With This Ring Part 5

He opened his eyes in sudden alarm, then laughed. "You'll cut it army-straight, Miss Perkins! I'll send Corporal Davies in a carriage with you now. Lord knows, he's not as colorful as General Picton ...." His voice trailed off, and he was asleep again.

And that is precisely what you need, she thought as she took her leave with Corporal Davies. Some of Cook's good beef tea would be just the thing, Lydia considered as she sank with relief into the hackney, too tired to remove her stained ap.r.o.n. I wonder if I can wheedle her out of a gallon or two?

Lydia woke up when the hackney stopped in front of the house on Holly Street, and discovered that she had been leaning against Corporal Davies. "Do excuse my ramshackle manners!" she said. She reached up to straighten her bonnet, and realized to her dismay that she had left it behind on the altar in the lady chapel. "I cannot imagine what you must think of me," she said as the jehu opened the door to the hackney.

"I think you have made me the envy of Battery B, Miss Perkins," the corporal replied as he helped her down. "Do you know, for five quid, Corporal Jenkins offered to take my place!"

She gasped. "That is a lot of money!"

"Wasn't enough, though, was it?" he said with a smile. "I'll be by in the morning, Miss Perkins, provided that Jenkins doesn't mill me down and black my only eye."

Oh, heavens, she thought as she knocked on the door. Soldiers are certainly a breed apart. She looked back at the hackney, which was turning the corner. "I only hope I did not snore," she murmured.

Stanton let her into the house, a finger to his lips. "Miss Kitty is prostrated with anxiety because the flounce is not repaired on the dress she is wearing tonight to Almack's, and Lady Luisa is with her," he said.

"Oh, the flounce!" she exclaimed. "I was supposed to mend that this morning, wasn't I?" And now Kitty is in agonies, seeing her life slip away at eighteen, all because of a simple flounce that she could repair herself, Lydia thought. Of course, this is not to mention the other ball dresses she could wear instead. Lydia shook her head and went quietly up the stairs.

The dress was still draped across her bed, where she had left it that morning. Humming to herself, she removed her stained ap.r.o.n, scrubbed her hands and face until they hurt, then sat down with the dress and her sewing basket.

Usually she hated Kitty's mending, mainly because her sister was so careless with her clothing, but also because the material was always so much more lavish than anything Mama begrudged for her. Today was different. She kicked off her shoes (noting that her usually trim ankles were swollen from so much standing), propped her feet on her bed, and applied the tiny st.i.tches that Kitty depended on. It was relaxing this time, a refres.h.i.+ng change from the pain and suffering she witnessed all day.

She finished the flounce, and just sat there, fingering the lovely fabric, pleased with herself to know that she was charitable enough to hope that Kitty wore it well tonight. Her peace was ended by Mama's sudden entry into her room.

"It is done, Mama," she said, holding out the dress to her parent. I suppose you can be furious with me because I was so slow in getting to this, or angry that I was not concerned, she thought, but to her surprise, she did not care.

To her further amazement, Mama barely glanced at the dress. "Lydia, I have such news," she said.

"Kitty is engaged already?"

"I depend upon that to happen this spring, but no, that is not my news." Mama wrinkled her nose. "Lydia, you have brought the smell of that dreadful place!"

"I suppose I have, Mama," she replied. "I was shaving the soldiers today, and that necessitated close quarters. I'll have the laundress boil everything."

Mama stared at her, and inched her chair farther away. "You touched those men?" she asked, her voice rising to unpleasant decibels.

Lydia waited for the familiar chills to travel up and down her back at Mama's dreaded tone, but they did not. I am either too tired, or I do not care anymore, she thought.

"I cannot think of another way to shave whiskers than to touch someone's face, Mama," she said with a slight smile.

Mama put up her hands. "Lydia, too little cannot be said about what you are doing! Granted you do not possess in the slightest degree Kitty's beauty, flair, or sensibilities, but I still feel that tending the wounded is not an occupation for a lady, especially when we need you so much here."

"Mama, anyone can sew Kitty's flounce," she said. "Even Kitty."

She waited for Mama's explosion, but it did not come. If anything, her mother's expression brightened. "Daughter, you remind me again why I came here. I must thank you for this opportunity you have given Kitty."

Lydia stared in surprise, unable to think of a time in her life when Mama had thanked her for anything. "I ... I don't understand," she said.

