ANN
“You are Benedict?” Hugh asked a red-faced little sprite curled in his mother’s lap.
Mother and child occupied a rocking chair in a cozy, tidy parlor. A braided rug covered most of the floor, dried lavender scented the air, and a painting of a whitewashed manor on a windswept shore hung over the mantel. Mr. Purvis, a more imposing specimen than even Hadley, loomed in the doorway with another small boy tucked against his side. Father and son wore identical expressions of concern, though the father’s hand on his son’s dark hair was gentle.
Benedict mumbled an affirmative to Hugh’s question. The child was not crying at the moment, but clearly, masculine dignity alone prevented him from that indulgence before strangers. He clutched the edge of his mother’s shawl with his right hand, working the material between his thumb and forefinger.
“I am St. Sevier,” my husband replied, kneeling to address the boy at eye level. “I am a doctor, and I particularly enjoy fixing up little boys who’ve perhaps taken a tumble from a tree. Show me your teeth, Benedict.”
Benedict looked puzzled, but obliged with a ferocious grin.
“You suck your thumb?” Hugh asked.
Both mother and child nodded.
“The left thumb, I presume, is your favorite, but you are not sucking that thumb now. Has your wondrously delicious left thumb acquired a sour taste?”
What on earth was Hugh going on about? Mrs. Purvis’s expression suggested she had the same question. She was a sturdy, dark-haired woman with pretty features and worried eyes.
Benedict shook his head. His left thumb was apparently as delicious as ever.
“Then might I suggest,”—Hugh rose and pulled a hassock over next to Mrs. Purvis’s rocking chair—“that your elbow refuses to oblige your desire to bend it?”
“You talk funny.”
Hugh sat upon the hassock and appeared to ponder Benedict’s observation. “Do you refer to mon accent français, or to my medical diagnosis of your ailing arm?”
“You sound like Mama, but you also talk fancy.”
“Your mother hails from an island very close to the coast of France, and her first language was probably Jèrriais. This is a very old tongue, spoken by queens and kings in days gone by.”
“She speaks the Jèrriais to Papa when he’s been naughty.”
This earned Benedict a passing brush of his mother’s fingers over his bangs. “I’ll speak it to you, Benedict Purvis, if you are not respectful of Monsieur St. Sevier.”
A look passed between Mr. and Mrs. Purvis, a dash of humor with a mutual exchange of parental fortification. That glance made my heart ache, for it spoke of years shared raising lively children, worrying over them, praying nightly for their welfare, and scolding them while trying not to laugh at their antics.
Hugh and I had missed sharing those years, or sharing many of them.
“My hands will have a little talk with your arm now,” Hugh said, “but I promise I will not make the pain worse. Can you allow this?”
Benedict left off twiddling his mother’s shawl to consider the request. “It hurts dreadful, monsieur. You’ll be careful?”
“Absolument. I will exercise the greatest delicacy in my inquiries.”
Benedict held out a sturdy little arm. “It hurts even if I just make a fist.”
“Don’t worry about that now,” Mr. Purvis rumbled from the doorway. “Many a lad breaks his arm, and it heals good as new.” Mr. Purvis hailed from the Scottish Lowlands based on his vowels and intonation. Peeblesshire was my first guest.
Hugh slowly explored Benedict’s wrist, then his forearm. When he got to the elbow, he went very gingerly. “The arm is not broken, though a hairline fracture is remotely possible. The elbow has been partly disarranged, a subluxation, as the physicians say. I suspect a ligament is caught between the bones of the joint. In small children, the ligaments are more flexible than in adults, and mishaps such as Benedict has suffered can occur all too easily.”
“Can ye fix it?” Mr. Purvis asked.
Hugh gazed directly at Benedict. “The solution requires the patient to be very brave, I’m afraid, and very loud.”
“I’m loud,” Benedict said, sitting up on his mother’s lap.
“You’re brave too,” Mr. Purvis said. “Too damned brave sometimes. The Lord saved the most troublesome for last, after Missus and I had acquired plenty of experience and bravery of our own.”
“The louder the better,” Hugh went on. “Madame, if you would oblige me?” He held out a hand, indicating I was to join him on his hassock. I managed, though I had no idea what he was up to.
