She had reached the bottom of Tregorlan’s track when she saw the bullock. It was lying in a ditch and had deep, bloodied gashes on its front and side and was lowing pitifully. Laura recognised it as one of Tregorlan’s stock. The poor creature was in a bad way and needed to be put out of its misery.
Laura ran all the way to the farm and went straight into the kitchen without taking off her boots. Jacka and Joan were sitting either side of the black range, Jacka puffing on his pipe, Joan knitting a little red jumper for Guy.
‘What’s up, m’dear?’ Jacka said, getting to his feet. Joan put her knitting down on her lap.
‘I’m afraid it’s one of your bullocks,’ Laura explained breathlessly. ‘It’s badly hurt and needs the vet. If you phone for him I’ll get Tressa to come with me and see what we can do for it until he gets here.’
‘But Tressa and the baby aren’t back yet.’ Joan frowned, glancing uneasily at her brother. ‘We thought she would have been back ages ago.’
‘You get the vet, Joan,’ Jacka said hurriedly, reaching for his floppy hat and coat. ‘I’ll go with Laura and we’ll take a look down the lane.’
Jacka could hardly bear the beast’s distress. He stayed with the bullock and Laura walked on towards the village. She felt a niggle of concern for Tressa and Guy but was sure they must have stayed longer at the Urens’; Tressa had hoped to be made useful there.
It wasn’t long before she saw Harry’s car. Laura’s disquiet grew. Why was it parked at such an odd angle? She ran up to it. There was no sign of Harry. She looked around then shouted his name. She saw blood on the buckled front wing. It must be the bullock’s blood. Harry must have collided with it. Everyone said he would cause an accident one day…
She saw that parts of the bank on either side of the car had been brought down, exposing black earth and roots. Foliage was strewn about, leading away from the car on the opposite side. If the bullock had made its way partly back home, what had damaged the bank like this? There was no evidence that the car had done it. Biting her lower lip, her mouth dry, Laura squeezed through a gap between the back of the car and the bank and hurried along the lane.
‘Harry! Harry!’ she called at short regular intervals but got no reply.
Rounding the next bend she saw the pathetic huddle just up ahead. And she saw the blood on them and the road. Panic gripped her. They were so still she was sure they must all be dead. Running wildly, she threw herself down on her knees beside them.
‘Tressa. Harry. Oh, my God, what’s happened?’
‘Ohhh,’ Tressa moaned. She was bent double.
‘L-Laura?’ Harry tried to lift his head but it flopped back down.
‘It’s all right, Harry. Don’t worry. I’m here to help.’ Laura was horrified at the extent of Harry’s injuries and what was happening to Tressa. Both of them were bleeding and it was intermingling on the tarmac. The worst of the panic left her and she felt coolly in charge in the way she had at Guy’s birth. Ripping the scarf off her neck, she wound it round Harry’s left shin and tied it as tightly as she could. Reaching under Tressa, she put a hand on Guy’s face. It was stone cold.
‘T-take him,’ Harry slurred.
Laura pulled Guy out from between their bodies. The movements made Tressa scream in agony and despair. Harry was fighting to stay conscious and keep hold of her.
Laura didn’t waste any time. Clutching Guy tightly to her, she ran like a hare back to Jacka to raise the alarm.
* * *
Andrew Macarthur was tidying up the last of his papers, about to leave his Bodmin office, when his secretary rang through to tell him there was a lady on the telephone asking to speak to him urgently.
‘Tell her I’ve already left, Mrs Polmere,’ he said firmly. He was not going to let anyone stop him leaving early. He had a weekend in the Cotswolds planned for him and Tressa and he was looking forward to every minute they would spend cuddled up together in the cosy little cottage. He had diligently worked all day, now his thoughts were only for his wife and child. He had just put a bottle of Tressa’s favourite jasmine scent in his briefcase and a rattle for Guy.
‘The caller is very insistent,’ Mrs Polmere stressed. ‘It’s a Mrs Laura Jeffries.’
Frowning, Andrew said in that case he would take the call. Laura was too close a friend to ignore. ‘Laura, my dear, what can I do for you? I’m just about to leave here.’
