overfed girls, accompanied by their mothers, crone-like, matronly, loutish, and reserved as the case may be. But here was a couple of specimens that, at first glance, could pass for human.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Quentin bowed to peck the back of a laced-glove.

“I’m sure you are,” whispered Miss Shaver. She surprised and alarmed him with a wink of an eye as he straightened. “You have an impressive home,” she said aloud. “I would dearly love to see the grounds.”

The older women paused in their pleasantries to look at the girl. Aunt Fanny and Lady Shaver exchanged a look of self-satisfaction. Lady Shaver nodded graciously. Aunt Fanny smirked.

“Quentin, please afford Miss Shaver a turn of the garden. But do not go too far, mind you; Birkworth shall have tea ready presently.”

Before Quentin could respond, he found Miss Shaver’s arm linked in his and the young lady was steering him toward the French windows.

“Play along,” she urged in his ear. “I can’t wait to get out of here.”

Amazed, Quentin stumbled from the room. Miss Shaver pulled him across the patio and toward the topiaried hedges in their quadrangle. At a safe distance from the house, she released him and laughed.

“I detest these occasions, don’t you?”

Quentin opened his mouth but no words came out.

“You may relax, Master Quigley. I have no designs on you, however matters may appear.”

Quentin frowned.

“Mama’s been trying to marry me off for years,” Miss Shaver expanded. “She simply will not hold with me being a spinster - which is a fate worse than death, according to her.”

“You do not wish to be married?”

“Why, no! Not even a little bit. Do you?”

“Do you know, I don’t!”

Miss Shaver clapped. “I knew it. As soon as I laid eyes on you, I took you for a kindred spirit. We are not the marrying sort, you and I. We are made for each other!”

She twirled around on the spot with her head thrown back and her arms spread wide. Quentin was altogether baffled. She importuned him to do the same, taking his hands and running in circles. Within two minutes of her society, Quentin found he was laughing breathlessly and his heart was light.

Presently, they withdrew to a bench. “I think we shall be firm friends,” said Miss Shaver. “An alliance between us shall be unstoppable! Unbeatable!”

Quentin’s face clouded. “An alliance? Between us? What mean you?”

She leant toward him with a conspiratorial air. “Working together, we shall keep our respective old birds off our backs. As long as they think we are in concert, they will not seek to fit us up with whomever else they can find. I don’t know about your Aunt Fanny but my mother has scoured several counties around and has dredged up all sorts of creatures - O, you have no idea!”

“I believe I do,” said Quentin. “My aunt has been similarly diligent in her quest. Every day some new horror.”

Miss Shaver sat back. “You do not find me attractive, Master Quigley?”

“Not in the slightest. That is to say you are not unhandsome, Miss Shaver.”

“And you are by far the prettiest boy on whom I have ever laid eyes. But that is as far as my appreciation goes.”

“You have doubts then, of my character?”

“I know but little of your character but have I not already proclaimed that we were made for each other - in terms of friendship, merely. I believe my failings are your failings also, my shortcomings your shortcomings. Or am I mistaken?”

Quentin protested. “O, no, Miss Shaver! You are altogether correct. We are two of a kind and therefore unsuitable for marriage.”

“You may call me Lottie,” she grinned.

“And I am Quentin.”

Her eyebrows flew up. “You are pretentious and shallow! Quentin, indeed! I like you enormously.”

“And I like you a lot, Miss - Lottie. For how long shall we string out this charade?”

“For the rest of our lives - or for the rest of our guardians’ lives. Now, come; lead me down to the stream and back.”

“But,” Quentin looked wistfully at the house, “our tea shall be cold.”

“All the better to bolster our deception...” laughed Lottie, skipping away. “So mutual is our attraction, what care we if our tea becomes undrinkable?”

Quentin considered the notion and his grin broke out anew. He sprang from the bench and chased after this surprising and delightful young lady.

***

Aunt Fanny could not be happier. At dinner that evening she beamed at her nephew along the length of the table. She took his reluctance to eat anything as a sign of love, when in truth his wrist was aching so badly from practising with the metal quoits, he was unable to lift cutlery.

“Miss Shaver is a thoroughly charming young lady,” Aunt Fanny declared. “Not that I saw much of her, for you monopolised her company. And you need not worry about a thing, my dear nephew. All the arrangements shall be made. Why, we shall even find you a pair of shoes with augmented heels so that, at the altar, you-”

She broke off. “I mean no offence, of course. But you must own, the girl is a full head taller than you.”

“You mean to rush us into marriage, Aunt?”