“I will take your arm like so, Benedict,” he said, possessing himself of my limb, “and move it thus.” He straightened my arm, then bent it upward at the elbow, turning my hand as he did. “We will count—in French—and on three, my young friend, you will yell so loudly that your mama’s people on the Isle of Jersey can hear you. Oui? Everybody else, hold your ears. The roar will be deafening. A true Highland battle cry.”
I dutifully put my hands over my ears, as did Mr. Purvis and his other son. Mrs. Purvis kept a prudent hold of her youngest.
“On three, then,” Hugh said, cradling Benedict’s elbow in one hand and grasping his little paw with the other. “Un, deux, trois…”
When he reached three, he maneuvered Benedict’s arm as demonstrated, and Benedict let loose with a yell that doubtless reverberated across the village green.
“That,” said Hugh gravely, “was a very fine bellow. Much louder than I expected, and now you must listen to me.”
“That hurt,” Benedict said, rubbing his elbow and making a face.
“And soon it will feel better, but you must curb your activities for a time.”
“Does that mean I have to stay in the house?” Prisoners sentenced to transportation used the same tone to describe their unjust fate.
“Non. Here is the situation. God made children flexible. This is wonderful for bouncing around on ponies, scrambling over walls, or leaping about in the haymow. When unexpected force or torsion—twisting—is put on a child’s joints, though, those joints are more likely to be dislocated. If your oldest brother were to swing you about by your hands, for example, your elbow might pop out of alignment again. If your mama were to help you up from the floor by grabbing your right hand, then that elbow might end up hurting as your left one has. The force needed is not great, but if the angle is just so, we have the sore elbow again.”
“I think this happened to one of my cousins,” Mrs. Purvis said. “She was quite small, and we were playing a game, running with our hands joined. She was on the end of the line, the smallest of the lot, and we swung her around a turn. She was screaming in the next instant.”
“Was she as loud as me?”
“As loud as I,” Mrs. Purvis said, again smoothing her hand over Benedict’s bangs. “I daresay she was. Though not as brave.”
Benedict hopped off his mother’s lap. “I’m not to climb trees?”
The little imp would be climbing everything but trees if Hugh said yes. “You are to be careful,” I said. “Sudden force to your hand or wrist, anything that twists or pulls, and we’ll be hearing your mighty bellow again.”
“Listen to madame,” Hugh said. “When you are a little older, your joints will be more reliable. For the next year or so, you must have a care. My ears will not take the strain of another of your roars.”
“Can I go now?”
Mr. Purvis ambled into the room. “Aye, lad, but mind the doctor, or you’ll never be fit for the forge.”
That was probably the most dire threat in Mr. Purvis’s arsenal. Benedict paused at the door and speared his father with a very serious look.
“I will be careful, Papa. I promise.”
Mr. Purvis settled his bulk into an enormous armchair, while Benedict and his brother raced off down the corridor.
I wanted very much to hug my husband, kiss his cheek, and roar, Well done! Instead, I moved from the hassock to the nearest unclaimed chair.
“He’ll be about as careful as a Channel storm,” Mr. Purvis said. “Five boys will make an old man of me.”
“Benedict is most like you,” Mrs. Purvis replied, “though five boys is a trial sometimes. We love them dearly, but the mending alone keeps me busy.”
“The noise,” Mr. Purvis muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face. “God in heaven, the noise. Why the great yell, Doctor?”
“Because,” Hugh said, “the joint can sometimes slip back into place with an audible click or pop, and that can disconcert the patient or his parent. They hear that pop and think something has been broken rather than repaired. Besides, children like to yell, so it distracts them from an acutely painful maneuver.”
Mr. Purvis pointed a great finger at Hugh. “This man, he knows things that a papa should know. Ava, my darling, be a love and brew us a pot while I learn all of yon healer’s secrets. You are blessed with a daughter, if I recall correctly?”
Mrs. Purvis slipped from the room, and Hugh settled on the sofa.
“We have a daughter,” he said. “A different sort of challenge. I sometimes wish Fiona would yell or stomp about and break things, but she’s quiet, and that leaves a papa to wonder.”
It did? I would not have guessed that Fiona puzzled her father. “You always seem so comfortable with her, and she adores you.”