"This afternoon we received from General Thomas and Mrs. Picton these vowels to the banquet celebrating ...." She looked down at the card she had been carrying. "... 'The victory at Toulouse of the Duke of Wellington over Napoleon Bonaparte.' " She frowned. "Daughter, when did this happen? Where is Napoleon now?"

Oh, Lord, spare me from the disinterested, Lydia thought, feeling weary again through her shoulders. "It was in the middle of April, Mama. Everyone was talking about it. Don't you remember all the church bells in Devon ringing?"

Mama closed her eyes in thought for a moment, then opened them. "Oh, I know! We were putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches on Kitty's wardrobe and probably packing her dresses in tissue. I knew there was something more important to claim my attention. But tell me, where is that beast Napoleon, then?"

"Mama, he has been these two months on Elba," Lydia explained patiently.

"I hear it is a lovely place for a holiday," Mama said. "So convenient to the Aegean."

"Mediterranean, Mama, and he is in exile, not on holiday!"

Mama shrugged and stood up. "Then, Elba will soon be fas.h.i.+onable. Perhaps I should suggest to Kitty that when she does make a suitable alliance this spring, that they honeymoon on Elba."

"I'm certain that would be a wonderful idea, Mama," Lydia replied, thinking to herself how loud Major Reed would laugh to hear Mama. I will tell him tomorrow, and he will go into whoops, she thought.

Mama gave her a kindly smile. "Lydia, it is so pleasant when we are in agreement on something." She took the dress from Lydia's lap. "I do think, however, that you need to offer Kitty an apology for delaying this mending and sending her into spasms." She left the room, closing the door quietly behind her for a change.

I would rather pull out my fingernails one by one than apologize to Kitty, Lydia thought as she took off her dress, sniffed it, and removed it to a far corner before she lay down. She closed her eyes in exhaustion. I have had a lifetime of Kitty this, and Kitty that. I can scarcely remember a time when I have not fetched and carried for my little sister, and all because she is a beauty, and I am not.

She pressed her hands to her stomach when it began to growl, reminding herself that luncheon at St. Barnabas had been a bowl of gruel, eaten on the fly. I am hungry, and it makes me cranky, she thought. Perhaps when I have eaten, I will feel more charitable toward my own family.

To her chagrin, she discovered during dinner that her charity was finite. Famished, she ate steadily, enduring Mama's remarks about young women who eat too much and never find husbands. My waist is as small as Kitty's, she thought as she took another helping of frica.s.see. She glanced sideways at her sister, who was dabbling with the sole in front of her. There are soldiers who would take her leftovers without a qualm. They need more than gruel and bread to recover, and we will only throw out course after course nibbled around the edges or ignored entirely. And do you know, Kitty, she thought, I rather believe my bosom is quite as elegant as yours. She smiled.

"I do not see how you can sit there and shovel in food with both hands, and smile about it," Mama snapped.

"It was a long day, Mama, and I ate only a bowl of gruel," she explained. She looked at her mother. Now I should be silent and hang my head, but I think I shall not. "Mama, tell me, what happens to the food that we do not eat at the table?"

"It goes to the servants, of course," Mama said.

"And if they do not want it? I know they have their own meals."

Mama rang her bell vigorously to summon the footman, who was standing right behind her. She shrieked when he leaned over to remove her plate. "They throw it out!" she exclaimed, her face red.

"Mama, could I take it with me tomorrow?" She indicated the laden table. "This is the kind of food that strong men need to recover from their wounds."

The silence around the table was monumental. Papa seemed to shrink in his chair, and Kitty's eyes grew wide with disbelief, and then disdain. Mama glared at her. "I would not dream of even you taking table sc.r.a.ps to those uncouth men! Come, Kitty, it is past time to get ready for Almack's. Really, Lydia, you have tried me to the limit. If it were not for this attention from General Picton and what it can mean to Kitty, I would put you on the mail coach back to Devon!"

That was certainly a snit, Lydia thought to herself as she returned her attention to the plate before her. Say what you will about her pretensions, Mama keeps a good table. How I would like to put Battery B around it, she reflected as she finished her own dinner, and leaned over to fork the sole from Kitty's abandoned plate. Major Reed would fill out and probably look almost handsome. Poor man. He should be on his way home to Northumberland, where people probably love him, instead of worrying about his men in a moldy chapel. It seems unfair.

