A Duel With Destiny

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1815-1

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1815Rowena heard the knocker on the front door and put down the sock she was darning.

It would be useless to expect old Mrs. Hanson to hear it in the kitchen. She was getting deafer every year and made it an excuse for not hearing the door or orders that she did not want to execute.

Rowena supposed that it was one of her father’s patients and thought that the knock sounded as if the caller was in a hurry, probably it was for a woman in labour or for a worker on the adjacent farm who had been involved in an accident.

She crossed the small hall and opened the door to stand astonished as she saw four men carrying a gate on which lay a recumbent figure.

“What has happened?” she asked.

“Doctor says as we’re to bring the gentleman ’ere,” one of the men answered.

Rowena looked critically at the four-barred gate that they had obviously taken off its hinges.

“You will not get that through the door,” she said, “and certainly not up the stairs. You will have to carry him.”

“That’s what I told you,” one man said to another.

They all came from the village and Rowena knew them by name.

“What happened, Abe?” she asked the oldest of the four.

“Accident at the crossroads, Miss Rowena, a real nasty one, it were!”

He and the other men were setting the gate down on the ground as he spoke and now Rowena looked at the figure lying on it and saw that it was in fact a gentleman resplendently dressed.

He wore an intricately tied white cravat and the polish on his Hessian boots caught her attention before she realised how big he was and how tall he would be if he was standing.

“I says the driver of the stagecoach were drunk agin,” one of the other men said.

“They causes more accidents then anyone else,” a third chimed in.

“How many people were hurt?” Rowena asked.

“Only this gentleman,” Abe replied. “The passengers on the stagecoach were real shook up, screamin’ and a-cryin’ they were, but the doctor’s attendin’ to ’em.”

Rowena thought it was fortunate that her father had been there and remembered that he had had a call to make in the village and then was going on to one of the outlying farms.

This meant that he must have been near the crossroads at the time of the accident.

The four men were lifting the gentleman off the gate. He was obviously very heavy, for they had to brace their muscles to take his weight.

Now slowly they brought him into the house and started to climb the narrow stairway.

There was only one bedchamber in the house that was not occupied, where Rowena knew that they would have to put him.

It had been her mother’s and was an attractive room with a bow window overlooking the garden at the back.

She hurried ahead to pull up the blinds and turn down the sheets.

The bed was always made, for this was by no means the first time that her father had used it for one of his patients.

The last time it had been occupied she remembered it was by a woman traveller who had slipped one frosty night and broken her leg.

She had been with them for nearly three weeks and a terrible trouble she had proved to be. What was more she had left without even paying for her keep!

‘At least this patient looks as if he is wealthy,’ Rowena thought.

But she knew that if they were to extract any money from him it would be her task to do so. It would never enter her father’s head to ask for his fees to be paid.

The four men carried the gentleman into the bedroom and laid him down on the bed.

When his head was on the pillow, Rowena was able to see that he was extremely handsome, despite the fact that there was a large cut on his forehead, which was bleeding profusely.

His eyes were closed and she had the idea that there might be further injuries to his body to produce such complete unconsciousness.

“Be there anythin’ else we can do, Miss Rowena?” Abe asked.

“Yes, there is, Abe,” Rowena said briskly. “You had best undress the gentleman and get him into bed. There is no one else to attend to him except Mrs. Hanson and myself and the doctor will be too busy when he returns.”

The men looked at the recumbent gentleman a little nervously, as if they were afraid that he might awake and curse them for such familiarity.

“Handle him gently,” Rowena insisted, “I will fetch one of my father’s nightshirts for him.”

She went from the room as she spoke, thinking that the men might as well make themselves useful and save her father the task when he returned.

She knew from long experience that it was very difficult to undress a large man, especially one who was unconscious.

She was also sure that the gentleman’s elegant and expensive clothes would fit far too tightly for them to be removed easily.

She went next door to her father’s bedroom and found his nightshirts neatly folded in a drawer where she had arranged them.

She was about to take one off the top of the pile, but then she delved further into the drawer and drew out one that she considered to be his best.

It was of silk and had been made by her mother some years ago as a special present.

“I have always wished that your father could afford silk nightshirts,” she said to Rowena with a smile as she sewed the seams with exquisitely small stitches.

“I should have thought it was more important for you, Mama, to have lovely clothes, not Papa,” Rowena had replied.

Her mother smiled.

“I don’t think that your father would notice whether I was dressed in silk or sacking! He loves me just as I am, but I have always wanted the best for him.”

That was true, Rowena recognised, but it was impossible for either of them to have the best when they had four children. It was never a question of silk nightshirts for her father, but boots for Mark, stockings for Hermione and gowns for Lotty.

Rowena could never remember a time when it had not been a struggle to feed and clothe themselves.

