Convalescence
Patrick is bored.
So that was that. Nicola closed the book and tucked it down the side of her chair, pulling her knees up under her chin to think.
---Five years previously---
Grumpy, bored and in pain, Patrick Merrick picked up his book and cast it away again. Stupid rotten bones and stupid rotten doctors and stupid rotten… he ran out of coherent thoughts at this point and twitched at his blankets, trying to get them to lie comfortably over the contraption of casts, straps and braces which fastened him to the bed. One of the buckles had worked slightly loose and lay cold and pointedly against his hip, just out of reach of his goodish left arm. He twitched again, dislodging the volume from its precarious position on the bed, and it slid to the floor with a loud thump, taking with it a box of Turkish delight, which scattered dustily across the floor. His left hand formed a loose fist - the best he could manage at present - and Patrick let out a strangled growl of frustration.
It wasn’t as if he liked Turkish delight - beastly sticky stuff when you were lying practically flat - but the pistachio ones were acceptable and he had been eating the rest out of boredom. He was now doomed to lie without distraction until the nurse or his mother returned, and after his snappishness at lunch (“wouldn’t anyone be snappish if they were tied down eating mush?”) he suspected he would not receive more than a cursory glance until supper. The angle of his bed meant he couldn’t even see out of the window, he couldn’t reach the wireless, and the restlessness was making his bones and muscles shout at each other in a series of dull throbs.
After almost an hour, there was a knock at the door and a friendly face appeared in his eyeline, the smile fading slightly as it took in the flushed face and rumpled bedding. Jon nodded briskly and set to work, deftly straightening the cage which was keeping the weight off his injuries, pulling the blanket from where it had tangled into hot feet, rescuing assorted items from the floor. Then he picked up a flannel from a dish on the bedside table (“Not for you to use, Master Patrick, you’ll only let it lie on the sheet and then nicely damp you’ll be”) and gave the boy’s face a quick sponge over. In less than five minutes Patrick was feeling much cooler and fresher, with only a lingering sense of embarrassment.
Jon had been to visit the week before and had looked at the set up with an appraising eye. It was he who had made the suggestion which allowed Patrick to prop a book open to read, and he had returned with an ingenious device which helped the pages stay open by use of elastic cords and parts of a music stand. After fitting it into place, he picked up a parcel from the floor and unwrapped it with a flourish.
“Entertainment for the Merrick Boy with the compliments of the Trennels Lending Library” Half a dozen volumes were revealed and displayed in turn. “One atlas to plot your worldly adventures. One book of historic maps to compare and contrast, as well as the odd bit of dragon spotting. One guide to British birds of prey, ready for when you are at the right angle to use your binoculars again. One copy of The Once and Future King, an old friend of mine, and I thought you might enjoy this.” ‘This’ was a new hardback by an author Patrick had only vaguely heard of: Josephine Tey. He took it from Jon, who was holding it open at the first page, and read the first few lines. A description of a police officer confined to bed with a broken leg. He looked up at Jon, who’s eyes laughed back at him. “Trust me, you’ll like it.”
When Jon next returned from a fortnight at some sort of Secret Conference, he found a brighter Patrick (helped by being a few degrees more upright) with a long list of questions about the Wars of the Roses. Books and messages were dispatched between Trennels and the Chase, and Patrick immersed himself well and truly in the life of Richard the Third. By the time he was well enough to get out and about, Daughter of Time had been forgotten, and he considered himself thoroughly read on the subject.
---
Nicola had found the book in the study at Trennels, and having enjoyed A Shilling for Candles, had settled into it cheerfully. A few chapters in she started to get a prickling feeling that she had heard some of the facts and figures before, and by the end she was well and truly convinced of it. The final straw was a note inside the dust wrapper in wobbly but still distinctly Patrick’s pen, listing things he wanted to look up along with a scribbled note in what she recognised with a pang to be Jon's handwriting. It all became obvious. The arguments in favour of Richard the Third’s innocence, which had so impressed her a few years before, had been lifted straight from a book. The questioning of accepted history was not original in the slightest. Certainly it had been fleshed out, but still… Nicola shook her head and pulled herself together. If Patrick had once suggested he’d got the ideas from somewhere else, but… No, she was going to have to think about this some more.
I recently read Daughter of Time for the first time. It is a detective story about historical research and unreliable sources, and rather wonderful. I wondered whether Antonia Forest had read it too. The book was published in 1951, and given the flexibility of Marlowtime I decided that Patrick could have his accident about then... It is a long while since I read Falconers Lure (where Richard III gets his first mention I believe) so I can't remember exactly what is said, but I could clearly see a younger and rather bored Patrick getting caught up in it all.
