Page 6 of The Sprinter
“How poorly?” Lady Heathway asked. “What is the complaint, exactly?”
Grace was startled by the question. As far as she knew, nobody had ever asked her mother what was specifically wrong with her. It was…a general weakness? Whenever Doctor Gregory turned up, he made sympathetic noises, gave her a soothing draught, and confirmed her mother’s opinion that she was not to overexert herself.
“How poorly am I?” Lady Barlow asked.
“I am sure my aunt does not mean to pry into such a personal matter as your health,” Lord Gresham said.
“That is precisely what I mean to do,” Lady Heathway said. “How poorly? What is wrong with you? You are upright, after all.”
Lady Barlow glanced at the stairs, as if she wished she’d had the foresight to be abed upon the lady’s arrival. “Well, you see,” she said, “it is an imbalance of humors from the great shock of becoming a widow. It makes me exceedingly weak. I quite depend upon Grace to care for me and manage the household. Such as you see it. Naturally, it is not what I am used to, but we struggle on together.”
Maggie came in with the tea. Grace was very afraid she might drop the tray, such were the girl’s nerves upon serving the great lady currently occupying their modest room of all things.
Thankfully, she set it down with only a bit of a clatter. Grace poured the cups as Lady Heathway nodded her head vigorously at Lady Barlow, seeming delighted. Grace was not at all sure what had delighted the lady—it was certainly not their modest array of biscuits or their chipped teapot.
“As I suspected! Imbalanced humors,” Lady Heathway said. “Excellent news.”
“Excellent?” Lady Barlow asked.
“Naturally, it is excellent,” Lady Heathway said. “The most common complaint in the world and easily rectified. I shall send my own doctor here to diagnose you, though I can see very well it is black bile that affects you. After a few good bleedings, cuppings, purgings, brisk exercise, and a bland diet, you will be set right.”
“Bile? Well, I am not sure…of course, your concern is very kind, Lady Heathway, but my physician thinks—”
“Do you say that my own London doctor, the esteemed Sir Henry Halford who counts among his patients the regent and now the king himself, is not up to the task of balancingyourhumors? Do you say so, Lady Barlow?”
“No indeed,” Lady Barlow said, looking decidedly shaken at this verbal assault. “It is just, well I have been told that the Kent air is what has been most deleterious to my condition. I fear nobody can cure me while I remain in this neighborhood.”
Grace blushed as she knew this was a rather bold gambit to convince Lady Heathway that her mother ought to be removed from the environs of Kent, preferably into the lady’s comfortable house in Town.
“Country doctors,” Lady Heathway said with a note of disdain. “They live in the past century. Another reason Sir Henry shall set you to rights. Air has not a thing to do with it and all of these people racing to the seaside for bracing salt air do themselves not a bit of good. Well!” she said, sipping her tea with obvious relish. “You shall be up and managing the household in a trice. All impediments have been whisked away.”
Grace hardly knew where to look. All impediments had been whisked? Whisked where?
“Unfortunately, in my weakened condition,” Lady Barlow said, “I cannot manage without Grace. If I am to stay in Kent.”
“Nonsense,” Lady Heathway said.
“No, I…” Lady Heathway seemed to have nothing further to say to Lady Barlow and instead turned her attention to Maggie. “What do you wait for, girl? A trunk must be packed! We will not wish to tarry and find ourselves on the road after sunset. Highwaymen, you know.”
“But—” Lady Barlow stuttered.
Lady Heathway held up a hand at Lady Barlow’sbut. “Never fear, Lady Barlow,” Lady Heathway said cheerfully. “I can read your thoughts. The maid cannot be relied upon to do the thing credibly. Miss Yardley, do go up and supervise. Bring whatever you have that’s best, but do not fret over it! I have arranged for a modiste to attend us in Berkeley Square on the morrow.”
Grace rose, as it sounded like an order rather than a suggestion. She curtsied to the lady and followed Maggie up the stairs.
She had not the first idea of what she should do when she got there. Should she actually pack her things? It did not seem likely that her mother would be willing to do without her. How would the lady manage?
On the other hand, it also did not seem likely that Lady Heathway had ever been defeated in any matter.
But it could not be right to leave her mother in her current state, no matter how determined Lady Heathway was about it.
Closing the door to the bedchamber, she said quietly, “I hardly know what to do.”
Maggie looked at her strangely. “I reckon we’d best do as we’re told. That lady down there is a regular hussar.”
*
George could notquite believe what he had just witnessed. They were meant to simply arrive, load the girl and her trunk, and be off. Now he was to understand that the girl’s mother was sickly and had no intention of allowing her daughter to leave.
