‘Something like that. I’m sorry that your parents, your family, aren’t…well, that you aren’t close,’ he said after a while, and Hypatia gave him one of her now familiar sad, but shrug-like smiles.
‘They aren’t terrible people,’ she told him, pushing away her plate, sitting back, and cradling her ale on her lap. ‘They never struck me, or mistreated me, and though in many ways they left me to my own devices, they never ignored me, acted as though Idid not even exist. Money, success, it changes people. Especially those who know what life can be like without them, which was my parents’ case. Though I’ll admit, I don’t… Some days I think my parents never wanted to be parents, they merely did what was ordained and dictated, hoping for an added layer of security. When I was young, very young, barely out of the nursery, I remember imagining I had parents like in the storybooks. Not the cruel ones who sent their children into dark forests to be eaten by witches, but the kind ones who sent armies to find their beloved offspring. I don’t remember them ever feeling like…my parents. More like adults I lived with. I was given the best of everything, but never their…full interest. Perhaps they were disappointed, that I wasn’t all they’d hoped to further their advancement in the world, or perhaps they didn’t know how to be parents if not as their own had been. Given that my father was one of seven, working by the time he was four, and that my mother worked the looms, like her mother before her, until my father made his fortune… It was different for me, than it was for them. Either way, before long they started talking about the day I would take care of them, good girl that I was, and that day came soon enough though I don’t think they saw it as having arrived. Then my sister came along, I was so excited at first, believing…’
‘You would have a friend. Someone.’
‘Yes. And I took care of her when she was little, and it was good, and lovely, and then I think my parents saw when she was about five or so that perhaps she could be something else, or more to them than I could, and that was that. We grew apart as they spoiled her, and prepared her for another life, but I still don’t think… Much as they doted on her, I don’t think they were ever parents to her either. She just learned to be what they wished her to as I did. It isn’t that they are cruel, just…careless, in many ways.’
With a sniff, Hypatia shook her head, shaking off the thoughts, before sipping her ale; but he held onto them, onto this other piece she showed him, not lightly, he knew.
‘At least your parents did you a kindness, with your name,’ Thorn offered with a gentle smile. ‘I cannot think of one more aptly named for such as your namesake.’
‘You’re kind, Thorn, though that is a mighty legacy to live up to. I did fare better than my sister, admittedly.’
‘Epi?’
‘A bastardisation ofIphigenia. Daughter of King Agamemnon, doomed to be sacrificed to Artemis. Though in some tales, the goddess saves her after demanding her life.’
‘Maybe your sister will learn to write a better ending, and find a way to save herself from a fate I wager you fear for her. As you did.’
‘Maybe,’ Hypatia nodded. ‘I should get ready for bed.’
‘I didn’t mean to—’
‘I know, Thorn,’ she reassured him, before rising, and clearing their plates. ‘I just realised it’s time for bed. It was a long day, and shall be another tomorrow.’
Coming back around to face him, she glanced down at the piglet in his arms.
‘I think he’s all the company I’ll be having this evening,’ Thorn admitted, letting his intense disappointment at that show, unabashedly. ‘I daren’t leave him alone for the night.’
Hypatia nodded, and made to leave, though she stopped at the edge of the three stairs leading up into the corridor.
‘Regarding our earlier conversation, Thorn, when your new companion is ready to be left alone at night,’ she said, looking him square in the eye, without hesitation or bashfulness. ‘As I said that night in the gardens, I shouldn’t mind enjoying your company. Given this afternoon’s…taste, I think we might prove to be rather good bedfellows.’
He might’ve said something, but his mind had gone completely blank; he could only grin, which made Hypatia smile broadly and teasingly before she disappeared, and well, he supposed that was good enough.
‘Now then, you,’ he said to the tiny thing in his arms. ‘I’d suggest you get well and on your own feet sharpish. For as much as I’m sure I can find time to enjoy my wife elsewhere, I find I’ve the mighty desire to do so in a proper bed, so that we might languish and lounge and please each other like the newly minted lord and lady we are.’
One day perhaps, I’ll feel less odd at calling myself that.
One day I’ll feel less odd about many things.