“Oh, Benedict adores me too, madame,” Mr. Purvis said, as above our heads, thunder rumbled that had nothing to do with a summer storm. “Adoring and obeying… These are not in the same lexicon with most children, nor would we want them to be. I have seven younger sisters. I adore them all, and I became very good at following orders, but a man can only take so much of being obedient. Fractious horses are a joy compared to what my sisters put me through. Benedict is the runt of this herd for now, and he has to make up in swagger what he lacks in stature. His turn will come, when Hap is feeling his years and Benedict is yet in his prime. I hope I live to see that.”
I had seen Mr. Purvis from a distance, idling outside his smithy, or watching as somebody jogged a horse along the green for his inspection. I had never once considered him as a father, a fellow displaced Scot, or a husband. He brought his brood to Sunday services, where he and Mrs. Purvis were usually preoccupied quelling rebellion among their offspring rather than communing with the Lord or their neighbors.
“He could well dislocate the elbow again,” Hugh said, “but he will outgrow the tendency. These injuries are far less common once the children reach school age.”
Mrs. Purvis returned, and her husband rose to take the tray from her. They exchanged a few words too softly for me to hear, while the thunder from the next floor went quiet.
“I cannot thank you enough for coming,” Mrs. Purvis said as she resumed her place in the rocking chair. “Benedict is too bold for his own good, but this mishap rendered him silent and willing to simply cuddle in my lap. Neither occurrence has happened since he was able to walk. I was terrified.”
“Avie, the lad’ll be fine.”
Mrs. Purvis paused in setting out the tea cups. “You were terrified too, Noah Purvis.”
“Guilty as charged. When a storm brews, the lads are like the horses. They get all wound up, and I did not have my eye on them. Business is always slow after one of those damned hound races, so I used today to tidy up in the smithy, to sharpen this and oil that. The boys were messing about in the stable, and then I heard Bennie yelling.”
“He was crying,” Mrs. Purvis said. “How do you take your tea, madame?”
“A dash and a dollop,” I said, though too late I realized that the sugar bowl held only a few lumps of sugar.
“Plain for me,” Hugh said. “You do not care for the hound races, Mr. Purvis?”
“Cannot abide them. Nobody ought to be running a canine that hard in the summer heat. The owners keep the beasts penned up for days in advance, hoping the dogs will be bursting with energy at race time. The beasts get all wound up, run like mad, and then remain tied to a tree for hours while their owners and supporters drink away the evening. Damned lot of nonsense, beggin’ the ladies’ pardon. What’s more, on race nights, I’m supposed to keep the forge open until midnight, if it please my neighbors.”
Mrs. Purvis passed her husband a cup of tea, the porcelain incongruously delicate in his enormous hands.
“The squires,” she said, “are in the village for some entertainment, so why shouldn’t Noah put a new set of shoes on somebody’s gelding and save the owner another trip? Just because it’s Saturday evening, and Noah works himself to the bone six days a week, that doesn’t mean the forge should be closed.”
“Close up shop anyway,” I replied. “It isn’t as if there’s another blacksmith who will stay open at all hours to accommodate them.”
“Madame is right,” Hugh said. “The gelding will still need a new set of shoes on Monday if you aren’t available on Saturday night. A forge is a dangerous place to make a living, and working tired is a recipe for injury.”
“He’s wily, he is, this French doctor,” Mr. Purvis informed nobody in particular. He took out a flask and dribbled some of the contents into his tea. “Care for a nip, sir?”
“Best not,” Mrs. Purvis said. “Noah brews his own mash and gets to putting a little of this and a little of that in it. He has potions that will knock a plow horse on its arse.”
Noah stirred his tea with a delicate silver spoon. “Exactly where you want that plow horse if you’re tasked with relieving the poor beastie of his balls. I’m the closest thing in these parts to a horse doctor, and I need every advantage.”
He took a dainty sip of his tea while discussing castration and moonshine. I rather liked Noah Purvis, and only a little of that was because he was Scottish.
“Can you lend us a boy or two to play with Fiona?” I asked. “She’s a little older than Benedict, but I’m sure he could keep up with her.”