“I see no reason for delay. Long engagements are tedious and allow too much time for doubt to sow its seeds. Lady Shaver and I are in complete agreement. We shall hold a ball next month - O, that we could arrange one sooner! - when your betrothal shall be formerly announced.”

Beneath his suntanned cheeks, Quentin paled. Things were moving too fast. A formal engagement was one thing, but this precipitous haste toward wedlock was most alarming. He would sound out Miss Shaver - Lottie - at their next meeting.

“But, Aunt, you move too quickly. I have only this day met the girl.”

“And I have never beheld two people more ideally suited!”

“But to be married, Aunt! It is too soon.”

“Stuff and nonsense, my boy! There is a month until the engagement party; more than ample time for you to propose. And then the wedding shall not be until the spring, or perhaps June. Yes, a June wedding were best. Everywhere looks so lovely in June.”

Quentin got to his feet and asked to be excused. “I am quite unwell, Aunt; I bid you give me leave to depart.”

Amused, Aunt Fanny dismissed him with a wave. As her nephew hurried from the dining room, she chuckled to herself. The boy was lovesick, no doubt. She thanked her lucky stars for the coming of Miss Charlotte Shaver.

***

Quentin paced in his room, his heart racing and his quickening breath swelling his ribcage. Panic was growing inside him as well as a creeping sense of dread. Matters were slipping out of his control.

He longed to speak to the doctor about it but he had not so much as glimpsed the physician since their encounter in the clearing. To consult him in the office was unthinkable, even to ask for some kind of ease for his aching wrist. That would be a sign of weakness and Quentin was concerned that the doctor’s opinion of him was already lower than he would have liked. They were rivals for the same prize, the doctor and he. No, there could be no discourse until after the championship, which was only two short days away.

He would seek out Francis and demand longer practice sessions. Throwing himself into quoits would distract his mind from his impending doom, and distraction was as good as talking things through, for speaking to the stable boy on private matters was as likely as consulting his horse.

He sat at the desk and picked up a quill. It hurt his hand to hold it so he threw it across the room. Even the consolation of literature was denied him, it seemed! O, my neglected three-volume novel! Shall I ever see you finished? Or even begun?

***

“It was the best of things, it was the worst of things-”

Quentin screwed up the paper and cast it to the floor. Not only was his handwriting made nigh on eligible by the pain in his wrist but the muse was stubbornly refusing to visit his barren imagination. His stomach rumbled; hunger drove him from the desk to seek out Birkworth for bread and cheese. He wanted something he could eat without knife and fork, in the privacy of his own room. The butler brought the provisions and withdrew, mute as ever. Quentin tore off a chunk of bread with his teeth and wolfed it down. The sooner the infernal competition was over and done with, the better. Confounded quoits! They are the bane of my life.

Next to Aunt Fanny, of course. She had arranged elevenses again: Lady Shaver and she had much to discuss, apparently, and therefore Quentin must entertain Miss Shaver in the garden.

“You two run along,” Aunt Fanny beamed, like a cat that had found the key to the creamery. “You must explore every inch, my dear.”

“Of the grounds, Aunt?”

“Go. I shall have Birkworth serve your tea on the patio, for I am certain you two don’t want us old biddies getting in your way.”

Lady Shaver simpered. She looked at her daughter with an imploring look that Quentin could not quite decipher. Out in the garden, Miss Shaver explained.

“My mother is anxious that I do not allow another beau to slip from my grasp. She is fearful that I shall end up alone and unwed.”

“My aunt shares that terror. Although why it should concern her so nearly, I cannot imagine. It is not as though I am heir to the estate - you were not labouring under that assumption?”

“Oh, no! Not at all. Besides, my own inheritance is more than enough to power a small nation.”

“We are to be engaged; have you heard?”

“Splendid! O, do you not see, Quentin? An engagement would take us both off the market.”

“And a wedding?”

“It may not come to that. Mama is older than she looks and I am sure the good lady, your aunt, is less than immortal.”

Quentin grimaced. Aunt Fanny seemed to him the kind of natural phenomenon that endured, whatever cataclysm the world might throw at it.

“But being married to me would not be so unspeakably awful, I promise you,” she linked his arm and they strolled beneath a leafy bower. “I would leave you quite to your own devices, so long as you leave me to mine.”

“And children? Children are to be expected from any union between man and woman.”

“Some women are barren,” she shrugged. “I expect I shall be, also. Really, there is nothing to fear. To the outside world, we should be a happy pair, the envy of our neighbours, but behind closed door nothing more intimate shall pass between us than the occasional game of cards - or quoits, if you prefer!” She laughed to see him grimace.