"Papa, have you ever been to Northumberland?" she asked suddenly as the footman cleared the table and brought in the port for her father. "Is it dreadfully cold and primitive?"

Papa poured himself a drink, looked at the decanter, then pushed it her way, to her surprise. She added a spot to her empty gla.s.s.

"I was there once," he replied. "It was the summer I spent in Edinburgh. It is wild country, daughter. Why do you want to know?"

"Some of the men in Battery B are from there," she explained. "I just wondered."

He nodded and leaned back in his chair, after a wary look at the door through which Mama had exited in such a hurry. "Then, they are a long way from home, my dear."

Lydia sighed. "And some will never see it." To her surprise, she started to cry. She sobbed into her napkin, wondering at herself, knowing that she would scare Papa away from his after-dinner refuge over port.

To her further amazement, he left his chair and came to sit beside her. He put his arm around her and held her close until she stopped crying and blew her nose on her napkin. "Papa, I'm sorry," she said. "If I did that when Mama was around, she would forbid me ever to cross the threshold at St. Barnabas again."

"Perhaps it is too much for you, daughter," he suggested, tentative as always-a by-product of life with Luisa Perkins-but with a warmth in his voice that she had not heard in years. "I would not for the world have you hurt."

She considered her years of life bearing the lash of Mama's tongue and sometimes more, and overlooked that bit of fiction, content to feel his arm around her. "Oh, Papa, there is so much that could be done for those soldiers, if only someone cared enough!"

He kissed her cheek. "It appears that you do, my dear. Now, tell me about it."

She did, and he listened, as they both worked their way through the port. Mama pulled her away to arrange Kitty's hair, scold her for drinking port with Papa, and to animadvert on the subject dearest to her heart: the sore trials of running an establishment in London with too few servants. "Few people appreciate what we suffer," she grumbled, as Lydia worked her magic with the curling rod and judicious arrangement to cover Kitty's one flaw, fine hair.

Mama, there are so many worse off, she thought.

"At least you have achieved some skill in arranging Kitty's hair, and mending her clothes," Mama said as she sat later before her own mirror. "Now, position this turban and don't let me leave the house looking off balance, like you did last night!"

Yes, Mama, no, Mama, of course, Mama, she thought as she watched them leave in the carriage. What a pity that you have not a thought for others, Mama, you and your kind. She closed the front door. "But they are my kind, too," she murmured to no one in particular. "And Major Reed's kind, but he does something about it, even in his own pain."

She returned to the dining room, but Papa was asleep now-his head on the table, the decanter of port empty. I would wish again that you were more brave, Papa, she thought, and not for the first time. Perhaps if you were, I could be, too.

Chapter Five.

When she arrived at St. Barnabas the next morning, Major Reed was sitting in a chair, waiting for her.

"Miss Perkins, you left your bonnet behind yesterday," he told her as she removed another bonnet and set it by the first on the altar. "I regret to inform you that a family of mice moved in after a brief reconnoiter during the night."

"Good heavens!" she exclaimed as she leaped back from the altar.

"Never fear, my dear Miss Perkins. After a skirmish, they were repelled. Your bonnet did suffer some structural damage, however."

She went to the altar again, cautious this time, and lifted the bonnet enough to see a hole in the crown. "This is indeed a casualty," she said.

"The battery owes you a hat," he said. "I'll add it to the bill."

She smiled at him. "I'm not sure there is enough money on 'Change to pay me for services so far, Major. Oh, you are wearing pants!"

He looked down in mock astonishment. "Good heavens, when did that happen! Actually, General Picton gave them back with a warning of more dire deductions from my person, should I show my face at Horse Guards. And no, we can never repay you for all you have done."

It was said simply, and she was touched. She realized that she knew next to nothing about Major Sam Reed, but with that realization came a sure knowledge that he was a man who meant what he said. For no particular reason, she thought suddenly of Kitty, her calculated search for a husband and her endless soliloquies on the qualities thought necessary for a husband. He should be rich and handsome, with enough intelligence to know when his tailor is cheating him, and have good manners, she remembered as one list. As she stood in the lady chapel listening to the major, Lydia wondered if perhaps honesty should figure somewhere on her own list. My demands are modest, she thought. I think honesty is enough.

