The Elsingham Portrait

Six


When the gentlemen had left, Bennet closed the door behind them gently. Her face wore a worried look. Kathryn smiled ruefully at her.

“Tell me, Bennet. Go on! I didn’t handle that very well, did I?”

“Oh, my lady, they’re very powerful men, for all the young one seems like such a boy. And they’re his lordship’s best friends.”

Kathryn shrugged wearily. Her arm was throbbing with the dull pain that never stopped, her head ached, perhaps as a result of the emotional tension she had just experienced. She drew a deep breath, raggedly. “I guess I’m a fool, Bennet. But they didn’t listen! No one does.”

Bennet’s warm heart was pierced by the look of desolation on the beautiful face. The strange pale green eyes were smudged around with dark shadows, the exquisite mouth drooped at the corners. She went over to the bed and patted the invalid’s silken shoulder gently.

“I’ll listen, milady. What can I do to help you?”

“You mean that?”

“You know I do,” the older woman said stoutly.

“Yes, I do know. And I thank God for you. One thing you could do that would help me more than I can say, would be for you to call me by my name.”

“Your name, milady?” faltered Bennet.

“Kathryn. Just to show that one person in all this horrible world doesn’t believe I am insane!” Kathryn ended with a sob.

Bennet patted her shoulder again, more firmly. “Of course you’re not insane, Miss Kathryn,” she said sternly. “What sort of foolish talk is that?”

Kathryn looked up at her with a reluctant smile pulling at her lips. “Oh, Bennet, you fraud! You remind me of a story in the Bible. No, I’m not being sacrilegious,” she answered the startled look on Bennet’s face. “It’s the story of the father of the epileptic in Caesarea Philippi: ‘I believe, O Lord; help Thou my unbelief!’ ”

Bennet faced Kathryn with a new light in her eyes. “Miss Kathryn, I believe you. Now, d’ye ken how we’re going to solve your problem?” and the warm Scots’ burr was strong in her voice.

Sudden tears of gratitude flooded Kathryn’s eyes. She brushed them away and said quickly, “I have been thinking about that every moment today. It seems to me that if I . . . came here because of that portrait, maybe that’s my way back.”

Bennet nodded doubtfully. “That would seem to make sense, but how would you go about it? Had you thought of that?”

“Well, I could try to recreate the conditions as closely as I could to what they were when I—came. It was during a storm in New York. I was staring at the portrait and a bright light above it was almost dazzling my eyes . . .”

“We could get you down to the landing to stand in front of the portrait, and I could arrange for enough candles above it on the gallery to make the bright light—but your arm . . .” Bennet frowned. “The lower hallway would be full of servants at that hour. There might even be guests of his lordship—”

Kathryn shook her head. “That won’t do. I’d have to have complete quiet. And there’s another thing,” she added hesitantly. “If there was any kind of trickery—or witchcraft—involved . . .” She caught the look of alarm on Bennet’s face. “How do I know what caused me to come, what brought me here? It seemed to me that the beautiful eyes of the portrait were alive . . . and evil . . . and that they were drawing me . . . into the picture . . .pulling me—”

“God save us!” whispered Bennet, wide-eyed.

“I guess I’ve lost you, Bennet.”

“That you haven’t, Miss Kathryn, you poor lamb, and let me hear no more of such ¼cavey talk! I’m just recalling gossip in the servants’ hall when that creature Donner wasn’t about. Everyone thinks she’s in league with the Devil. She’s that cold and mysterious and ugly, and always muttering about what will happen to those that cross her . . .” Bennet suppressed a shudder. “I could believe anything of her, Miss Kathryn, I could indeed.”

They were interrupted by a tap on the door, which immediately opened. Lord John stood on the threshold, and behind him waited Dr. Anders and a slender, ugly man very plainly dressed.

“May we come in?” asked Lord John, doing so without waiting for permission.

Kathryn felt the thrust of emotion which this arrogant Englishman seemed always able to arouse in her.

