If Rose were to be honest, she would have admitted that she’d been more than a bit cross to find that she wouldn’t be able to see Ben. It had been a long time since they’d seen each other and when she’d finally gotten a moment to come see him, he’d done something stupid (and rather preventable) that had confined him to bed.
Still, finding out that he had been clumsy and idiotic so that she might tease him mercilessly about it later, happened to be the next best thing.
Curling up (in a very unladying like fashion with one leg tucked under one) on the sofa, Rose made herself comfortable to hear what Alice had to say. “Always,” She replied with a mischievous grin, “What’s he done, this time?”
Even without Ben’s company, Rose would rate the Wilson’s cottage as one of her favorite places in the world. The world was raw and bitter outside, and although the family home was only warmed by a small fireplace, the warmth and comfort still far and away outranked that of her own home. For all of it’s impressive fireplaces, it always felt dark, empty, and lifeless.
Rose laughed, “You were both able to hold him down with ease, no doubt?” She asked, “Even despite his most determined efforts to overpower you!” She laughed again at Alice’s last comment, “You and I both know that his presence would not stop us. If anything, I think it would only encourage.”
Grinning as she sank into the sofa next to Rose, Alice offered the Lady her mug and took her own. “This morning, Ben woke up with a head of steam. Even though it was,” Alice gestured towards the window. “Miserably cold and dank outside, he insisted on going out into the cold. He said, ‘Please! It’s not that bad!’ and the wind slammed the door behind him. God knows what he got himself up to for several hours after that, but he ultimately reappeared for lunch, looking worse for the wear. The day had turned out to be something awful, despite his earlier declarations, and I positively teased him out into the cold again after we’d finished eating,” she added, smile brightening. If something bad had truly befallen him, she never would have forgiven herself. Now, she regretted nothing.
“Because of all the teasing, we watched him go out. Rather than head out of sight, however, he trudged through the blinding cold wind towards the iced over lake and immediately started poking at the ice with a stick. Thinking this was all there was to be to that, we went back to what we were doing, until we heard an earsplitting crack! Jumping up, we ran to the window and saw ice popping up to float on the surface of the water, mere feet from where we’d last seen Ben.
“Racing outside, we rushed to the water’s edge where Ben was clinging to the ice, but it was cracking and falling away beneath his fingers. In the end, we tied a rope around James waist, which Sarah, Louisa, and I held onto to and he went diving in, grabbed that silly boy, and we ladies hauled the both of them to shore, but not before Ben had taken a dreadful chill and we had to get the doctor in to see to him.” Alice rolled her eyes.
“Naturally, we asked Ben to fill in the gaps for us. He said he’d been poking with the stick not because he was out of sorts, but because he was wondering if the ice was stable enough to hold his weight and had, evidently, felt that poking ice with a stick would be enough to determine whether or not it could bear human weight.” Alice shook her head, ruefully, sipping at her tea. “I hope you don’t trust him too much when the two of you venture out. He doesn’t have a whit of sense about him.”
Grinning wider when she heard Rose’s question, she nodded. “Well, naturally,” she teased. “He would tell you he was simply weak from his ordeal, but I think you and I know who the really strong one of the two is,” she added with a playful wink. Of course, in truth, neither Ben nor Alice had been fighting their very hardest, but that didn’t bear mentioning. She laughed. “You’re right. I’ll confess, I hope he isn’t asleep and can hear us, now. Then you might be able to witness Sarah sitting on his chest and I have no doubt that would make your entire day.”
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