‘Andrew,’ he knew immediately by her tone that something was very wrong, ‘go straight to Launceston Hospital. I’m there now. I’m afraid that Tressa and Guy have been involved in an accident.’
‘What?’ Andrew fell down on his chair. Something he had always dreaded had just come true. ‘Are th-they hurt? What happened?’
‘I came across them in the lane, with Harry Lean. His car was all battered.’
‘Lean! I’ll kill him! I knew he’d cause a smash one day with the way he drives his car. Why did it have to be my family?’
‘It’s not like that, Andrew. Harry’s hurt too, very seriously. Just get to the hospital, as quickly as you can.’
Dropping the receiver, Andrew grabbed his hat and coat, mumbled the details to his secretary and dashed for his car. He would have driven on his wits, as fast as his car would go, but he could not risk getting hurt himself; Tressa and Guy needed him. Tears pricked Andrew’s eyes as he imagined what had happened to the two people he loved most in the world. How badly were they hurt? He wished he’d asked Laura what their injuries were.
A moment of sheer black panic almost forced him to stop the car. Pure fear clutched at his bowels. Laura hadn’t said if they were alive or dead. Perhaps one or both of them was dying now and he wasn’t there to hold them.
Oh, God, if You really exist, spare Tressa and Guy for me and I’ll go to church every day of the week if that’s what You want. I’ll do anything, please, please, please, Lord.
He parked his car in front of the main doors of the hospital, but rather than being able to rush inside he found himself quarrelling with a porter who demanded that he move it elsewhere. Andrew pleaded but the porter pointed out that his family had needed the space themselves a short while ago in the ambulance that had brought them here. Andrew understood and capitulated, but the extra time it took him to park the car seemed like hell.
Laura was waiting for him by the doors when he ran back. He grabbed hold of her. ‘How are they? What the bloody hell happened to them?’
Holding his arms, she tried to speak calmly, the shock of the accident telling on her. ‘Guy’s up on the children’s ward. He’s in shock and they’re keeping him under observation. It’s not thought that he’s in any danger. He took part of a feed just now.’
‘Thank God. And Tressa?’
Laura took a deep breath. ‘She’s in theatre, Andrew.’
‘Why?’ He clutched her tighter, hurting her. ‘Laura?’
‘She’s had a miscarriage, Andrew. I’m very sorry.’
‘Oh, no.’ He let tears flow unashamedly down his face. ‘But she will be all right? Tressa won’t… Tell me she’ll be all right, Laura, I couldn’t bear…’
Laura said nothing about the agony Tressa had been in in the ambulance, twisted up and screaming as the ambulance man had delivered the foetus. Laura had sat, numb with grief, holding Guy, listening to her friend. At one point, lying on the other side of the ambulance, also in the greatest pain, Harry had reached out and held Tressa’s hand and she had almost crushed his as she’d squeezed it.
‘She’s in the best place, Andrew. The nurses explained it to me. It’s only a procedure to clean her up. She should be out of theatre soon. She’ll be wanting to see you the moment she comes round.’ For a moment Laura rested her face on Andrew’s chest. ‘I’m so sorry about the baby, Andrew.’
He was like a small, bewildered child. ‘What’s happening to us, Laura? Kilgarthen’s only a little village, a quiet little backwater, but all these things keep happening to us. Why?’
‘I don’t know, Andrew. We mus
t just hope and pray that things get better.’
Felicity Lean was in the waiting room, desperate for news of Harry who was in the next operating theatre. She ran to Laura, sobbing, and although she didn’t know Andrew very well, needing and wanting to give comfort she put her other arm round him. The three stood in a huddle for some time, the start of a long wait.
After a few minutes Andrew Went to the children’s ward and was assured by the sister that Guy was sleeping peacefully and they were keeping a watchful eye on him. Someone would come and fetch him if he was needed.
‘Have you any idea what happened?’ Andrew asked when he got back.
Felicity looked at Laura for an explanation.