“Please do,” she managed to say coolly. “Dr. Anders, I’m glad to see you. My arm is aching so intolerably I’m sure it must be healing nicely.”

Dr. Anders sketched a bow. “It is good to see you in spirits, milady,” he said cautiously, advancing to the bedside.

“Do I have a fever, doctor? I’m sure you have Mr. Fahrenheit’s thermometer, since he invented it early in this century. But no antibiotics! Medicine is handicapped in this age. How long ago was it that the only recourse for a broken limb was amputation? At least we must be thankful that skillful practitioners are not the exclusive property of any period in history, for you’ve set and splinted my arm most successfully. Are you a student of Dr. Potts?”

Dr. Anders peered at her sharply. “I am aware of Dr. Percival Potts’ fine treatise on the subject of Fractures and Dislocations, milady, but it surprises me a little that you should know of it. It is true, as her ladyship says,” and he directed his speech to the other two men, “that even as short a period as twenty years ago, physicians were recommending amputation for compound fractures. Your own fracture, however, was a simple one, Lady Nadine.”

“That should serve to depress my pretensions,” said Kathryn, with a demure glance at the gentlemen.

A smile touched Lord John’s lips involuntarily. She was spirited, this Irish wife of his! And her wits were as sharp as his own. It was absurd to consider her mad. But if not insanity, what? Artifice? She was fighting for something, with this strange tale of hers—her desire to be accepted as someone other than Nadine. Could she be fighting for—him? Surely not to win him back? She had shown, with humiliating insistence, just what she thought of her lord and master. But even as he cringed at certain memories, a small glow of excitement began to burn in his body. Was this beautiful creature fighting to win him back? He scanned the lovely face. Was it changed? Was there a new sweetness about the set of the lips, a new, more honest light in those fascinating, pale green eyes?

He caught himself short, setting his jaw. Fool! Double damned fool. This was the very trap he had fallen into a year ago in Ireland, the day he met the young Irish beauty riding her great roan horse through the deep green meadows and through the dark copses. He had fallen in love with an ideal—a woman who wasn’t there. Enough of these adolescent idiocies, Lord John told himself sternly. You know what she is. Only a fool would let himself be caught twice in the same trap.

He turned to introduce the stranger, who had had no eyes for anything else in the exquisitely-furnished room after he had caught one glimpse of the woman in the bed.

“My lady, may I present Mr. Wilmot Manton? He is an associate of a brilliant countryman of yours, Edmund Burke. And he’s very eager indeed to hear what you can tell him of the state of affairs in the Colonies.”

Kathryn stared into Lord John’s cold eyes. Was he taunting her or offering her a chance to prove her claim? There was nothing to be read from his narrow, social smile.

“I am very happy to meet you, Mr. Manton,” she said, smiling up into his admiring face. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the Boston Tea Party, since it occurred on December 16, 1773, but there might be later events which I could discuss. Lord Elsingham may have told you that I have sources of information not available to the average person living in London in this Year of Grace 1775.”

There! That was carrying the battle into the enemy’s camp with a vengeance! She thought she caught an expression of admiration lurking on Lord John’s handsome face, but she was committed to the fight now, and could not indulge her heart with weakening emotions She drew a careful breath.

“It would help me very much if you could give me the exact date, Mr. Manton.”

Manton, already a little wary at this lovely lady’s hint that she had information not available to legitimate offices in His Majesty’s service, was jerked rudely from his earlier admiration by this odd question. “The date, milady? But why—what . . .?”

Help came to Kathryn from an unexpected source.

“Why, ma’am,” said Lord John smoothly, “you’ve been suffering with your broken arm for several days. It is scarcely to be wondered at if you have lost count of the time. This is the eighteenth of April, in the year of Our Lord 1775.”

Kathryn flashed him a smile of such sweetness that his heart jolted treacherously. “I thank you, milord,” she said, and turned again to Mr. Manton.

