Page 4 of Grasp the Thorn
All he heard was the rain driving viciously against the outside of the house and his coat dripping on the floor.
Bedridden, she had said. Upstairs then. “Mr Neatham?” He repeated the call at the turn of the stairs, and again when he reached the landing.
“Who’s there?” the voice from the room at the end of the short passage above the stairwell shook with fear or age, or perhaps both. “Who’s there? Go away! I am armed. Rosie? Rosie, someone is in the house. Run, Rosie. Get the constable.”
Bear pushed open the door to find an elderly man, not much larger than the rose thief herself, propped up on pillows in his bed, clutching a sheet to his chest, his eyes wide. He flourished a candlestick, his gaunt, wrinkled face showing more terror than aggression.
Bear stopped in the doorway. “Mr Neatham, your Rosie sent me.”
Mr Neatham lifted his chin and sniffed. “I do not know you, sir.” The voice, thready with age, bore the same hallmarks of birth and education that distinguished his daughter’s.
Bear bowed. “Allow me to introduce myself. Hugh Gavenor, at your service.”
The room contained little beside the man and the bed. The corner of the bedside table rested on a stack of broken brick in lieu of a leg. A battered trunk and a few garments hanging on hooks along one wall completed the room’s furnishings. The room was clean, almost painfully so, except the strong smell of fresh urine hinted that another clean—of the frail body before him—was overdue.
Neatham seemed to have forgotten his alarm in his puzzlement. “Gavenor? I know no Gavenors.”
“I purchased Thorne Hall.” Bear stepped toward the bed, stopped, and waited for Neatham to react to his approach.
The man curled his lip. “Rubbish. If you mean to tell me stories, Gavenor, or whatever your name is, you will have to do better than that. Lord Hurley would never sell. He would certainly never sell without telling me. I am his librarian, you know.” He shook his finger at Bear. “Go off with you. My Rosie will be here soon with the constable.”
Bear kept his countenance calm while he rehearsed a rebuke for Miss Neatham. Your father is senile, woman. Why did you not tell me?
“I came from your Rosie,” he explained. How much could the old man understand? “She is at Rose Cottage. I am sorry to inform you she has injured her ankle and will not be able to return tonight. I came on her behalf, to check that you have all you need, Mr Neatham.”
Neatham flapped his hands in agitation, almost hitting himself with the forgotten candlestick. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you. My wife Rosie would never stay at the gardener’s cottage. Why should she? Lord Hurley will send some footmen to bring my wife home. I will…”
His wife? Bear shook his head to clear it. Miss Neatham’s mother, presumably.
Mr Neatham stopped in mid flow and looked around the pathetic room. “But why am I here? Where am I? This isn’t my room.”
He lurched upright, his shoulders shifting toward the edge of the bed, his hips staying put, and wailed as Bear crossed the space between them in two strides, to catch him before he fell from the bed.
Bear settled Neatham back against the pillows, and the invalid looked up at him, bewildered. “My legs. What is wrong with my legs?”
No wonder Miss Neatham was worried. You should never have left the poor, deluded man alone, Miss Neatham. If my roses were so important to you, surely you could have instructed a neighbour to sit with him? Though there had been no lights in the other cottages.
He searched for something soothing to say. “An injury, I am told, sir. Just rest. Do not let your legs concern you.”
Neatham frowned, but did not again attempt to move.
Perhaps Pelman’s sister would come in for the night, or—if not—Pelman might know someone. Someone who could change the bedding and dress the man in clean clothes.
Clearly, Neatham couldn’t be left alone. Especially not in a house that leaked. A spattering of drops entered around the window each time a gust of wind hit it. A continuous runnel of water down the wall in the corner fell to a pool that grew no bigger, so must be draining away between the floorboards to the room beneath.
“I will fetch help,” he told Mr Neatham.
“Fetch the constable,” Mr Neatham instructed. “There has been an intruder. I sent Rosie some time ago, but something must have happened to delay her. What did you say your name was?”
“Gavenor,” Bear repeated.
“Get the constable, Gavenor,” Mr Neatham said. “The man seems to have gone now, but he may come back, and I don’t want my wife frightened.”
“I will be back as soon as I can, Mr Neatham,” Bear said, with little hope that the man would remember.
First, he opened the door at the top of the stairs. A smaller bedroom, clearly Miss Neatham’s, even more spartan than the father’s. He took down the two gowns hanging on the wall, and manage to fit them into the trunk, which he carried downstairs and left by the door before checking the rooms on that floor. A kitchen with no fire, the few pans old and battered, looking as if they had been salvaged from someone’s junk heap. A front room with a single chair at a table by the leaking window, and a woman’s work basket, full of folded fabric and sewing paraphernalia. He put that by the trunk. Miss Neatham was clearly used to being occupied.
His coat was still drenched, but he put it on against the worst of the rain. He’d need an oilskin to protect Miss Neatham’s possessions while he carried them home. Perhaps Pelman would be able to loan him one.
