At the Doctor's House, ~10am Saturday May 4th, 1771
Doctor Lovelace sipped his hot chocolate from the comfort of his well-padded lion-footed chair, the sunlight angling in across the room to touch the pannelling of the study walls and lie in long losenges across his desk and carpet. A warming fire burned low in the grate, spicing the sweet warm-milk and chocolate scents with smoke: although his man Polzeath seemed virtually impervious to cold himself, his observations as to his master's preferred temperature for any given activity were generally spot-on.
Right now the activity was lounging about mostway dressed with his dressing-gown over the top and contemplating a ride, and the room was as pleasantly cosy as though summer had already come. Yesterday had been long and tricky between Gaffer Ragge's gout (with harassment from his son Henry, who clearly thought himself more learned than the physician in terms of his father's health) and Mrs. Durbin's hysterics, or possibly histronics, though either way he'd had to find some wise-sounding remedy to merit his presence, if not the modest fee he might be expected to charge anyone of proper standing.
In fairness, the Durbin girl did seem to have vanished into thin air. She'd taken her cloak and favourite buckles, was what he'd ascertained between the wailing, but she might have simply left the latter on her shoes from the May Day revels the day before. Mrs. Durbin had looked on the point of offence that would have half the village riled against him if he'd inquired further about precisely
when her daughter might have left, so he'd cautiously removed himself and wound up entangled with the hard-drinking crowd at the inn. They were toasting to Master Fox's upcoming marriage, though young Miss Criddle's family had agreed to set it by a week that morning, given the distraction of Polly's disappearance. John Collins had been musing on forming a dedicated group of searchers, noting the many empty places left while regulars sought their own leads and turned up nothing and nothing at all.
Martin had found himself pressed to a little too much cider and had found it hard to wake, though the groom-to-be had surely been in the same boat and likely came off worse, given he had no Polzeath to come rescue him and roll him home. Martin sipped, and forgot the village's troubles for a moment in sweetness and warmth. A runaway young woman was about the height of excitement around here, and that was nice.
A knock sounded at the door downstairs, interrupting Martin's idle musings and rousting Polzeath from whatever he'd been doing in the kitchen.
"I'll ze to 't, sir!" he called up in reassurance he was on his way.
Reverend Palmer had passed a most instructive morning, striding through God's green hills and fields towards and then around and away from the sunrise that made the new shoots golden. There had been pheasants drifting across the landscape, and distant deer; fat woodpigeons at roost and one avenue of trees that rang so loudly with the sonnets of blackbirds it was a wonder the whole country was not awake. He'd spotted spreads of primroses and what he thought were red campion, and a hare, and when the land had warmed the rooks sifted themselves like cinders over fields to pick out insects or remnant grain from the rows.
He'd also found a heap of post, and close by, a sack. The latter turned out to contain his own correspondence with Reverend Whitley, and once he'd combed the soggy collection of letters and a vandalised parcel of some kind of glassworking tools back into their container to take along, he'd found a spot on the ramparts of Kennick's Camp to read about 1100s land divisions.
After that by purest chance he happened to spot a letter for Dr. Lovelace whilst gathering up the post he'd spread out to dry beside him: taking it over personally once the rest was left at the inn seemed a bit of gentle entertainment, and the doctor would surely be up by now. So the Reverend had wended his way back to the village, greeting those out early, dropped the sack off at the
Hare & Sheaf and at last come to his friend's door like a post boy, the letters tucked into his coat. The doctor's man Polzeath answered his knock.
"Hm? Good mornen, Reverend." Polzeath dipped his head with a graceful motion, since his unusually broad mouth and ill-favoured features produced a smile that took many aback when he tried to be cheerful.
"The master's up in his study and there's still milk in the pot if ye'd like to join 'im with the cocoa."
Polzeath showed Cecil up the stairs towards the back of the house, and into the study, announcing him in the proper fashion:
"Reverend Palmer to ze you, sir."
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:40, Sat 17 July 2021.
