‘What's happened to him?’
‘Please be calm Miss Mason. The faint is something I caused. I acknowledge it looks dire, but he is at no risk.’
‘You did that? Why? Was he not supposed to? And where did she come from?’
‘One at a time, please. Yes, as I said, I caused the faint. I brought him here, to this house of women, adrift in a sea of loneliness, longing and hormones for one purpose - to give him reason to live and heal. I did not, however, expect him to make such enthusiastic progress. I imagined him reaching this stage in two or three days. I gave him charms to increase his attractiveness. Perhaps unnecessarily.’
‘Turing, you really haven't been paying attention, have you? This is Jack. He's never had any need of your magic charms to attract women. It's what happens once he's attracted them's the problem. And what about Abigail? Is it co-incidence she's here?’
‘Unfortunately, no. He thought of her and how surprising it was she hadn't been his first love. That was enough - she came to him.’
‘I thought you said he couldn't control them?’
‘No more he can, but you are correct, the charm is unnecessary. I will remove it.’
She seemed, thought Turing, unmollified by the assurance.
‘What happens now?’
‘Abigail will help him back to the house and he will rest for a few more days. This is something everyone will co-operate with, I assure you.’
***
They watched as Abigail woke Jack, helped him dress and walk back to the castle. There, she explained how she'd met him by the river and he'd fainted. Abby, thankfully, was a good enough liar to keep the story simple. The worry she and Fanny showed at Jack's condition disappeared in the wave of concern shown by everyone else. Lady Charlotte reflected later she'd been the only one not to try to 'help' him. That'd been as much because she'd not been able to get a hand on as from seeing no need.
‘He fainted ladies, no more. It isn't a cause for excessive worry. Now, let him have some air and some quiet and he'll be right as rain in no time. Bridie, more of your excellent beef tea, I think? Abigail? A pillow and a blanket please. For the rest of us, I think we'd be better leaving him be for a while, don't you all agree?’
They did; reluctantly. Lady Charlotte tried to understand how this youth had caused such a commotion to her household in so short a time. She recognised his strong points, admittedly. She enjoyed her conversations with him, found him polite, but forthright, confident, with a certain rough charm and a good wit. And yes, someone of Abigail’s age would be taken by the looks and the devil-may-care grin which came out when not, as now, too ill to focus.
Eleonora had clearly been taken with him from his arrival, as had Brampton, though both were equally clearly trying to persuade themselves they weren't. Eleonora's case… Ah, well. Charlotte knew Quentin too well to have ever believed a marriage would be successful, but he'd surpassed himself with Eleonora. Her subsequent status of demi-vierge neither suited nor served her health well. Charlotte had difficulty in talking openly with Eleonora, despite her sympathy for the woman. She'd tried hinting at the need to take herself a lover, but the idea hadn't seeded. Aside from anything else, there was no one whom she could take.
Brampton… well, she'd made her own bed too. Charlotte had met her young man, briefly, but long enough to take his measure. Dry as a stick was young Mr Davy, but he'd probably make a decent enough husband for her.
For Jack's part, she'd be forced to say he'd behaved perfectly well. Bridie and Gina were ensuring Abigail and he weren't alone too much, but if he did tumble her in the hay… Well, as long as he was careful, which Charlotte decided he would be, what harm was there in that? He'd no interest in Deirdre, she'd eyes in her head to see that. As a mother she was relieved. As a human being, she didn't blame him. Dee had returned as noisome as she'd left. Charlotte foresaw friction between the two, as there'd been with Hilary's cousins the year before. Though Hillary's cousins were no prizes either.
She'd heard, of course, Gina's story of Jack teaching her son to deal with a bully and Bridie's of Jack cooking his own breakfast and 'having a tongue on him makes Maguire's look dull', an achievement there, as Seamus could charm babies away from the breast.