Chapter Eleven
Since the newlyweds’ dashing escape to the country, we have been left bereft of any news of our favourite earl and countess, and can give no reports as to how they or the swine some posit were the previous earl’s downfall, fare. While some might argue there are, given the recent political happenings and turmoil, more pressing and vital preoccupations, this writer feels a conclusion to their tale would be a welcome divertissement. London, the country, may not lack in entertainment, however one knows London at least is as bereft as I, for one can’t fail to notice just how often the name Quincy has passed Society’s finest lips of late; the youngest would do well to use her newfound notoriety as her brother-in-law failed to. As you well know, I for one will always champion any arrivistes seeking to summit this country’s highest rungs.
Jack the Cat, Londoner’s Chronicle, May 1839
The days which followed their woodland interlude, and the discovery of their tiny runt, were, if possible, fuller than the first Hypatia had spent at Gadmin Hall, but then, looking back, perhaps those hadn’t been so full as they’d felt. Not that she minded the industriousness, the busyness, the long hours, the sweat, the muck, nor any of it really. Part of her wondered if she should; she’d left her old life to escape a forced labour of care, but she knew it wasn’t at all the same.
This new life—despite its surprises—had been her choice, and she felt as if she was working to build something meaningful, that she could be proud of; her forced care of her parents and sister, without choice, without a voice, a say, even true appreciation, or meaningfulness—for no, she hadn’t wanted any of it—was not the same at all. No, she hadn’t dreamt of being a pig farmer, or a countess, or even a wife, but then as she’d told Thorn, she hadn’t really dreamt of much. Once they got their enterprise functioning smoothly—as smoothly as one such could—she would have time, and means to perhaps discover what else she might want from life. For now, she was content to learn, and work, and discover, and solve problems which seemed to arise with every hour. She was content to dream of restoring Gadmin Hall’s glory, and perhaps, growing closer to husband.
All in all, they made good progress over those few days, which made every aching muscle, every cut, every bruise, and every day without a proper bath, worth it. The veterinarian came as promised, and delivered…news. Whether it was good or bad, remained to be seen, as the man himself—a sombre, but intelligent middle-aged man who’d only come to this part of the country a few years prior, and was as glad to see Hypatia and Thorn making changes as anyone else—had decreed. He spent nearly the whole day with them, looking at every pig, and checking not only their health, but also kindly advising on what purpose each would best serve, and how to get them into whatever shape they needed to be to do so. He spoke to them not patronisingly, but patiently, explaining it all as though they were students—which in many ways, they were—heartened each time Hypatia asked a question, or offered some slightly differing suggestion for review, according to what little she’d been able to read.
He took care of what animals unfortunately needed to depart this world, and gave them advice and medicines for others,with orders on general care and well-being moving forward. He didn’t say much in regard to their discreet questions about other local owners and farmers, about anything he might’ve heard in respect to the goings-on at Gadmin Hall, though he did advise them on respectable markets and butchers nearby.
Danny and Fred, who arrived, ready to work albeit somewhat wary of the new, seemingly clueless andun-agriculturally minded earl and countess, were somewhat more talkative as the days passed. Hypatia might’ve taken their growing candour as a testament of trust, and perhaps it was, though she quickly discovered they were simply more of the talkative sort, which suited her very well. In between discussions of which fields to plant, sow, harvest, when and how, or what lands to use for the pigs—the closest first, as the poor creatures would need time to accustom themselves to freedom and fresh air—and what structures needing building for them, they would mention many things of note.
How Warren had apparently spread word that all the terrible things being done on the estate were the old earl’s orders—or those of his representatives—including but not limited to the dismissal of any workers who disagreed with him. How everyone had already thought the old earl mad for going all the way to Gloucestershire to purchase thirty pigs, and sell off all he had to do so, and grow his herd, or how the place just wasn’t worth the trouble for anyone since there were farms aplenty to be worked. They mentioned more industrially minded neighbours to the north; the older, more conservative aristocratic landowners to the west. They mentioned the best inns, the best shops, the best fairs and events, and even the best malthouses where one could, if one arrived early, be treated to a heel of bread and warm cider.