Tomorrow, that is April nineteenth, General Gage will send soldiers to capture or destroy military stores at Concord. The mission will be unsuccessful because the colonists will have advance knowledge of the attack and will meet and counter it with the first armed resistance to British troops at Lexington Green . . .”

Alarm and disbelief battled for supremacy on Manton’s face. “This is not military intelligence, ma’am,” he spluttered. “This is prophecy! How came you by this knowledge?”

Kathryn paled. Fool! By her desire to prove herself knowledgeable she had probably doomed herself to incarceration in Bedlam. Dr. Anders was frowning heavily. Her eyes met Lord John’s. Was there pity, concern for her, in their gray depths? She went on grimly, “If you will jot it down, Mr. Manton, and a few other things I have to tell you, then when the time comes, we shall see whether I have informed you correctly.”

Manton was staring from Kathryn to Lord John, unable to decide whether this was some aristocratic hoax or a stupid attempt to entrap Burke and Burke’s sponsor, Lord Rockingham. His self-esteem wounded, he said stiffly, “If there should be any such attack, it would take from three to four weeks for the intelligence to reach us. Whatever my opinion of General Gage’s orders, I still respect the laws of time and space. It is impossible that her ladyship could have such knowledge. If you will excuse me, milord, I shall return at once to the House, where I have duties.” He sketched a bow toward Kathryn and left the room.

Kathryn held out her free arm, palm up in a gesture which at once confessed frustration and offered apology.

“I wasn’t very convincing, was I?”

Lord John turned to face the little doctor. “Anders, can you possibly believe that Lady Nadine’s mind and speech are those of a Bedlamite? She is in perfect possession of her senses. She is as clearheaded as either of us!”

Dr. Anders brooded a moment, frowning at Kathryn, “Well, milord,” he said grudgingly, “you’d better convince her ladyship to stop playing this game, or we’ll be compelled to commit her.” He gave a reluctant chuckle. “The look on that prissy fellow’s mug was worth the price of admission.”

He turned to Kathryn. “I don’t know what you’re up to, ma’am, but I’d better warn you it’s a chancy business. Be advised by your husband, and leave off these maneuvers. ¼Tis a losing game, milady. You’ll get no good of it, and maybe more grief than you can handle.”

The doctor took his leave. With a worried, challenging look at Kathryn, Lord John went out after him.

“Bennet!” cried Kathryn as the door closed. “Slip out after them and see if you can hear what Dr. Anders says to Lord John. I don’t like all that advice Anders was giving me. It had sort of ‘final warning’ tone to it.”

Bennet obeyed hastily. Kathryn sat up in bed, cradling her splinted forearm till the little woman returned. The expression on Bennet’s face sent a chill through the younger woman’s body.

“You were right, Miss Kathryn,” whispered Bennet. “What Dr. Anders was saying sounded like a final warning. He said, ‘You had better convince her ladyship to drop this masquerade or whatever farradiddle she thinks she is playing at. Manton will have it all over town that she’s insane or in league with the powers of darkness.’

“ ‘No one would believe such an absurdity,’ his lordship came back at him.

“ ‘Would they not? You know polite society better than I do, milord, but even I know that such a rumor could ruin not only your lady wife but yourself. And I might remind you that a woman was burned as a witch in Scotland as late as 1727,’ the doctor rattles back at his lordship,” Bennet was whispering when the door opened abruptly and Lord John came in. His face was set.

“Well, Nadine, have I given you enough proof that this latest stratagem of yours is unworkable? You are getting yourself in deeper waters than you dream of. In God’s name, for your own sake if not for any feeling you might have for me, drop this most dangerous game!” He glanced at Bennet. “Perhaps you can convince Lady Nadine that she has embarked upon a disastrous course. If not, I shall have to send her off to Ireland tomorrow—for her own protection.”

He left the room.

Behind him there was the frozen silence of despair.