“I can lend you five,” Mrs. Purvis said, “and throw in their father, though be warned—he eats as much as all the boys put together.”
“Hap’s gaining on me,” Mr. Purvis replied equably, “and Finley will be the biggest of the lot, if his brothers don’t kill him. Robbie likes his books, but he’s fond of his tucker too. Don’t ask me about Webster. He’s a changeling. If you packed me off to Belle Terre, you’d miss me, Ava. Admit it.”
“Come winter, I might notice your absence.”
He blew her a kiss and winked. Hugh looked fascinated, also a little puzzled.
“Have some shortbread,” Mrs. Purvis said, holding out a plate to me. “I make it daily, and somehow it magically disappears before it’s even cooled.”
“Fairies,” Mr. Purvis observed, peering into his tea cup. “Ye canna turn your back for a moment. They are forever moving my tools aboot too. Benedict swears the fairies unmake his bed the instant he tidies up his covers.”
I took a piece of shortbread and bit off a corner. “I can see why the fairies might be tempted to steal your shortbread. It’s very good.”
“Everything Ava makes is delicious,” Mr. Purvis said. “She should have been a fancy cook, but instead threw in her lot with me. I am a vastly lucky man.”
“I am a frequently flattered woman,” Mrs. Purvis replied. “Flattery has never yet darned a sock, Noah Purvis.”
“Teach Bennie to darn,” Mr. Purvis replied, gesturing with a square of shortbread. “Tell him it will improve his eye for sewing up wounds on horses, and we might keep him quiet with it for a day or two.”
Mrs. Purvis helped herself to some shortbread. “And you will wear the results?”
“Proudly, until I get a blister, and then I will come to you for sympathy, dearest darling.”
“For sympathy and supper,” Mrs. Purvis said. “My greatest ambition in life is to cosset and feed a passel of delicate males. Don’t have five boys, madame. Not unless you can also have five girls to keep them in line and darn their socks.”
“What I think we do have,” Hugh said, “is an end to today’s cloudburst. The storm seems to be moving off, and so Ann and I must away as well.”
That change of subject was a bit abrupt, especially for Hugh, but then, the call had not started out as a social occasion.
“I’ll walk you to the livery,” Mr. Purvis said, rising. “We can haggle over your fees with a skill and passion the English can only marvel at. Where did you get that fine chestnut gelding, by the way? I’d swear he has some Iberian blood in him, though on a fellow that size, such refinement is unexpected.”
“Horses,” Mrs. Purvis said as Hugh collected his medical bag and followed Mr. Purvis from the room. “Noah loves his family, but if anything happened to us, he’d find his solace among the beasts. He cannot stand to see an animal mistreated, and if what we’ve heard about Donnie Vaughn’s handling of his hound is true, Noah will be having a wee chat with Vaughn. Were you serious about the loan of a playmate for your daughter?”
“Yes. Fiona is an only child and far from home.”
Mrs. Purvis dunked her shortbread in her tea. “I thought you lived at Belle Terre. Somebody should. That much house ought not to go to waste.”
She had a point. “We’re sorting out where we will live. Monsieur and I were separated for years due to a misunderstanding, but…” But what?
“You are trying to patch it up now? Have more children. You’ll be so tired, you’ll have no time for anything but muddling on, and pretty soon, it’s twenty years and five boys later, and you would not trade their father for all the darned socks in England.”
If only it were so simple. “Nor he, you.”
She nodded, a secret marital joy lighting her eyes. “Monsieur isn’t the problem, is he?”
“You are very direct, Mrs. Purvis.” For which I liked her.
“With my lot, direct and loud are the only effective strategies. When Noah and I argue, we often resort to our native languages. We think the boys won’t understand us as easily, but they have a diabolical talent for mimicry. They imitate us so exactly, complete with flounces and glowers, that we end up overcome with laughter. Laughter is another good strategy. I will always love Noah, because he can make me laugh.”
“Him and the fairies?”
“Ye canna turn your back for a moment,” Mrs. Purvis rejoined, repeating her husband’s inflections exactly. “If you do not think it presuming of me, madame, I would like you to call again. I am desperate for some intelligent female conversation.”
“I’d like that,” I said, though the admission felt risky. “I can bring some mending to work on while we guard a plate of shortbread.”