‘Tressa couldn’t speak at all,’ Laura said, ‘but from what I could gather from Harry, some bullocks stampeded in fright down the lane, heading for the village. Harry saw them first and stopped his car and ran back to warn Tressa. He got her and Guy up the bank but he slipped down just as the cattle ran past. Unfortunately the incident started off labour pains in Tressa. I… I saw the state of the car and pram. Tressa and Guy would probably have been killed if not for Harry.’
‘My poor brave boy,’ Felicity sobbed.
Andrew found it hard to take in that he had a lot to be grateful to Harry Lean for. ‘What are his injuries?’ he asked gently.
‘It’s his legs,’ Felicity sniffed, composing herself.
Laura hadn’t told Felicity the gravity of Harry’s injuries. There was no possibility that he would come out of the theatre with his left foot intact.
Half an hour passed and Laura got up to make two phone calls, one home to keep Spencer in the picture and because she needed the reassurance of his voice. The other to Tregorlan to Jacka and Joan. Jacka had been forced to stay with the bullock until the vet arrived and Joan, who had brought blankets to the scene of the accident, had felt too shaky to go to the hospital. There wasn’t much Laura could tell them and she went back to the waiting room with three cups of tea.
Another fifty-five agonising minutes passed before a scrub nurse in theatre garb opened the double doors to one of the operating suites. Andrew rushed out of the waiting room to her. Laura and Felicity followed and stood at a discreet distance.
‘Is there any news of my wife?’ he demanded anxiously.
‘Are you Mr Macarthur?’ the nurse asked, glancing at all their drawn faces. Thick glasses sat on her nose, in a round face denoting efficiency and a great capacity for honesty and caring.
‘Yes, I am. How is she?’ Andrew resisted the urge to grab the nurse’s hand and plead with her. He prayed she wouldn’t prevaricate as some medical staff were apt to do.
She took off her glasses with a slow smile. ‘We’ve just taken her to the recovery room. The surgeon will come to talk to you in a few minutes, Mr Macarthur.’
Andrew could see she wouldn’t tell him anything else but if Tressa was in the recovery room, she must have come through the procedure safely.
There was another wait of ten, long, anguished minutes then the surgeon appeared. Andrew pounced on him and the surgeon, his mask hanging round his long neck, offered his pale smooth hand.
‘Sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr Macarthur. I’m sorry, too, that it was too late for us to do anything to save the baby. Please accept my condolences. We had a little trouble stopping your wife’s bleeding but I’m reasonably confident there won’t be any further complications. She’ll need complete bed rest for a few weeks but she is young and healthy and I don’t foresee any long-term problems.’
‘Thank God!’ Andrew almost collapsed with relief. ‘Can I see her now?’
The surgeon carried on as if Andrew had not spoken. ‘You’re probably wondering if your wife will be able to have any more children. I should say there is a very good chance that she will.’
‘I can’t thank you enough. Can I go to Tressa now? Please?’ All Andrew wanted to do was to see the lovely small face he had fallen in love with the instant he had first seen it.
The surgeon had a gall bladder to remove the moment the operating theatre was cleaned and sterilised and he was just as eager to get away, to eat a meal. ‘Wait for a nurse to come and fetch you, Mr Macarthur.’ He shook hands with Andrew again and walked away before Felicity could ask him if he happened to know anything about Harry’s condition.
Chapter 35
It was three days before Harry felt able to sit up, propped against pillows, in the little room he had to himself. There was the taste of sour plums in his mouth but he ate enough lunch of poached fish to satisfy the rather stern sister of the men’s surgical ward. Groggy from medication, still shocked after his ordeal, he could only sip tea from an invalid cup.
A perky young nurse with hazel curls under a severely starched cap entered the room and gave him a smile. ‘Have you finished with that, Mr Lean?’
‘Yes, thank you, Nurse,’ he replied, his voice tired and husky since the accident. ‘I can hardly taste it.’
‘Never mind, it’ll take a few days for your taste buds to recover.’ She put the invalid cup on the tray then quickly straightened the bedcovers, draping them again unnecessarily over the cage protecting his broken legs.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘It’s not time for the consultant’s round.’