All told, yes, a rather remarkable young man. She'd be proud to have him as a son and imagined his father… Ah. She wondered if his father even knew what he had as a son. She'd boarded herself and thought it to be survivable, but no way to build the bonds of a strong family. Still, independent and competent. Was she being a wicked old woman by wondering if she should tip him into Eleonora's bed?
***
Turing began to wonder if removing the charms would have sufficient of an affect. One may start an avalanche by kicking a single rock, he thought, but, once started, the decision to refrain from kicking another will not stop the avalanche. Situations have a gravity of their own which will cause things to fall where it will cause them to fall.
***
Eleonora took her friend into her room. Clearly, Fanny wanted to speak and equally clearly, concern over Jack stood at the root of it. Confession, she believed from experience, was good for the soul in many ways. And if this concerned Jack…She listened. In shock, in sympathy and, in no small measure, in envy. Fanny's story was of another world, one in which the man was kind, considerate and, bless me father for this thought is sin, satisfying. It was a world, she realised, she desperately wanted to visit.
‘I've never asked, Lena, but was it ever like that with Quentin?’
She almost spat. ‘That pig! No, never with him. On our wedding night he was drunk. He stayed with the men drinking spirits until blind. Then he came to me. He has been with women before Fanny. That I do not complain of. But he has been with puttane, with whores, and expected me to do as they did. He wanted me to… to take him in my mouth. Do you understand what I mean? I said no and he tried to force me. He wanted me… from behind. I hit him with a vase and he spent our wedding night on the floor, unconscious. We have not slept in the same room since and I have sworn we never shall. I cannot divorce him. The church and my family do not allow. He left one month after we married and I blessed the day and every one following. Like you, I am still a virgin. Unlike you, I can’t get no, no… come si dice... no satisfaction of my man. ‘
The two embraced and cried. Fanny had known Eleonora to be unhappy in her marriage. She had met Quentin for long enough to be unsurprised, but still her friend's story shocked. There had to be something...
***
‘He never did!’
‘He did, though. I saw 'im from across the river. Dunno who she was, but I know what he was doing. Oh, Bridie, I'm so afraid it was the shock o' seeing me what caused his turn.’
‘Oh now, don't you worry yourself. T'was naught but a faint, just as her ladyship said. He'll be grand by tomorrow, so he will.’
With the girl gone to wash her tears away, Bridie turned to Gina with a question in her eyes.
‘Don't go looking at me so. Ten years an' our Harold didn't never do the like. Dunno of a man as does. What about your Seamus?’
‘Ah give over, Gina. He'd fuck the family pig up the erse long before he'd do that wit me. I've heard tell the French girls will do it on a man, but…’
‘Oh, they never do, do they? Put it in their mouth? All dirty and…’
‘The boyo who told me said t'was Lazarus come back from the dead. One minute nothing, the next the wee man standing up like a proud peacock.’
‘What's it do for a woman, I wonder?’
‘Don't get me started on the wondering. I've enough to tell me confessor wit just talking. Let me think on it too long and the poor fella will be having the conniption fits.’
‘Oh God, dun I know?’ She giggled. ‘I'll lie in my bed this night all on me own certain already what my mind'll be on. Oh God, Bridie, how comes we're getting so worked up about a sixteen-year-old lad at our age, eh? He come up to my house an' there was me all, 'Oh my hair's a right mess'. Daft or what?’
‘Ah and there's nothing to it Gina, darling. All you need do is hold a massive great war and suck all the men out of the world. It puts me in mind of a time back home I watched some lads making charcoal. The gaffer told me you want to keep the air out, so's your wood doesn't burn as nature intended. It just smoulders and turns black wit the blistering heat. Let a hole come in your heap, he told me, the air gets in and the thing flares up and goes to ash. Doesn't that put ye in mind of us, now?’