“Come the day after tomorrow and I shall never play that accursed game again,” he said bitterly.

“So why play at all?”

“I told my father I would.”

“O, the things we do for our parents! They call it duty but it is little more than suffocation. We submit to their wishes until our wishes are quite strangled from us, and we become like them, wish-stranglers and suffocators of the next generation.”

“But there shall be no next generation...”

“Not of our creation, no! The circle shall be broken and we shall have happy lives.”

“Is it possible?”

“It is our destiny. We are doomed to happiness; I hope your constitution may withstand it.”

“I shall be valiant in my attempt to do so.”

Laughing, arm in arm, the young couple skipped along the path.

***

“You must inform your father of these events,” Aunt Fanny grinned, after the Shavers had left. “He will be thrilled.”

Quentin’s reluctance made itself visible in his pout. “I do not wish to overexcite him, Aunt; Doctor Goodhead would not like it.”

“O, doctors!” sneered Aunt Fanny. “That fool wished to have your father walked around the patio twice a day. I caught Birkworth lifting him from his bed. I almost dismissed the man from our service on the spot. Bed rest is what is necessary. Your father must remain where he is for the foreseeable future.”

“He shall want to attend the quoits tournament,” cried Quentin. “He shall want to see me win.”

Aunt Fanny looked thoroughly bemused. “O, it is quite out of the question. And as for you winning!” she cackled openly. “Don’t be absurd!”

Quentin turned red. A confession bubbled behind his lips but he kept them clamped shut. He wanted to say his aunt was mistaken: there was nothing between him and the Shaver girl and nor would there ever be - but self-preservation stayed his tongue. He did not want to be subjected to another parade of hopeful young horrors.

“The outcome is not a foregone conclusion, I grant you,” he nodded curtly. “But I shall seek not to let down the family honour.”

Aunt Fanny was beside herself with amusement. She held her corseted sides and gasped for breath between howls of laughter. Quentin left her to her mirth, in the hope that it would choke her.

His bad mood persisted into quoits practice with Francis.

“That peg is my aunt’s neck,” he said grimly, “and this quoit the noose.” He tossed and was successful.

“The woman is as good as dead,” said Francis. “Keep her in mind and you shall sail through to the final round.”

“Do you think so?”

“I do think so, yes.”

“Then it shall all be down to you.”

“A man may train a greyhound but it is down to the dog to run the race.”

“Did my father teach you that as well?”

“It just occurred to me, right then!”

“Really?” Quentin’s eyes narrowed. He did not like the idea of a rough-handed stable boy having a facility with words. He tossed a second quoit. It glanced from the tip of the peg and fell shy.

“Concentrate!” Francis urged. “The spectators will be calling out and doing all sorts in order to distract you. They will have money on your opponents.”

“The disloyalty!” Quentin gasped. “I hope they lose their shirts.”

“I could lose mine,” Francis offered. “It is warm out here.”

“You will stay decently attired,” Quentin warned him. “You have rolled up your sleeves; let that suffice.”

Francis laughed. “You really are anxious about the silliest things.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Quentin dropped the quoits. They clanged on the toe of his boot. He limped away from the clearing, ignoring the stable boy’s cries to return and finish the practice.

***

The night before the tournament was a sleepless one for Quentin. Morpheus, it transpired, was withholding his affection and keeping his arms to himself. Quentin lay in bed, going over the afternoon’s practice session repeatedly. He had barely missed a single throw, thereby almost achieving the maximum possible score. If he could repeat the feat at least once during one of his matches, the trophy must surely be his, and the family name would continue un-besmirched - for another year at least - as far as quoits were concerned, at any rate.

If only I could rest, he wailed inwardly! He rolled over onto his arm. His tender wrist ached in protest so he rolled over onto his back again. He closed his eyes in the hope that sleep would come but there arose in his mind’s eye an image of Doctor Goodhead rolling up his shirtsleeves and preparing to toss. A worthy opponent, to be sure. To face him in the final was a consummation devoutly to be wished, not least because it would meant Quentin would have to spend time in proximity to the man. What a challenge that would be! To keep my mind focussed on the game, on one ring at a time! No, I shall be remarkably aloof, as if we were strangers and he the most unhandsome man in the county.

A quiet tap at the window aroused him. He listened carefully. It came again. And, after a brief interval, it happened a third time. The devil take it! Someone was throwing pieces of gravel at the windowpane!

Quentin swung his legs out of bed and, rising, moved to open the window. A handful of grit sprayed in his face.

