Chapter Three

Ivy Pritchard came back from a morning of tramping through the trees and bushes, intent upon capturing the elusive holly and ivy. Mostly she enjoyed getting outside with an excuse to prowl about, pay attention to winter birds perhaps contemplating a flight south, because their warm autumn had fooled them into longer residence in Yorkshire. No one ever objected to her feeding the birds. Larch, the under footman, had even created a wooden platform low enough for her to reach, and yet high enough to keep cats eternally frustrated.

“The servants coddle you,” Mama had told her on numerous occasions. “Ivy, they are only the staff and we pay them. Don’t be so…so…”

That was where it usually ended. Vain Mama, shallow Mama, never could bring herself to admit that she looked down on those patient souls who provided her with comfort and ease. All Ivy had to do was nod wisely, and go about her own business of kindness to her belowstairs friends, because they were her friends.

There was another reason for a good walk in the woods, holly and ivy on her mind, but consternation in her heart. Her own eyes sparkling, Mama had presented her with note from Captain George Baldwin, who had returned to Summer’s Edge three nights ago. In the note, the captain stated that after three days at home, he finally had the strength to write to her. Mama had never minded looking over her daughter’s correspondence first. “I am a careful mother,” she had announced when Ivy offered a weak protest years ago. “I want to keep you safe from encroachers.” And that was that…Mama read everything first.

“Your own Waterloo hero has returned,” Mama announced, giving each word more weight and bearing than anything perhaps up to and including the Second Coming.

O h goody , Ivy thought. “Thank you, Mama,” she said dutifully, even sweetly, though she did not resist the urge to add, “Did you answer this note already?” she asked.

Mama gave her a wounded look. “I would never…” she began, then added with considerable dignity, “You see that he wants to visit here tomorrow afternoon, provided he has the strength.”

“Very well,” Ivy said. “Provided he has the strength. I’ll write to him.”

The whole exchange was worthy of more time outside, so she seized the moment, putting off answering the note a little longer.

But how long could she avoid duty? My hero , she thought as she returned home, shaking the snow off her cloak and handing it to the footman. She went downstairs and put the basket of holly and ivy on the table in the servants’ dining room. Molly the ‘tween stairs maid was there, Molly who had a knack for decorating. “Do you think this will work, Molly?” she asked.

Molly nodded. “We’ll add it to the other pile and have t’upstairs looking like Christmas soon enough.”

Ivy trudged upstairs and into the library that no one frequented. It was her solitary pleasure, and contained a writing desk. Soon a note was on its way across the fields to Summer’s Edge. She rested her chin on her palm, slouching at the desk in a way Mama would have disliked, remembering the two letters she had received after Waterloo, months ago now. The first was obviously in another man’s handwriting, firm but a little hard to read, stating that yes, her fiancé was wounded, but the wound was relatively superficial and would heal promptly. The next letter a month later was a spidery scrawl that meandered over the page, looking as pitiful as the words that penetrated her somewhat skeptical mind.

The most memorable sentence was something like ‘…knocking on death’s door, but doing my duty in the face of terrible danger.’ H’mm. Which letter to believe?

“I wish I didn’t know you so well, George,” she told the paper in front of her. She closed her eyes, imagining life with George Baldwin. Mama and Papa had both assured her as kindly as possible that she probably wouldn’t get a better offer, but this ?

The wishful thinking side of her brain wanted to believe he was a wonderful man who had been wounded nobly in the service of his country. She liked to believe that side. Who wouldn’t? The skeptical but more rational side told her that nothing had changed and she was engaged to someone concerned more with the size of her marriage portion.

“I don’t like my choices, which amount to no choices,” she said, raising her voice because the library had only books and no one to shush her. She was stuck and she knew it.

She had to chuckle then. Stuck to the hem of her dress was an ivy leaf, prickly and forever green. She noticed the pinch when she crossed her ankles, and bent down to remove it. She held off the pretty thing for a good look, thinking of the Christmas story, of the red holly berries representing the blood Jesus shed on the cross. Somehow it was couple with ivy, perennially green and fresh. Fancy Mama and Papa having enough flight of fancy to name her Ivy. True, her favorite name was in third place, tucked away after Augusta Frances. It was the afterthought, because she was born on Christmas. No wonder she favored ivy. She was also the afterthought.

The note to her fiancé was answered promptly, with that firm signature she remembered from the Brussels letter. “Captain Baldwin wanted me to tell you that he and I will see you tomorrow afternoon around two of the clock.” She looked closer at the smaller print and had to suppress a laugh. “Provided he is not languishing upon death’s door. It’s hard to tell, sometimes.” It was signed Surg. Jake Frost.…Or was that Jack Frost, which made her laugh out loud this time, considering the proximity of Christmas.

It was silly; it was a laugh. She needed a laugh. The thought, unbidden, came to her that the tone of the note suggested the Surg. needed a laugh, too.

She told Mama about tomorrow’s visit, which sent her parent into transports resembling, if not delight, then relief, a more or less silent reminder that her daughter Ivy was twenty-four years old, not getting younger, and her obvious defect remained.

Trust Mama…“Good! Perhaps when Captain Baldwin’s health is no longer precarious, he and Papa can sit down at last and draw up the details of your marriage portion. After all, you’re twenty-four.”