"Miss Perkins, you are not listening."

"Oh! What?"

"Most of us have found our way out back to the tubs, and the pine tar soap, so you should not encounter too many unwelcome visitors."

She must have looked blank, because he laughed. "Fleas and lice, Lydia!" he said, using her first name. "A soldier's constant companions!"

"Oh!" She felt her face go red with embarra.s.sment, whether from the use of her name, or the mention of vermin, she was not sure. He must not have noticed, she thought, so she knew it would be wise to say nothing. "Thank you, sir! If I were to carry those home, Kitty would have a hard time of it at Almack's."

"And not you?" he asked.

She made a face. "This is Kitty's year, sir. If I may quote Milton badly, I get to 'stand and wait.' "

He appeared to be thinking about that while she removed her scissors and fine-tooth comb from her reticule. "I have on good authority from a brother officer who was in here this morning, that Miss Kitty Perkins is cutting a wide swath at Almack's. He was there last night."

"I'm certain she is creating a stir. She has been groomed for it since birth," Lydia agreed as she removed a dishcloth from the basket she carried and tied it around the major's neck. "Kitty, eh?"

"So I a.s.sume. My friend said she was tall and blond and beautiful, with a wonderful laugh and ...." He hesitated, as if testing the wind. "... 'fewer brains than a leaf of escarole.' That last embellishment is a direct quotation, Miss Perkins, so do not bite my head off."

Lydia gasped, gave the major a severe look, and burst into laughter. "My sister," she said when she could manage speech again. "Kitty never did suffer education gladly."

"And you, Miss Perkins?" he asked.

She set down the scissors. "I like to learn. Mama declares that if I cannot find a husband somewhere in Devon's bogs, I shall surely be a first-rate governess. Hold still, now, sir, or your ear will be in danger."

He did as she asked, a slight smile on his face. "Devon's bogs, madam? Oh, really! You remind me of my two sisters, both of whom found husbands. And not in bogs, for G.o.d's sake. Where do women get their ideas?"

She laughed and combed his hair, quite liking its auburn color, and the flecks of gold here and there. "Not a speck of gray yet, Major," she said as she stood in front of him to part his hair.

"I should hope not! I am only thirty-one," he replied, his eyes on hers. "Probably close to your own age, eh?"

"Yes, I can tell that you have sisters!" she said her equanimity unruffled. She stood behind him to begin cutting. "I am far from thirty-one, sir, and no, I will not tell you my age!" She touched his shoulder. "I would have thought you slightly older. War does that?" she asked, not disguising her sudden sympathy.

"War does," he agreed, serious now. "Sometimes I ask myself what happened to that lieutenant of artillery who went to war only five years ago." He sighed as she began to cut. "His friends are dead on battlefields all over the Peninsula, the young ladies he kissed on the sly are married and mothers now, and his only talent is serving shot, sh.e.l.l, and canister on demand."

He was not feeling sorry for himself, she thought as she listened and snipped. "Are you remaining in the army, sir?"

"No. I have an estate near the Scottish border in dire need of my attention, now that Boney is on holiday. Don't forget that mole at my temple, Miss Perkins. If I bleed, it is on your dishcloth, remember. And your conscience. I have bled enough for England on foreign sh.o.r.es."

"Cook was happy to contribute to the war effort. She even sent me with beef tea for your men, and biscuits that she claims were languis.h.i.+ng in the pantry, but which I suspect she made this morning," Lydia said. She smoothed back his hair with her hand on his temple until she located the infamous mole, then cut around it carefully.

"None for me?" he asked.

"When your hair is cut, sir," she replied. "You would not want hair clippings in your beef tea."

"Miss Perkins, when I think what I have endured on the culinary front for the past five years, I am scarce moved by hair, especially my own!"

She laughed and continued her efforts, pleased to see how well he looked, with his shave from yesterday and his haircut this morning. If only I could do something about the thinness of his face, she thought, and the way he hunches.

On impulse, she pulled back his nights.h.i.+rt and looked at his back. The bandage was off, and she winced to see the long cut from shoulder to shoulder sewed, to her way of thinking, by an amateur with black thread. No wonder it pains him to stand up straight, she thought. I wonder he can stand at all.

"Nasty, eh?" he asked when she said nothing. "But you didn't have to look."