Page 9 of Lady for a Season
Maggie found Edward buried in a book again and wondered if this had been his life, a silent solitary world of books, perhaps taking him through their pages into other worlds and places, providing companionship and something to occupy his mind during the day, dark nightmares haunting him at night.
“Good morning, Edward.”
“Good morning, Maggie. I am sorry to have frightened you last night.” He swallowed. “I do not sleep well.”
She gave him a bright smile. “You did not frighten me, but I am sorry you do not sleep well. We must try to remedy that.”
He stared down at his book again, as though what she was saying was not possible, but he did not wish to argue the point with her.
Agnes brought a tray of sliced bread, a toasting fork, butter, preserves and a pot of tea. Maggie poured tea for them both and sat before the fire to toast the bread. It was good bread, and the preserves were well made, but Edward ate only a single slice of unbuttered toast before returning to his book. She resolved to keep him better occupied than he had been so far. That might tire him out for the nights.
“Shall we go into the garden?”
He followed her to the back door, holding it open again for her. They stood for a moment in the cold morning air, the frosted grass before them.
“We should build a bench so we can watch the animals without sitting on the cold ground,” she said.
He stared at her as though she had suggested something very odd.
Maggie had seen an old, rotted tree trunk lying half in the stream the day before and headed there at once. “Help me pull this up,” she called and soon they were struggling up the bank with it.
“We can borrow a few logs from the woodpile,” she said, and set off back towards the house at a brisk stride. Edward, with his longer legs, quickly caught up with her.
Arms filled with logs, they returned and built a lopsided structure that bore a passing resemblance to a bench. Once on a wet day at the Hospital they had used such logs for a walkway across a courtyard, though they had been scolded for it and made to take the muddy logs back to the woodpile where they belonged, but here there was no-one to scold.
This seat became part of their morning routine in the following days. Wrapped in their coats and carrying hot tea, they spent hours each day perched on the bench, sometimes speaking of something, such as parts of the stream icing over, sometimes in silence. Many days passed before they were rewarded by a flash of orange as a fox passed. The next day, they marvelled at the careful cautious approach of a group of deer, come to drink at the stream. Once, as the sky grew dark, they caught sight of a badger, waddling through the undergrowth, and Maggie, eyes alight with excitement, nudged Edward to look. Her wide smile brought a smile to his face. Her excitement was contagious.
The nightmares still came every night without fail, so punctually that Maggie would sometimes wake a moment before Edward cried out. She accepted them as part of her life here, even though she hoped over time they might lessen, if Edward were to be better distracted.
Each Sunday, the vicar, Mr Robertson, visited and insisted on reading them the entire day’s sermon, then praying with them. He was a kindly man, but treated Edward as though he were a child, going so far as to pat him on the head when leaving. Then again, he had known him since he was fourteen, so perhaps in his aging mind Edward was still only a boy. He made up for it by bringing books with him, which Edward devoured and shared with Maggie.
They took turns reading to one another, poring over books together. Their favourites were those on botany and agriculture. The illustrations were beautiful, and they tried to identify everything in the garden and patch of woodland over the stream, sometimes carrying the books with them to their bench and reading them there until they were called for meals.
Eliza was a good cook. Maggie, for the first time in her life, knew what it was to be full at every meal. The Hospital had notstarved the children, but there had never been second portions, and the food had been tediously monotonous and often watery. Breakfast and supper had mostly been bread and butter or gruel. In the middle of the day, dinner was generally cheap cuts of meat such as stewed shins of beef with root vegetables, or boiled mutton. At Ivy Cottage porridge was common at breakfast, but it was thick and usually served with cream and honey. Dinner was often a stew, with rabbit, beef or mutton, potatoes and greens, but thicker and better flavoured than any Maggie had previously known. For supper they might have bread and cheese with a hot broth and there might be a treat such as pound cake or biscuits during the day, for both Eliza and Agnes had a sweet tooth.
“The doctor don’t stint us,” Eliza said to Maggie, when Maggie expressed surprise at being offered cream and honey in her porridge. “He ain’t stingy, says we must eat good wholesome food and dress warm in the winter.”
Maggie and Edward ate together in the parlour, while the other two women ate in the kitchen, preferring to chatter together, for they regarded Edward as a patient and treated him as such. They were kindly enough but treated him with a pitying air.
“’Tis a shame he’s a lunatic,” Eliza said, one day after Maggie had been there two weeks. “He’s handsome enough, if he had a little meat on him, but he can’t help being afflicted, I s’pose. Poor lad.”
“Has he got better or worse since you’ve known him?”
“Quieter,” was Eliza’s considered response. “More docile-like. When he were a little boy he’d try and run off, but the doctor weren’t happy about that, gave him a whipping and more treatments till he calmed down. You’d hear him crying when he were first brought here of a night, made your heart hurt to hear him, but he wouldn’t take comfort from anyone. These days, he’s quiet enough, apart from his nightmares. Watches his animals down the garden, reads his books, eats and sleeps and letsDoctor Morrison treat him without fighting back. So I suppose you could say he’s improved.”
Maggie soon found out why Edward was so thin, for he barely touched his food. He would sit and stare at it, eat a few mouthfuls as though they might harm him, with a fearful air, each mouthful chewed for a long time before swallowing as though it were painful to do so.
“Do you not like the food? Would you prefer something else? Eliza is a good cook, I am sure she could make something to tempt you,” Maggie tried once but he only shook his head as though she did not understand. He took his porridge plain and refused any of Eliza’s tempting treats.
Once a week, Walter would come to the cottage. He was a taciturn man from the village whom Doctor Morrison had employed to travel once a week to Leamington Priors and return with a bottle of the sulphur-smelling spa waters, of which Edward was to take a small cup each day. Walter also brought food supplies as ordered by Eliza and did the heavy chores, cutting and stacking wood, pumping several buckets of fresh water each day for Eliza’s kitchen, and more for Agnes to do the laundry once a week. He had a dappled grey pony named Daisy with a small cart for errands and Maggie would sometimes offer Daisy a wizened apple from storage, still sweet but wrinkly, which the horse accepted with much snuffling and good-natured nudges of her velvet nose against Maggie’s hand.
“Walter is at the door,” Maggie said to Edward one day. “Do you want to give Daisy an apple with me? She does love them so.”
“No,” he said, from the depths of his book on astronomy, but there was an odd crack to his voice and his shoulders tightened. She was reminded of the first time she had seen him, theimpression of fear which had receded since they had come to know one another.
“Does Edward not like Daisy?” she asked Agnes, who was sweeping the hallway as she passed.
Agnes’s eyes widened. “Why? What has he done this time?”
