Kipling and Trix by Mary Hamer

Author:Mary Hamer [Hamer, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical fiction, Rudyard Kipling, Beatrix Kipling
ISBN: 978-1-906582-46-3
Publisher: Aurora Metro Books
Published: 2017-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

At home once more, Rud was sitting on the floor of his study, down by the bookshelves. Though the volume on his knees lay open, the pages swung back and forth, unmarked. At least now he was shaved. It was the first day they had not spent in court.

‘Rud, won’t you see Doctor Conland? He’s got Mr. Childs with him and another friend.’ The effort to dredge up the name was just too much for her.

He came to, as she’d hoped, at the sound of Jim Conland’s name.

‘Where is he?’ and Rud shambled after her, through her study and into the middle room.

It was a deputation. They wanted him to know that he was held in undiminished respect. ‘And to keep honouring us by your presence here, where you have so many friends who love you and hold you in high regard.’

The three figures swam before her. Carrie steadied herself.

Rud was slowly shaking his head.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know. But I appreciate – I am grateful –’ he turned away, his hands waving helplessly, and left the room.

The men lowered their eyes then turned to Carrie. Each took her by the hand. As from a distance she heard the kindly meant phrases: ‘soon himself again, sensitive temperament, Hitt no gentleman’.

Their steps were heavy on the porch as they went away.

The following morning there was no question of shaving. Rud slept on through the afternoon. It was all she could do to persuade him to take a bath before he stumbled back into bed. For a fortnight or more Rud retreated into sleep, either in bed or on the sofa in his study. Nothing roused him, not even Jo, when she begged him to play with her.

‘Dadda, be my tiger for me again, my tiger that I ride.’

Rud looked through her. Carrie hurried the child away.

Carrie did her utmost to hide the reports in the press. Rud asked for the newspapers almost feverishly but she put him off. ‘Nothing come through from the city, problems at the railhead.’ She trusted that he would never see the cruel parody of his poem Danny Deever’ in the Boston Post.

‘What’s that a-lopin down the lane? asked copper ready-made

It’s Rudyard running for his life the first selectman said.’

Stanza after stanza, mocking her too.

‘What makes his wife look down so glum? asked copper ready-made.

It’s family pride, it’s family pride…’

They could endure no repeat of those days in court. They must be out of Brattleboro before the hearing in September. The case against Beatty would be allowed to drop.

Meanwhile, what was to be done about Rud?

She thanked God for Jim Conland, their own doctor, who finally pulled him round, by means of company and fishing trips as much as his bottles of tonic. That nerve specialist in Boston with his advice to give up tobacco was no help at all. But Jim, having been a seaman in his youth, had more at his command than medicine.

‘What do you say to a little trip into Massachusetts, maybe

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