“Who’s there?” he cried into the night, for whoever it was had brought no lantern.

“Keep your voice down!” a harsh whisper replied. “It is I!”

“Who? Be off, whoever you are!”

He moved to close the window but another salvo of gravel stayed him.

“I’m warning you,” he called out. “This has got to stop.”

“Come down!” urged the whisper.

“If that’s you, Francis, you can forget it,” Quentin hissed back.

“O, for pity’s sake...” The whisper filled and deepened into the voice of a grown man. “It’s me, you dolt. It’s your brother! Roderick!”

Quentin’s eyes widened so much he thought they might drop from their sockets. He slipped on his slippers and pulled a robe around his nightshirt before returning to the window once more. “I’ll come down,” he cried. “Roderick?”

Deep in the shadows in a corner of the garden, Roderick Quigley slapped a hand to his face and muttered an invocation to the deity to award him strength.

***

Quentin came out of the house and scoured the garden without success until, nearing the stable yard, his elbow was caught by a strong hand and he was pulled into the shadows. Quentin gasped involuntarily and a second hand clamped over his mouth. He tried to recoil but his brother’s grip was too firm.

“Quiet, you little fool!” eyes and teeth flashed under a cowl. “Does anyone know you are out here?”

Quentin shook his head.

“I shall take my hand away and we shall converse like gentlemen,” said Roderick, “if you promise me you will not squeal like a stuck piglet the second you are released.”

Quentin nodded, his eyes round and, he hoped, sincere. Roderick let him go but stood in the way between Quentin and the path to the house

“Good.”

“Rodders, this is most peculiar. Why did you not come to the door and at a more sociable hour?”

“Quiet!”

Quentin flinched.

“I’m not here to hurt you, brother.”

“You received my letter, then.”

“What letter?”

“The letter I wrote you.”

“You wrote me a letter?”

“Yes!”

“When?”

“A week ago.”

“I got no letter. Where did you send it?”

“To your local post office.”

“Oh, I have moved on from there.”

“Oh.”

“Listen, I did not come here to talk about the postal service. I need something from you, brother. Will you give it?”

“Why, yes, of course! Depending on what it is.”

“I want your horse.”

“Satan!”

“I’ve been called worse names before now, but will you give me your horse or no?”

“That’s his name: Satan. It’s driving Aunt Fanny mad.” Quentin giggled. Roderick stepped closer.

“Aunt Fanny is here?” he breathed. Quentin tried not to grimace.

“Yes, I told you in the letter.”

“Which I never received.”

“Ah.”

“There is no time to lose. Come!” He dragged Quentin toward the stables.

“Rodders, what is this all about?”

“Not now, Q; you must keep this little visit between us.”

“Entre nous!”

“O God, you’ve caught the French fad. Which is yours?”

The horses were dozing in their stalls, save for Satan in his, pawing at the dirt floor with a front hoof.

“The black at the end,” said Quentin. “You’re taking him now?”

“Like I said: no time. Go back to bed; there’s a good fellow.”

“But I thought - I thought you had come back to see Father.”

“Why? What’s the matter with him?”

“Nothing! Well, he has put his back out. I am to take his place in the quoits tournament tomorrow - O, you must come! You must come and see me win.”

“Fancy your chances, do you?”

“I’ve been working very hard. There’s a fool of a doctor who needs taking down a peg.”

But Roderick was not listening. He unhooked the latch of Satan’s stall. The stallion snorted and inched backwards. “Easy, boy, easy,” Roderick spoke softly. Satan snorted again and stamped the floor.

“What’s going on here?” cried a voice. It was Francis; he was holding a lantern in one hand and a sickle in the other. “Horse thieves!”

“No, you oaf,” said Quentin. “It’s only me and my-”

“Quiet!” roared Roderick. Satan reared up, his front legs lashing out. “Easy, Satan! Easy!” Roderick cried. He managed to hurl himself out of the way as Satan stormed from the stall, kicking out in all directions. Quentin gave a shout and Francis steered him aside. The stable boy whistled softly, in a bid to calm the horse.

Suddenly, Roderick leapt onto the stallion’s back and dug his heels into the animal’s flanks. “Yah, Satan!” he urged. The horse bolted from the stable, bearing his rider, bareback, into the night.

“Who was that?” said Francis. He put down his lantern and offered a hand to help the young master from the floor.

“Satan kicked me,” Quentin was incredulous. He cradled his forearm against his chest. In the lamplight, his face was pale and glistened with a sheen of sweat.