So that was that. Nicola closed the book and tucked it down the side of her chair, pulling her knees up under her chin to think.
---Five years previously---
Grumpy, bored and in pain, Patrick Merrick picked up his book and cast it away again. Stupid rotten bones and stupid rotten doctors and stupid rotten… he ran out of coherent thoughts at this point and twitched at his blankets, trying to get them to lie comfortably over the contraption of casts, straps and braces which fastened him to the bed. One of the buckles had worked slightly loose and lay cold and pointedly against his hip, just out of reach of his goodish left arm. He twitched again, dislodging the volume from its precarious position on the bed, and it slid to the floor with a loud thump, taking with it a box of Turkish delight, which scattered dustily across the floor. His left hand formed a loose fist - the best he could manage at present - and Patrick let out a strangled growl of frustration.
It wasn’t as if he liked Turkish delight - beastly sticky stuff when you were lying practically flat - but the pistachio ones were acceptable and he had been eating the rest out of boredom. He was now doomed to lie without distraction until the nurse or his mother returned, and after his snappishness at lunch (“wouldn’t anyone be snappish if they were tied down eating mush?”) he suspected he would not receive more than a cursory glance until supper. The angle of his bed meant he couldn’t even see out of the window, he couldn’t reach the wireless, and the restlessness was making his bones and muscles shout at each other in a series of dull throbs.
After almost an hour, there was a knock at the door and a friendly face appeared in his eyeline, the smile fading slightly as it took in the flushed face and rumpled bedding. Jon nodded briskly and set to work, deftly straightening the cage which was keeping the weight off his injuries, pulling the blanket from where it had tangled into hot feet, rescuing assorted items from the floor. Then he picked up a flannel from a dish on the bedside table (“Not for you to use, Master Patrick, you’ll only let it lie on the sheet and then nicely damp you’ll be”) and gave the boy’s face a quick sponge over. In less than five minutes Patrick was feeling much cooler and fresher, with only a lingering sense of embarrassment.
Jon had been to visit the week before and had looked at the set up with an appraising eye. It was he who had made the suggestion which allowed Patrick to prop a book open to read, and he had returned with an ingenious device which helped the pages stay open by use of elastic cords and parts of a music stand. After fitting it into place, he picked up a parcel from the floor and unwrapped it with a flourish.
“Entertainment for the Merrick Boy with the compliments of the Trennels Lending Library” Half a dozen volumes were revealed and displayed in turn. “One atlas to plot your worldly adventures. One book of historic maps to compare and contrast, as well as the odd bit of dragon spotting. One guide to British birds of prey, ready for when you are at the right angle to use your binoculars again. One copy of The Once and Future King, an old friend of mine, and I thought you might enjoy this.” ‘This’ was a new hardback by an author Patrick had only vaguely heard of: Josephine Tey. He took it from Jon, who was holding it open at the first page, and read the first few lines. A description of a police officer confined to bed with a broken leg. He looked up at Jon, who’s eyes laughed back at him. “Trust me, you’ll like it.”
When Jon next returned from a fortnight at some sort of Secret Conference, he found a brighter Patrick (helped by being a few degrees more upright) with a long list of questions about the Wars of the Roses. Books and messages were dispatched between Trennels and the Chase, and Patrick immersed himself well and truly in the life of Richard the Third. By the time he was well enough to get out and about, Daughter of Time had been forgotten, and he considered himself thoroughly read on the subject.
---
Nicola had found the book in the study at Trennels, and having enjoyed A Shilling for Candles, had settled into it cheerfully. A few chapters in she started to get a prickling feeling that she had heard some of the facts and figures before, and by the end she was well and truly convinced of it. The final straw was a note inside the dust wrapper in wobbly but still distinctly Patrick’s pen, listing things he wanted to look up along with a scribbled note in what she recognised with a pang to be Jon's handwriting. It all became obvious. The arguments in favour of Richard the Third’s innocence, which had so impressed her a few years before, had been lifted straight from a book. The questioning of accepted history was not original in the slightest. Certainly it had been fleshed out, but still… Nicola shook her head and pulled herself together. If Patrick had once suggested he’d got the ideas from somewhere else, but… No, she was going to have to think about this some more.
I recently read Daughter of Time for the first time. It is a detective story about historical research and unreliable sources, and rather wonderful. I wondered whether Antonia Forest had read it too. The book was published in 1951, and given the flexibility of Marlowtime I decided that Patrick could have his accident about then... It is a long while since I read Falconers Lure (where Richard III gets his first mention I believe) so I can't remember exactly what is said, but I could clearly see a younger and rather bored Patrick getting caught up in it all.