“I know, Mama, and you know, I look about as I did at twenty, twenty-one and twenty-two through twenty-three,” she added on impulse. It sounded a bit brazen to her, but that little missive with Surgeon Frost’s commentary still gave her the giggles.

Mama managed a smile, followed by her quiet admonition. “Daughter, he hasn’t seen you in a while. You remember how to sit, don’t you?”

Ivy felt her face grow rosy. Did she need a reminder?

“Yes, Mama.”

Ivy heard the crunch of gravel in the driveway punctually at two of the clock. The estates were close enough together and within easy walking distance, but as she thought about it, Captain Baldwin never walked.

She arranged herself on the sofa in the sitting room, sitting with her left side away from view, as she had been taught since early childhood, and a neighbor child had gasped, stared and pointed. Come to think of it, Captain Baldwin didn’t seem to know which eye to look at. Hopefully that would change, once they were married.

Lansing announced the two men and she looked up from her book. She had thought the captain might look worn and finedrawn from his medical ordeal, but no, he looked healthy and even plump, and not someone wracked with pain and suffering. To her surprise, it was the other man, obviously the surgeon, who looked exhausted.

If Captain Baldwin had been wounded, she observed no such evidence until he saw her, and began what she could only call a performance. She tried not to stare as he limped into the room, leaning heavily on his cane. He didn’t stifle his groan, which worried her at first. A glance at his companion told a different story: fleeting scorn, eyes heavenward briefly, then a small sigh.

“George, do seat yourself,” she said and rose from her perch. “How nice to see you again.” She held out her hand.

Poor George. He groaned and sat down in the closest chair, the one facing her right side. “How I have suffered in the service of my country,” he said, with a shake of his head.

“Poor dear,” was all she could manage, mainly because she glanced at what must be his surgeon, who seemed to be chewing on the inside of his cheek, perhaps so he would not say what he wanted to.

There was apparently to be no introduction from George, which embarrassed her. Her fiancé was treating this man of medicine as though he were a servant and unworthy of comment. Something in Ivy’s active brain seemed to whisper to her heart, as if she should take note that this was an important moment in her life.

The choice was clear to her. She could ignore the surgeon, or she could introduce herself, since George Baldwin wasn’t going to, and engage him in conversation, too. She knew she wanted to do precisely that. He was a tall and handsome man in a remarkably plain uniform that was clean but well worn.

What did it matter if he saw the other side of her face? That same little something in her brain had told her for years that the issue was a simple anomaly unworthy of comment, except among people to whom looks were everything and meant the difference between a good marriage alliance and none at all. Stupid.

She came directly to the surgeon, faced him, and bobbed a curtsy. He smiled and bowed.

“I am Ivy Pritchard, Captain Baldwin’s fiancée,” she said. “You must be the kind man who sent me that letter after Waterloo.”

He inclined his head. “I am Surgeon Frost and pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said. “I don’t know about kind, but yes, I notified a number of people after Waterloo, when we were established in Brussels and had a moment.”

“I can’t even imagine how busy you must have been,” she replied. “Wherever did the medical corps find space for all the wounded?”

“Everywhere, Miss Pritchard, from regular hospitals to convents and monasteries, and even to tents in the city squares. We were….”

“Surgeon Frost must have considered himself the only surgeon in the British Army,” George interrupted. To Ivy’s ears, he sounded remarkably petulant, as if he knew everyone should focus on him and his suffering, and not carry on a conversation, as if he were not present.

“Thank God I was not,” the surgeon replied firmly. “I’ve never seen such suffering. Waterloo might go down in the history books.”

She wanted to know more, but George shifted himself, sucked in his breath, and let out a low moan, the pitiful kind. “Ivy dear,” he managed to gasp out. “Please put that footstool under my leg. Frost, help her.”

“Allow me.”

The surgeon picked up the footstool and set it before the captain, whose face contorted in…something. Pain, perhaps? “There you are, George,” he said, as he picked up her fiancé’s left leg and settled it on the footstool. He put the back of his hand against his patient’s forehead. “Perfectly normal. You’ll be fine.”

“I don’t feel fine,” the captain snapped.

Surgeon Frost seated himself on the sofa close by. “You’ll feel better soon, and look, you can admire your fiancée and tell her about your exploits.”

That was all it took. After the maid brought in tea and cakes, George proceeded to bore Ivy with the minutia of his duties as a captain and leader of men in the Yorkshire Fifth Foot. She had not expected him to be interested in anything but himself, so she steeled herself for the ordeal, knowing it would eventually lead to Waterloo and what he had already referred to as his grievous wound. He asked nothing about her life and how she did. He did not ask after her parents, or solicit her advice or comment.

I s this to be my life? Ivy asked herself in silent desperation. I can’t. I just can’t.

The surgeon remained silent through all the boring commentary. She noticed he was observing her. A glance in his direction meant a smile and a nod. He tapped his foot a time or two, which suggested, perhaps as nothing else could, how much he wanted to be away and doing something useful. This was not a man to sit idly by.

At least, until he was. After her fiancé’s lengthy, self-serving, boring tale that Ivy suspected was leading up to Waterloo, she glanced at the surgeon again.

To her surprise, then amusement, then deep sympathy, she saw that he was sound asleep. This man is exhausted , she thought. Simply exhausted.