‘You’ve got a visitor.’ She took his comb out of the bedside cabinet and tidied his hair, making little impression on the lacklustre locks.
Harry raised an eyebrow; that hadn’t lost its sensuous curve. ‘It’s too early for visiting time. You’ve got to be Houdini to get past Sister. I know, my mother has tried and failed.’
‘This one’s got special permission.’
The nurse left the room and Harry waited, bemused. It must be the vicar, he thought. They let vicars in any time they liked in hospital. The only visitors he had been allowed were his mother and for a few minutes Laura. He had been considered too weak for the multitude of villagers who had flocked to see him now he was something of a hero. His room was filled with their get well cards, flowers, chocolates, books, magazines. Vicki had sent him a picture she had drawn and painted of Charlie Boy, his horse, glued on a stiff piece of cardboard. It took pride of place standing against his water jug on the cabinet. He looked at it often. It was Vicki he would love to see now, her golden hair, sunny smile, sparkling blue eyes. He didn’t mind the vicar though, Kinsley Farrow wasn’t the sanctimonious sort.
He could hear squeaky wheels coming his way and the nurse was back with someone in a wheelchair.
‘Tressa!’ Harry tried to sit up. He smoothed at his hair and stroked his moustache. He must look like a scarecrow. ‘What a lovely surprise.’
The nurse pushed her closer to the bed and left the room, shutting the door softly. Like him, Tressa had large dark shadows under her eyes and her skin was sallow; but she still looked lovely in a blue and pink dressing gown, her hair tied back with a silk scarf. A blanket was wrapped over her legs and she looked engulfed in it, small, young and so very vulnerable.
‘Hello, Harry.’ Her voice was quieter too and he knew the effort it took after major surgery just to say a few words. ‘How are you?’
He felt shy with her and full of emotion. To mask it he spoke with all the cheerfulness he could muster. ‘Oh, not so bad, you know. What about you?’
She looked down the bed, knowing the reason for the cage that kept the blankets off his legs. A slight flush touched her cheeks. She clasped her hands together until they hurt, then looked back at Harry. He really was pleased to see her. She had wondered how he would be feeling about the consequences of her not trusting him. ‘I – I’m much better than I was, thank you.’
‘And what about little Guy?’
She gave a small smile. ‘Oh, he’s almost back to his old self. He’s going home today. Aunty Joan will look after him. I shall miss him. The nurses have been bringing him to see me. I’ve got to stay in for ten days. I’m afraid I can’t stay here long.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘It took a lot of p
ersuading for the sister on my ward to allow me to come at all. I – I felt I had to see you, Harry.’
‘I’m delighted. I never thought the day would come when you would ask to see me.’
Harry’s kindness, cheerfulness, was making this difficult for her. He had plagued her in the past, but she had made him pay a terrible penalty for it, one she could see now he had not deserved. Her hands began to shake and she gripped the sides of the wheelchair.
‘I w-want to say I’m sorry a-about your foot, about everything that happened.’ Andrew had wanted to see Harry and do this for her, but she had felt she must come herself. Andrew had understood.
‘Thank you, Tressa.’ Harry couldn’t keep up his brave front any longer. His eyes misted over and he hoped Tressa would not notice. ‘I was sorry to hear you’d lost your new baby. Mother said you should be able to have more in the future.’
‘Harry, I feel so responsible… what I’ve done to you.’ Tressa began to cry softly.
‘Enough of that now,’ he said soothingly. ‘If I hadn’t been so wicked to you in the past you wouldn’t have felt you had to run away from me. I’d sacrifice anything to save you and anyone you love, Tressa. Besides, the way I look at it is that men came back from the war with a lot less. Look at Pawley Skewes at Rosemerryn. And I’ve got my name in the papers - “Hero saves mum and baby and pays the price”. I wasn’t a hero or anything, but now I can make a new start in the village as a respected member instead of a despised cad. Don’t cry, Tressa. We came out of it alive. That’s the main thing.’
‘I’ll always be grateful to you, Harry.’
Rosemerryn Page 40