“Are you all right, sir?” Francis’s face was a mask of concern.

“It’s my arm,” Quentin’s lip trembled. “My tossing arm. It’s broken!”

***

By this time, half the household had been roused from their beds. Birkworth, in full livery, appeared in the stable doorway brandishing a flintlock pistol.

“It’s the young master!” cried Francis.

“Oh, is that all?” Birkworth relaxed. “What is the rapscallion up to this time?”

Secluded in Satan’s vacated stall, Quentin frowned to hear himself so described. Rapscallion, indeed! He was about to get to his feet and remonstrate with the retainer when the pain in his arm made him swoon.

“He’s took his horse out for a midnight ride,” said Francis.

“Whither?”

“On a night as cold as this, he most likely will.”

What is that fool of a stable boy blithering on about, Quentin wondered in a delirium of pain, almost certain he had not ridden off anywhere.

“Probably gone off to see that young lady of his,” Francis added with a leer. Quentin was infuriated by the insinuation. “Some kind of tryst or something.”

“Oh, really?” Birkworth sounded far from convinced. Quentin was gratified to hear that the butler could not believe the young master would do anything of the sort.

“You go back to bed, Mr Birkworth, and I’ll wait up for the - what did you call him? - scallywag.”

“Rapscallion,” said Birkworth coldly. “Very well. It is most probably pre-match nerves. The young master is most likely letting off steam. Goodnight, Francis.”

“Goodnight, sir.”

A moment passed before Francis joined Quentin in the stall.

“What’s all this about me riding off on a midnight tryst? I’ve never heard such barefaced lies.”

“Well, sir, I thought it a better story that you got hurt out riding in the dark rather than telling the truth of how you let that rough fellow have your horse.”

Quentin opened his mouth and closed it again. Damn it but the stable boy had a point. Roderick had demanded secrecy.

“Let’s have a squint at it.” The stable boy reached for the injured limb but Quentin shrank back.

“Pardon me but you shall not have a squint at anything. I require a physician. You must summon Doctor Goodhead.”

A smile spread on Quentin’s lips. To be under the doctor’s tender ministrations...

“I don’t want to do that, sir.”

Quentin’s smile dropped. “What mean you by that?”

“Think about it, sir: if the doctor comes he’ll know you’ve got a broken arm, sir.”

“Why, yes. The doctor is an astute fellow; I am sure it would not escape his notice.”

“What I mean, sir, is he’ll know you can’t take part in the quoits, sir. Bang goes the family honour, sir.”

“Hang the family honour! I am in pain, man!”

“Yes, yes; I’ll see to that in a minute, sir. A plan is in my mind, sir. A stratagem, you might say.”

“And I believe I shall pass out at any second.”

“Stay with me, sir! Just a moment longer. What if I were to take your place, sir?”

“I’m all for that. You may lie here with a broken bone and I’ll jump up and spout nonsense.”

“I mean in the quoits, sir. We’re about the same height and build, sir, give or take. I could wear a cloak. And a wig!”

“I’ve never heard anything so preposterous. You pass for me? Ahh...” He winced as the pain coursed through him anew.

“It’ll work, sir. I shall fashion it so no one will know it is me, sir. Now, hold still while I affix a splint.”

Quentin’s response was stifled by the handle of Francis’s sickle, which the stable boy jammed between the young master’s teeth before wrenching the afflicted limb straight along a length of wood.

***

Francis helped Quentin back to the house and up to his room. Perched on the bed with his arm strapped at a right angle like half a scarecrow, Quentin asked if the stable boy had much experience in the setting of broken bones. Francis looked askance and blushed as he admitted in that regard to horses, they just shoot them between the eyes.

Quentin was aghast but he supposed he should be grateful for small mercies.

“You must keep still, sir,” Francis counselled. “Try not to move.”

“I know how to keep still!” Quentin complained. “But I still think this is a terrible idea; it will never work.”

Francis threw wide the doors of Quentin’s armoire.

“What are you doing?”

“Got to look the part, don’t I, sir?”

Perspiring and irritable from the pain, Quentin sat back against the pillows. “Preposterous,” he muttered. “You will never pass for me.”

“Oh, I don’t know, sir.” Francis reached a floor-length cloak around his shoulders and made it swirl in dramatic fashion. “I think it suits me down to the ground. And here-”

He pulled out a battered, three-cornered hat and put it on. It cast most of his face into shadow. “What do you reckon, sir?” He essayed a few experimental sashays around the room. “Am I not the spit of you? Sir?”

But Quentin was insensible, having passed out completely.