Page 25 of The Winter of Our Discontent
“Mrs Butters, sir.”
“Bloody hell! Butters as well?” I resisted the rote, customary apology required after cursing in the presence of awoman, because I was not sorry at all. I would now have to conduct this already awkward meeting in a state of unbecoming agitation for which I blamed the well-dressed woman who looked at me with her unblinking crow eyes.
Turning to the doctor, I spoke in an officious tone. “A complaint, common to apparentlyseveralwomen on the estate now, has arisen.” I pulled Mrs Darcy’s letter out of my pocket. “This is a letter my wife wrote with the intent of soliciting a second opinion from a physician in London. After consulting me, I determined to locate someone to review this matter first hand. I would prefer she not recite to you the particulars, but you will see for yourself what my conclusion has been.”
Yardley looked quizzically between my wife and I. He was rather too all-seeing for my taste, but the days of comfortable assurance were so far behind me, sharing a teaspoon of my marital infelicity with another man left me feeling slightly less harassed.
After a cursory review of the letter, Yardley looked up, not at me as he should have, but at Mrs Darcy.
“And now you say there are three women with similar complaints?”
“Yes. Mrs Travers has seen a man in Derby and was prescribed a remedy, but I am given to understand she still suffers. This is a matter of delicacy, sir. I have been approached by all three with the assumption of confidence but also with the expectation I will break that confidence with discretion in order to provide them with some assistance. I really do not know how to proceed.”
“No, how could you? This is a situation you did not expect to face when newly married and thrust into a large holding asmistress.” The doctor then had the effrontery to look upon my wife with commiserating tenderness. “What of the families?”
My wife explained the number of children and their approximate ages, a troop of a dozen youngsters ranging from infancy to thirteen. She assured Yardley, upon his questioning, that none of the women were in expectation of more children, that according to her sources, the husbands were not known wife beaters or raging drunks, and that the individuals involved struck her as solid, reliable men.
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I watched the admiration of one and the seemingly artless charm of the other as Yardley questioned my wife—my all-knowing, infinitely capable wife. What an actress! She apparently knew the names and ages of all the children of Pemberley. She hadsources. She made it her business to know whether the wives on the estate were subjected to beatings and drunken belligerence. I blinked more than once at the audacity of her performance, at the seeming earnestness of her concern.
My mind wandered. My aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s oft-quoted lament about nurturing a viper in the pit of her Christian heart came to mind, and I suffered a moment of real apprehension.
I thought I could hem this creature in!I spoke inwardly in a kind of shocked realisation that I was, in fact, out of my depth and in deep and murky water.
“Sir?” Yardley was speaking.
“Forgive me. I was momentarily distracted.”
“I was telling Mrs Darcy I ought to move to a cottage and take my place among your tenants.”
“A cottage?”
“Yes, if you have one at present unoccupied. I shall never earn the trust of a farmer’s wife if I wander back to the great house every evening to dine on pheasant.”
“I see. I have several cottages near Lambton, but they are far from the farms and very crude.”
“I have no aversion to riding. If Mrs Darcy might give me the name of a local woman to cook and clean, and if you, sir, could recommend to me a man of all work, I shall do quite well.”
“I am sure you are used to much better.”
“I can assure you the surgeon’s quarters on a frigate for three years running has cured me of all notions of luxury.”
“There is a stipend available, though that, too, is likely not what you are used to.”
He seemed amused at my attempts to dissuade him. “I see you have not read up on ship’s pay of late and more to the point, what is allotted those of us cast ashore on leave.”
Mrs Darcy looked tenderly upon our guest, which caused my resentment to flare. I wondered if next the good doctor would ask for a flail and a daily allotment of bread and water.
“Do you expect to be sent abroad again soon, Mr Yardley?” my wife was asking in the kindest of voices.
“I sail with Mayweather whenever he goes, but as it stands, he is beached for half a year or more, ma’am.”
“Mayweather—he was lately oftheLionwas he not?”
“A fitting ship for him, ma’am. He wept for her when she went down.”
“How terribly sad we were to read about our losses. But I see I depress you with my irrelevant questions. If you willexcuse me, I am sure my husband will send his steward to see to a cottage. Meanwhile, whenever you wish, we shall ride out so that I can make you known to all your many patients. Oh!” she said with a little blush, “I had nearly forgot. Miss Darcy charged me most particularly with a petition to look in on her companion, Mrs Annesley, who is sometimes laid quite low with her headaches.”