Sometimes she resented the fact that her father, so dedicated to his profession, was completely happy as long as he was helping other people and had no idea of the sacrifices it entailed for his family.

“Do you realise,” she had said only a week ago, “that Farmer Bostock has not paid you for the operation you did on his hand over a year ago?”

“Times have been hard for the Bostocks recently,” her father replied. “He will pay me when he can afford it.”

“How can we afford to live if no one pays their debts?” Rowena demanded angrily.

But her protests fell on deaf ears and she knew that even if Farmer Bostock or any of her father’s other patients paid up, the money as likely as not would go to provide milk for some sick child or medicines for an invalid who could not afford them for himself.

‘I shall see that this patient pays if it is the last thing I do,’ Rowena promised herself as she took the nightshirt next door and knocked at the door.

She was not shy or squeamish about seeing a man being undressed and had in fact often helped her father when there had been a patient in the house and no one else to attend to him.

But she knew that Abe and the other villagers would be extremely shocked at the thought of her looking at the gentleman until he was between the sheets.

So she merely handed the nightshirt through the door and went downstairs to fetch some hot water, towels and bandages.

“They have brought a gentleman here who has been involved in an accident, Mrs. Hanson,” she told the old cook who was bending over the ancient temperamental stove in the kitchen.

“What’s that, Miss Rowena?” Mrs. Hanson asked.

Anything that was said to the old woman had to be repeated twice, which was because she did not trouble to listen the first time.

“A patient, is it?” Mrs. Hanson asked when Rowena had repeated her words.

There was resentment in the cook’s old eyes because she knew that it meant extra work and Rowena, anxious to keep the peace, said soothingly,

“He looks rich so he will not stay long. When Papa has patched him up, there will doubtless be a carriage to collect him, so we need not worry ourselves.”

“As if there’s not enough in this ’ouse to do as it is!” Mrs. Hanson grumbled.

“I don’t think that our visitor will be needing anything to eat at the moment,” Rowena replied.

She took a china basin from the cupboard and filled a jug with hot water from the kettle on the stove. Then, carrying them from the kitchen, she went to another cupboard where she kept the bandages her father so often required and a pile of fresh linen towels.

She was just about to climb the stairs again when the four men came trooping down.

“We ’as put ’im into bed, Miss Rowena,” Abe said. “Never stirred an eyelid, he didn’t! Reckon the doctor’ll find ’im ’alf-dead when ’e gets ’ere.”

He imparted this information with relish and Rowena knew that there was nothing they enjoyed more than the drama of death.

“Thank you all very much,” she said, “but I have a feeling that our new patient will survive, especially in my father’s magic hands.”

“That’s right enough, Miss Rowena,” Abe said. “The doctor’s got a way with ’im that’s nothing short of miraculous! That’s what me wife said when ’e dragged ’er back from the very grave itself!”

“A lot of people have said the same thing,” Rowena smiled.

Abe opened the front door.

“If there be anythin’ else you wants, Miss Rowena, you ’as only to ask. We be goin’ back now to clear up the mess at the crossroads. I ’opes we don’t ’ave t’ bring you no one else.”

“There’s no room for anyone else,” Rowena said sharply. “Make that clear to my father when you see him and tell him to come back here as soon as possible.”

“We’ll tell the doctor, miss.”

The men touched their forelocks respectfully, the door closed behind them and Rowena started up the stairs.

She entered the bedroom to find the gentleman laid back against the pillows, his clothes placed over a chair by the fireplace.

Rowena set down the basin by the bedside and poured some of the water from the jug into it. Then she bent over the bed to inspect the cut on the gentleman’s forehead.

The blood from it had run over his face and gently she wiped it away with the warm water and saw that the wound, although it looked unpleasant, was not very deep.

‘He must have other injuries,’ she thought as she wiped his face with a soft towel.

Now that he was cleaned up he looked even more handsome then she had thought at first.

He had straight aristocratic features, a square chin, a firm almost hard mouth which made her think that he might be a difficult man to cross.

She guessed that he was over thirty and his dark hair was cut in the windswept manner that had been made fashionable by the Prince Regent.

‘He is obviously someone very important,’ she told herself and saw that he had long thin fingers and on one of them a signet ring with an elaborate monogram.

She felt that there was nothing more she could do except wait for her father’s return and automatically she picked up the clothes that lay over the chair.

She noticed the quality of the grey whipcord riding coat and, as she lifted it, she saw that there was a wallet in the inside breast pocket.

She took it out to lay it on the dressing table and realised that it was filled with notes.

She resisted the impulse to open it.

When she lifted the pale champagne-coloured pantaloons, she heard the clink of a purse in one of the pockets and, taking it out, she set it down beside the wallet.

‘At least he has money,’ she thought with satisfaction, ‘and he shall not leave without paying Papa.’

The injured man’s polished Hessian boots were dusty, doubtless from the roadway into which he must have been thrown during the collision.