“Must you?”
We parted on a smile, and I had the oddest urge to hug Ava Purvis. Her comment—Monsieur isn’t the problem, is he?—gave me much to think about. Seeing Hugh with Benedict reminded me that my husband was good with children generally. He did not regard them as unformed adults. He regarded them as people who faced a particular set of challenges in a world run by adults.
He was a good father, and he’d become an even better father with time.
And yet, Fiona puzzled him. Doubtless, I puzzled him too.
I was still pondering that disclosure when Mr. Purvis bowed over my hand as graciously as any courtier. “My thanks again for coming. We do fret something powerful over those boys.”
“To be of use to an ailing child is a privilege,” Hugh said, handing me up into the coach. “You will keep an eye out on my behalf?”
“I have a few ideas,” Purvis said. “We can discuss them on Saturday evening.”
Hugh climbed into the coach after me and joined me on the forward-facing bench.
“What scheme are you and Noah Purvis hatching up?” I asked.
“I am to have no masculine secrets from you?” He set his hat on the opposite seat and took my hand. “I haven’t done that reduction of the elbow for years. I doubted the boy had a fracture, but I was concerned. A reduction can make a fracture worse.”
“How would you have known the difference?”
“I might have dosed the child with laudanum and done a more thorough examination, but given Benedict’s lively nature, the elbow was the most likely problem.”
Hugh had changed the subject, but I also knew this discussion of a medical case to be part of his method of concluding a course of treatment—a stitching up of the incision.
“You aren’t keen on giving children laudanum, are you?”
“I’m not keen on giving anybody laudanum. I wonder what Purvis uses on those plow horses…”
The coach rattled over the arched bridge and onto the wet lanes as a nasty idea rattled into my head.
“Noah Purvis knows how to drug animals,” I said slowly, “and he has no use for the hound races. He was on hand Saturday evening, and nobody would suspect him of wrongdoing. Maybe he thought if Vaughn lost his temper, or the wrong dog won and half the village lost money, people would rethink the whole undertaking.”
“Your reasoning is convoluted,” Hugh said at length, “but Purvis is shrewd and mindful of his good standing in the eyes of the community. Do you suspect him of rigging the race?”
“I don’t want to suspect anybody.”
I wanted the whole business to be a mere passing item of pointless gossip, but my wish was not to be gratified.
“That list is not complete,” Thaddeus Freeman said. “Those are only the bets held by the publican. Anderson takes five percent of every wager, and some people prefer to keep their bets private rather than pay his tithe.”
Hugh passed me a paper that had two dozen names on it, as well as figures representing sums won or lost. We were on Belle Terre’s back terrace—Hugh reading in the afternoon sunshine while I worked at my embroidery—and I suspected Fiona spied on us from the nursery. Her governess had been told to keep book-lessons to a minimum over the summer, focusing on nature walks, drawing, music, and reading for pleasure.
That left ample time for a small child to eavesdrop on her parents.
“Don’t the ladies wager?” I asked, for not a one of the names was female.
“They doubtless do,” Freeman said, shading his eyes to watch his horse—the same gray—grazing upon our lawn. “But if they don’t want husbands or sons learning of their wagers, they’d keep the bets between themselves. The Coopers likely abstain. Purvis has decided views on race wagering, but even the poorest families place a few coppers on an underdog occasionally. Mrs. Fletcher used to bet a coin or two, and she had a good eye for a winner.”
The Donohues and Grants had profited handsomely from Lionheart’s win. The biggest losers were Winthrop Dreyfuss—Old Hector’s owner—and Donnie Vaughn. Both of them were down two pounds, while several other yeomen and squires had lost more than a pound. Dervid Grant, by contrast, had come away nearly five pounds richer, a fortune to a man in his circumstances. Arden Donohue had won nearly half that sum, and Mr. Rutherford had benefited to the tune of ten shillings. Oddly enough, Noah Purvis was also among the winners, though his earnings were among the most modest.
“Who decides which dogs compete?” Hugh asked, gesturing for Freeman to take a seat on the bench at a right angle to ours.
“Anybody who has the entry fee can compete,” Freeman said, flipping out the tails of his riding coat and settling on the bench. “The heats fill up as entries are received. Anderson does that part too—earning his fee, to hear him tell it—and he limits each heat to six or eight hounds.”
