Jane and the Ghosts of Netley (jam-7) by Stephanie Barron

Author:Stephanie Barron [Barron, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: det_history, det_irony

Chapter 16

The Oddities of Mr. Ord

Monday, 31 October 1808

We succeeded in getting Martha home between us, although I confess that the weight of an insensible, middle-aged woman, clothed in voluminous black silk and a wool pelisse, nearly staggered the goodwill of myself and Orlando both. We halfsupported, half-dragged her the length of the subterranean passage, and had the good luck to see her revived in the brisk air of the shingle. As we attempted to shift her into the valet’s small dory, however, she very nearly had us over by screaming aloud that she could not swim, and clutching at the gunwales in a manner I found hard to bear, being up to my knees in cold saltwater at that very moment. I knew for a certainty that Martha had never set foot in a boat before; she was much given to reading lurid stories aloud from the newspapers, in which bright young ladies with limitless prospects were dashed to their deaths in one water-party or another. But once settled amidships she clung to her seat like a limpet, jaw clenched, and failed to utter so much as a syllable. Orlando gamely bent his weight to the oars, and had us returned to Southampton in little more than twenty minutes; and on the Water Gate Quay he secured a party of midshipmen to escort the mortified Martha to a hack chaise, which conveyed us expeditiously to Castle Square. The valet refused so much as a groat in recompense for his labours; and I thought, as I watched his slight figure turn back to his dory, and once more ship the oars, that he had managed our rescue quite as efficiently as his master should have done.

We were received with such a clamour of exclamation and lament that my friend might as well have been set upon by thieves at Netley Abbey; and my mother grimly pronounced the belief that no good ever came of walking about the countryside like a pair of gipsies.

The opinion of a surgeon was sought, and the limb determined to be sound, though badly sprained. Our apothecary, Mr. Green, supplied a sleeping draught, and Cook a hot poultice — and by nine o’clock last evening the poor sufferer had taken a bit of broth in her bedchamber and consigned the worst of ill-fated Sunday jaunts to oblivion. I wondered, as I doused my light, whether

Orlando had reported the whole to Lord Harold — and what that worthy’s strictures might have been, on the fate of heedless women left to fend for themselves in the wild. But perhaps his lordship had been too pressed by business — or the preoccupation of his heart — to attend very much to his servant’s adventures.

“Jane!” my mother called up the stairs early this morning, “only look what has come for you by special messenger! Make haste, my love! Make haste!”

I was barely dressed, but hurried downstairs with one slipper in my hand and my hair quite undone.

“What is it, Mamma?”

“Two parcels,” she said, “and a letter.

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