THAT YEAR came the winter of the great frost.
There was no keeping the house warm; the bleak winds penetrated into every room, and there was ice on the river. Blizzards swept across the country.
Mercy was hardly ever at home; she had so many sick people in the hospital. Margaret and Elizabeth were often there helping her.
Mercy was very happy. The hospital was her life. Although others might deplore Sir Thomas's rise in the world, Mercy could not. But for his making a fortune in the service of the King, he could not have supplied the money which she needed to keep her hospital in being. But she was careful in the extreme. There was nothing extravagant about Mercy; she worked hard and enjoyed working hard. She remembered Erasmus's criticism of English houses, and she had no rushes in her hospital; there were windows that could be opened wide; and her success with her patients was gratifying.
Mercy enjoyed those days when her foster father came to inspect her work. He would go among the patients, a joke on his lips. “Laughter is one of the best medicines,” he told her; and she was contented to have him with her whether he praised or questioned what she did.
She would not admit to herself that she was not completely happy; she, who was so frank on all other matters, knew herself to be evasive in this.
She would not admit to herself that she loved Dr. Clement. It is merely, she told herself, that there is so much talk of weddings and that makes me wonder if I shall ever be a bride. Ailie and Margaret are married; and now Cecily will have Giles Heron, and Elizabeth her William Dauncey; and because of all this I too look for love.
Had it not always been so? The little foster sister had always feared that she was not quite a member of the family, in spite of everyone's attempts to assure her that she was. Now from Court came two gallants eager to wed the daughters of Sir Thomas More; but none came to woo his foster daughter.
Not that Mercy expected it. She laughed at the idea of plain Mercy Gigs being wooed by such a dashing gentleman as William Dauncey.
Moreover, Mercy did not want a Court gallant; she wanted Dr. Clement.
And he? Why should he think of Mercy Gigs? But he did think of her—oh, as a friend, as a girl who was interested in medicine, as one who spent her time working in her hospital and who liked to ask his advice on certain matters.
She must not be deluded. She was a nobody. She was an orphan on whom the Mores had taken pity; however much they tried to make her forget that, she must not. And John Clement? A young man of good family, high in the service of the great Cardinal, looked on with favor by the King's physician, Dr. Linacre. As if he would think of Mercy Gigs as anything but a friend.
Ah yes, she reminded herself, all this talk of marriages makes me want what the others have. I want to be loved by a husband even as, when I was a child, I wished to be loved by their father.
Cecily and Elizabeth had come over to the hospital on this day, although it was as much as they could do to plod through the snow even that far.
They seemed quite pretty—both of them—with a certain glow upon them. That was being in love. Cecily was the happier perhaps; she was more sure of her Giles. But Elizabeth—more reserved than her younger sister—was she a little anxious about William Dauncey? Did she know—as others did—that he was an ambitious young man who believed her father could advance him? Poor Elizabeth! Like Mercy, she wished for marriage. Was she loving the ideal of marriage more than the man who would make it possible? Mercy uttered a silent prayer for Elizabeth. Cecily would be happy with her Giles. He was a lazy boy, good-natured, frank, not hiding the fact that his father had wished him to marry a Mistress More, and that he was delighted to find such a marriage to his liking. He had not William Dauncey's tight-lipped ambition. And was she right, Mercy wondered, when she thought that even Dauncey had changed since he had visited the house? Was his laughter, when he joined their family group and played their games and sang with them, was it a little less forced than it had been?
The two girls laughed as they shook the snow out of their clothes.
“Why, Mercy, what a day! If the blizzard starts again, we shall be snowed up and unable to get out at all… and no one will be able to get to us.” That was Elizabeth.
Cecily said: “And you must come over to dinner today. Someone is coming, and he'll be disappointed if you're not there.”
Mercy flushed; she knew, by Cecily's quick glance at Elizabeth, who was coming.
“If the weather is so bad, your guest may not arrive.”
“I doubt if he'll come by barge. The ice is quite thick on the river. Oh, Mercy, what a lovely fire!” Cecily held out her hands to the blaze.
“I was lucky, I gathered much furze and bracken during the autumn. I had those of my patients who were recovering go out and get it for me. We believe that exercise is good, and so is fresh air.”
“We?” said Cecily almost archly.
“You and Dr. Clement, I suppose,” said Elizabeth.
“He is learned in these matters.”
“Father says,” said Cecily, “that one day the King might take him into his personal service, and Dr. Linacre thinks that he is the best young doctor he has known. That will doubtless mean that the King will soon hear of it.”
Oh, yes, thought Mercy, he is all that. He is rising in the world, and when he has gone far enough some nobleman of high rank will decide that he is a good match for his daughter.
And John himself? He was as ambitious in his way as Dauncey was in his. He wished to discover new ways of defeating sickness. The favor of the King might help him to do that.
Cecily and Elizabeth did not know that when they talked of the cleverness of John Clement and his chances at Court, they were showing Mercy, more clearly than she had ever seen before, how foolish she had been to dream.
“So,” insisted Cecily, “you must come to dinner and be early. You will then be able to talk to him of the latest remedies for the pox. I am sure that will make entertaining dinner talk.”
“We just came to tell you this,” said Elizabeth. “Mother is in a fine mood this morning. It is Margaret's turn to keep house this week. Poor Margaret! Mother is puffing about the kitchen, warning them all that if the beef is not thoroughly basted, someone will suffer. There is much running to and fro … and all because Dr. John Clement has become such an important personage. It is hard to remember that he was scarcely more than a boy when he first came to us to attend Father on his way to Flanders. The humble secretary has become a great doctor.”
Ah, thought Mercy, too great for me.
Just as the girls were about to leave, a young boy arrived. He was white-faced, and the snow nestled in his hair, so that, on account of the gauntness of his features, he looked like a white-headed man.
“What is it, Ned?” asked Mercy, recognizing him as one of the boys from Blandels Bridge.
“It's my father, Mistress Mercy. He's lying on the straw like a dead man. But he's not dead. He just stares with his eyes wide open, and he can say naught. My mother says to come to you and ask you to see him.”
“You cannot go all the way to Blandels Bridge in this weather,” said Cecily.
“He may be very ill. I must go.”
“But the snow is deep. You could never reach there.”
“It is less than half a mile; and Ned came here.” She looked at his feet. He was wearing a pair of shoes which had belonged to Jack, for Margaret's task was to see to the needs of the poor, and this she did with the help of her family's clothes.