Mr. Anderson made money off the betting, the entries, and the sales of liquor and food on race nights. I made a mental note to inquire regarding who might wish Anderson ill.
“Then Dervid Grant had no way of knowing that Lionheart would run against Old Hector?” I asked.
I resented Freeman for calling, because the afternoon was lovely, the sun’s heat tempered by a breeze. Summer would soon wane, and autumn, my favorite season, would be upon us. Hugh and I had agreed to spend the summer together, but so far, we’d resolved nothing. As the week had progressed, I’d pondered Ava Purvis’s observation, that Hugh was not the problem.
If not Hugh, then who or what was? I had demanded that my husband and I become reacquainted before making any decisions, but did I expect to complete that process in a mere handful of weeks?
Perhaps I wasn’t being honest with myself. I assuredly wasn’t being honest with my husband, but how much truth was necessary or desirable in a strained marriage?
Freeman absently rubbed at his left hand. “Anderson lets it be known when the races will be open for entries—a date and time certain, usually at noon on a market day. If Grant was on hand on that occasion, he’d have seen Dreyfuss, owner of the defending champion, sign up among the first few. It doesn’t particularly matter that Lionheart beat Old Hector. Lionheart would have been a long shot against any field. He’s smallish and has little experience as a runner.”
“Anderson is handling the betting on the rematch?” I asked, studying the list. The penmanship was crabbed, though legible.
“The semiofficial betting. We could have used St. Sevier’s medical skills at the completely unofficial displays of pugilism behind the smithy last week.”
“If grown men,” Hugh said, “are inclined to pound on one other for no purpose save to indulge their pride, they can deal with their own split lips, black eyes, and loose teeth. My place will be beside my lovely wife.”
“Then Purvis’s horse-doctoring will have to do,” Freeman said. “He’s no great fan of brawling either, but then, he’s raising five boys. Brawls likely happen as frequently at his house as does grace before a meal. Purvis is big enough that when he says a match is over, it’s over.” Freeman rubbed his hand again, soft leather against soft leather.
It occurred to me that most men would have removed their riding gloves upon dismounting—Freeman had removed his hat—but he’d kept his gloves on despite the afternoon’s heat.
“Does your hand hurt?” I asked.
“Changing weather bothers it, and we’ve had a stretch of fine days, though now the heat is building again. Winter storms are the worst for bringing on the aches and pains, but considering what some endured during the war, a sore hand is nothing.”
Hugh brushed a glance in my direction. “Ann, if you would be so good as to bring Fiona down from her aerie, she can join us on a walk along the bridle paths. The day is too lovely for a child to spend indoors.”
I excused myself, though I paused on the stairway to the nursery to spy on my husband. Freeman’s left glove was off, and Hugh was examining a seriously scarred appendage that looked to be missing the tip of the smallest finger. I thought back to my many encounters with Thaddeus Freeman. In most, he’d been wearing gloves, or he’d kept his hands behind his back.
That the former magistrate might be ashamed annoyed me. I wanted to have nothing in common with him, and most especially not that.
That Hugh would spare Freeman’s pride, by contrast, touched me. Freeman had bungled nigh unforgivably where Hugh was concerned and would never have asked for my husband’s professional assistance. Hugh had offered, though—I knew he had—and Freeman had swallowed his pride to allow the aid of a competent physician.
My husband was a good, honorable, decent man. I was at risk for falling in love with him—falling back in love—and I did not know what to do about that.
When we attended the rematch on Saturday evening, Hugh stuck close to me, and we kept mostly to the fringes of the crowd. I was nervous, but determined to maintain my composure. The rematch was scheduled for later in the evening, after a few other heats, and thus we tarried longer than was prudent.
Lionheart won by two lengths, but more to the point, the entire village lost. When the brawling started, Hugh carried me bodily to our gig, put the reins in my hands, and directed me to make all haste back to Belle Terre.
I had abandoned my husband once before, I wasn’t about to abandon him again. I drove the gig into the alley behind the church, grabbed Hugh’s medical kit from beneath the seat, and—heart beating like a war drum—waded back into the melee.