‘It do an' all. I swears I's done my share o' smoulderin' since Harold went off. Mind, the minister he do say it's ashes to ashes and dust to dust anyways, dun he? That case, I also swears I wouldn’t mind some bit o' flame a lickin'…’
Bridie dissolved in howls of laughter and slapped Gina's shoulder. They parted as good friends do, but with a thought they'd both come back to. What does it do to a woman…?
When the avalanche has started, it's too late for the pebbles to vote.
***
Jack spent the afternoon sleeping at some times; half-awake others. His head was a dull thing that didn't handle thought well, but depression didn't haunt him. He'd been almost smothered in female concern on getting back to the house. He hadn't complained; didn't plan to. After a long time of having no one close, he'd accept these good women caring about him. Easy people to like; good to be liked by them.
Sex? He hadn't said no. Wouldn't if it came again. It was good too, but, right now, head full of wet cotton wool, thoughts too unwieldy to juggle, feelings the only thing he was sure of, it seemed the best part had been the afterwards. Lying together, talking, the pure delight in being close to another person. Somehow all that was missing in his life was there in the connection.
No one approached him. Lady Ambridge had ordered he be left alone and alone he was left. The deck chairs were also in too public a space; not really appropriate to the conversations most wanted to have with him.
Come five and Charlotte herself came to ask how he was and if he'd like to join them. He passed off the fainting as being probably the result of too much sun and fresh air too soon. She decided he'd be better keeping to the house for a day or two and promised to organise activities to keep him from boredom.
‘That's kind of you Lady Ambridge, but I don't want to trouble anyone.’
She pooh-poohed the idea, insisting the ladies of the house were concerned about him and all keen to see him well again. Indeed, they insisted the same when he took tea with Charlotte, Eleonora and Fanny later. Abigail served and informed him that Bridie was off picking up Dierdre, who'd come back later with her friend, Hilary. Abigail he thought guarded, trying to ascertain if he was alright and if they were too. Jack treated her to his best and friendliest smile. Fanny, unsurprisingly, was the same. Jack's jaw might crack with the smiling, but he determined to reassure both. Later, he made his excuses and headed for his bedroom.
***
Abby came along soon after with a cup of herbal tea. Bridie had recommended it for encouraging sleep.
‘Honest now. You alright?’
‘I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm sorry I scared you.’
‘Oh, I can't tell you how worried I was. Scared I'd give you an 'eart attack or something, I was.’
‘No. It's probably lucky for me you were there.’ He stopped, embarrassed, knowing what she'd seen.
She grinned. ‘What, worried 'cos I caught you at it? Don't worry. I ain't mad. Bit jealous maybe, but not mad. Didn't think I'd got competition, did I? I'm more annoyed with Bridie for running me off my feet, so's I'd no time for meself.’ She looked at him more seriously. ‘Look, you said it yourself, didn't you? You ain't goin' to be around long, so I ain't gettin' serious 'bout you. Don't you go thinkin' us country girls is all simple in the 'ead. You're still on a chance o' kisses, but only a chance.’
Jack laughed, genuinely delighted. ‘I like you,’ he said, meaning it. ‘I'd always know where I stand with you. That's worth a lot.’
Abby brushed it off, but was pleased. That wasn't an, 'oh-you're-so-pretty' I like you, or a, 'this-might-get-me-well-in' one either. That was an 'I like who you are.' Coming from a lad who could laugh at an offer of kisses, an 'I like you' worth listening to.
She looked at the door and leant in for a quick kiss.
‘Good card that 'un.’
***
‘No girls. Jack needs his rest tonight. You can see him in the morning.’
Hilary assured Lady Ambridge all would be well and the girls went to Deirdre's room to be out of the way.
‘Rats!’
Deidre relaxed a little realising her friend's disappointment came from not seeing Jack rather than his illness making him less attractive. For Hillary the mystery increased on hearing she'd not catch him till the morning. Everyone at the evening meal had been happy to talk about Jack with her and she had the ability of one female to spot the interest of others. You didn’t raise that much interest in that many women by being ordinary.