“And Mrs. Rutledge is . . . ?”
“His daughter, sir.”
“Ah.” Von Stühlen's good eye flicked around the narrow hall, which offered a handsome staircase and nothing more; the principal rooms were above. A marble-topped table, claw-footed and carved in walnut, stood beneath the stairs; there was a porcelain bowl ready to receive callers' compliments, a small pile of post. “When did Mr. Taylor—”
“At twelve minutes past two o'clock in the morning, sir. He went very quietly—never regained consciousness, though Doctor remained hopeful to the last. A great loss, sir—and to depart in such a way!” Overcome, the butler withdrew his handkerchief from his coat and buried his nose in it. “Those ruffians! Hanging's too good for 'em!”
“Indeed. And the police—?”
“Are at sixes and sevens.” The butler's indignant face emerged from his linen. “They wished most earnestly to speak to Mr. Fitzgerald—he's Mr. Taylor's partner, and found him at death's door in chambers—but Mr. Fitzgerald has been called away!”
“Very odd,” von Stühlen observed. “Have you an idea of Mr. Fitzgerald's direction?”
“I received it only this morning, in the post.” The butler lifted an envelope from the stack of correspondence and peered at it nearsightedly. “Shurland Hall, Eastchurch, Isle of Sheppey. Perhaps Mr. Fitzgerald is spending Christmas among friends . . . ?”
It was clear, by that Tuesday morning, that Georgiana was ill—so ill she was unable to leave her bed, and Mrs. Coultrip was obliged to wait upon her.
Fitzgerald loitered in hallways, anxious for news of her condition; heard the sound of ragged breathing through her open door; sent queries and good wishes by Mrs. Coultrip; and finally salved his restless spirit by sitting in the library and poring over Channel charts, decanter near at hand. He had just determined to drive into town and find a doctor to examine Georgie, when Theo wandered through the library door.
“Are you fleeing your creditors, Father,” the boy demanded, with an eye to the charts, “—or are clients so thin on the ground, you've no reason to tarry in London?”
He's determined to offend, Fitzgerald thought. Don't take the scent.
“With the Prince dead, little will be heard at the Bar in coming weeks,” he replied mildly. “Tell me of Balliol, Theo—how do you get on? Read anything good this term?”
“Social theory,” the boy drawled. He hadn't bothered to take a chair. “Ethnology and anthropology. James Hunt. Robert Knox. Mackintosh. Ever heard of them?”
“Can't say that I have.”
“But then, your education was always deficient.”
“That it was,” Fitzgerald returned, keeping his temper in check, “but I put enough by, all the same, to send you to school. What do these Hunts and Knoxes teach you, then?”
Theo smiled faintly. “That England and Ireland are forever divided by the national character of their peoples—the reasoned, ordered, civilized Anglo-Saxon having nothing in common, by blood or habit, with the savage Celt. Mackintosh adds that where the Anglo-Saxon is a model of prudence, self-governance, and industry, the Celt is utterly alien—being prone to wild rages, persistent melancholy, indolence, and an undue veneration for the whip.” He eyed the half-empty decanter. “Not to mention drink. What do you say to that, Father?”
Fitzgerald sank back in his chair and stared up at his son. “I'd say that any people as subject to the English whip as the Irish have been, for time out of mind, ought to be melancholy and enraged. Do you enjoy this kind of study, Theo?”
“I suppose it helps to answer youth's eternal question,” he retorted. “Who am I? I can't help but wonder, with such parents as mine.”
“You're a good deal more than the sum of Maude and me, lad.”
“True. As I've said—every man is the result of generations of bloodline and history. Mine is both aristocratic and mongrel—so I repeat, Father: Which am I?”
“Whatever you aspire to be,” Fitzgerald answered bluntly. “Or so I have always found.”
His son's eyes danced over him mockingly, in search of something Fitzgerald could not see in the outline of his features. “In the prognathous jaw and dusky skin of the black Irish, as they're called, one can trace the descent from a common ancestor of the Negroes. But Mama spared me that indignity. I will always be recognised for a Hastings.”
“Not entirely.” Fitzgerald said it bitterly. “You got my temper, my implacable hatreds, and my taste for argument. You'd make a brilliant lawyer, look you.”
“I'd rather die first.”
“Sweet Jesus, boy, does it give you so much pleasure to cut at me?”
“Of course!” Theo cried. “It's almost the only pleasure I have! You made sure of that, Father—by stealing my birthright from the moment I was born! Do you know what it's like to be a Paddy's son?”
Fitzgerald did not reply. He had seen, over Theo's shoulder, Odaline duFief in the library doorway. She made no sound, her whole form listening.
“—the friends that daren't invite you home. The girls who cut you direct, once they learn your name. The whispers and looks that follow you across the room, every time you suffer failure. It's almost worse when you succeed! The Paddy's son is supposed to fail!”
“Stop it, Theo,” Fitzgerald said blindly. “Stop it now. How may we help you, Madame duFief ?”
“Your little friend, monsieur,” she said with deceptive sweetness. “She has taken a turn for the worse.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“The cold itself should be a trifling indisposition,” said Harris, the Sheerness doctor, as he descended the stairs at Shurland that evening, “but when complicated by fever, is necessarily of concern. Miss Armstead must be kept warm and quiet for a se'nnight at least, if we are not to see an inflammation of the lung. That would be most dangerous, Mr. Fitzgerald, as I am sure I need not tell you. If only Shurland were not so draughty!”
Fitzgerald had driven the pony trap from the barn, his anxiety for Georgie spurred by his need to be free of the Hall and its ghosts. The chill air, laden with Channel salt and the scent of sheep dung, whipped his cheeks as it swept the length of treeless Sheppey—and he understood why Theo was so often out-of-doors, on Clive's back, during these end-of-term vacs. The boy could be free of anything—even social theory—on these moors.
“I have known just such a healthy young woman carried off in the past, from an inflammation of the lung, when insufficient care was taken,” Harris persisted. “I should have bled Miss Armistead, had she not strenuously set herself against it; and I will not undertake to promise never to bleed her, if the fever persists.”
“Sure and I'll do my best to support you, Harris,” Fitzgerald returned, “but Miss Armistead is by way of being learned in medicine herself, and will object to meddling.”
“Learned!” the doctor snorted. “The dear ladies will always believe they know best, in all matters of health, regardless of their limited experience and education—it is the maternal impulse, instilled by the Creator—but in Miss Armistead's case, it is for her natural protectors to steer her between the shoals of over-confidence and willful conceit. I shall call again in the morning, Mr. Fitzgerald. Pray see that Miss Armistead swallows the draught I have left in Mrs. Coultrip's keeping, at bedtime and again at two o'clock in the morning. I shall leave instructions as to gruel and fortifying broth.”
Fitzgerald promised faithfully, and showed Dr. Harris the door; then stood in the chill Hall for an instant considering his position.
In choosing Shurland as a point of refuge, he'd never intended to make a prolonged stay. Now he was trapped until Georgiana's health improved—unless he left her behind, and went on to France alone.