Swaying drunkenly, looking down at his vanquished foe, Strand heard a shout. His head weighed a ton, but he raised it slowly. Best and Oliver Green were running along the deck towards him.
“Take this … carrion,” he said faintly, “and—lock it up. Tried to … to…” And sighing, he crumpled to the deck.
* * *
Despite the fact that they had left Croydon at first light that morning, the condition of the roads was such that it was late afternoon before Lisette’s carriage approached Silverings, and her coachman advised the groom that not only was it a miracle they had arrived, but they would be marooned here, that was certain, for there wasn’t no way to go back up them roads till the water drained away. Silverings’ ruins looked forlorn and sad under the lowering skies, but from the mullioned windows of the old house came the warm glow of candlelight. The Dutch door swung open, and Oliver Green came out and started towards them. Lisette drew a deep breath of relief and, beside her, Norman shouted, “Hurrah! You guessed rightly, Lisette! Strand is here!”
Their joy, however, was short-lived. Running to meet the carriage, heedless of the rain, the valet had no welcoming smile, his broad features instead reflecting a deep anxiety.
Norman had the door open and the steps let down almost before the carriage stopped and, springing out, reached up to hand down Lisette.
“Thank God you’ve come, ma’am!” said Green. “We’ve had trouble here.”
A hand of ice clutched Lisette’s heart. She faltered, “My husband?”
“I’m afraid the master is—is very bad, ma’am.”
She whitened and began to run to the house, the man keeping pace with her and Norman demanding with a rather surprising air of authority to know if James Garvey had been at Silverings.
“He has, sir,” said Green, swinging the door wider for Lisette to pass. “And tried to kill Mr. Strand.”
Lisette put back her hood. “I heard Dr. Bellows has returned from Wales. Has someone gone to fetch him?”
“Best will bring the midwife from the village, can he get through. He would have no chance of reaching Dr. Bellows, not in this storm.”
“The devil!” Norman exploded, helping Lisette take off her cloak. “Where is the beastly rogue? Did he get away? We came hoping to warn my brother—is he shot?”
“The master was struck on the head. He managed to overpower Mr. Garvey, Lord knows how! Best has taken Mr. Garvey to the village constable.”
Lisette was already running upstairs. The door to the front bedroom was partially open, and she could hear someone talking inside. She pushed the door wider and went in, then stopped, her heart twisting. Strand lay in the big bed. A bandage was taped to his forehead, and he was muttering to himself. He was very pale, but his eyes were open, and she felt an almost overpowering surge of relief to find him conscious. Approaching the bed, she said softly, “Justin?”
He turned to look up at her, his eyes unnaturally bright. “You know I did not mean to kill you!” he muttered fretfully. “Didn’t mean it, Jerry…” And in a sudden burst of rage, “Traitor! Filthy damned traitor!”
With a gasp of fright, Lisette drew back. Behind her, Green said gently, “Perhaps you should wait downstairs, ma’am. Mr. Justin doesn’t know what he’s saying. When he is like this—” He shrugged helplessly.
For answer, she began to strip off her gloves, but made no move to leave. Strand’s ravings had faded to that unintelligible mumbling. He looked so ill; so terribly ill. The fear in her heart deepened. She handed the valet her gloves and asked, “Green, what did Mr. Garvey hit him with?”
“I could not say, ma’am. But I rather doubt it is the head wound we have to fear, for that does not look to be more than a bump and a nasty cut.”
Norman, who had halted just inside the door, now came up to the bed, saying in a low voice, “My grandmama told me Strand contracted some kind of fever whilst he was in India. Is that the trouble?”
Lisette threw her brother a shocked look. The valet nodded and, speaking softly also, answered, “It is called malaria, sir.”
For a moment, Lisette could not breathe. The room seemed to close in upon her, and she reached out gropingly. At once, Norman’s arm was around her. “No vapours from you, m’dear, surely?” he asked, and as her terrified eyes lifted to meet his, he added with a lightness he was far from feeling, “Strand’s all steel—do you not know that yet?” He glanced to the valet. “How frequent are the attacks?”
“Not so frequent since we come home, sir. I’d hoped we might have seen the last of it, but—” He broke off, biting his lip, then blurted out, “Well, he pushes himself so. He should never have worked on the boat in the rain the other day. And then—to drive all the way to Berkshire, and knowing he was feeling unwell—but there was no stopping him!”
Lisette turned her face against her brother’s shoulder, and Green went on hurriedly, “You know something of the malady, sir?”
“We’d a cousin who contracted malaria in South America, but—” Norman closed his lips over the rest of that sentence. A faint whimper emanated from Lisette, and the valet looked aghast.
The sick man moaned and began to toss restlessly. Recovering her wits, Lisette moved to rest one cool hand on his brow. Dismayed, she looked up at Green, who stood watching, her cloak and gloves clutched to his bosom. “He is on fire!” she whispered. “Is this an unusually bad attack?”
“He’ll pick up once Best comes with the midwife,” he evaded. But, seeing how frantically those great dark eyes searched his face, he could not deceive her and admitted sadly, “I have never seen the master become so very ill quite this fast before, ma’am.” He looked down at Strand, his own eyes clouding. “I’d give everything I have, if—if only—”
“Good God!” said Norman indignantly. “He ain’t dead yet! Don’t you turn into a watering pot, Green!”
Green’s answering smile was bright, if rather lopsided.
Trembling and stricken, Lisette rallied her forces. With a calm that astounded both men, she said, “Norman, please bring me a bowl of water and a cloth, and ask Denise for my lavender cologne. And she will have to prepare some barley water or lemonade for Justin. I’m afraid I must ask you to see what you can do about dinner, Green.”
He regarded her uneasily. “Gladly, ma’am. But perhaps I should stay with the master. When he becomes violent it’s all I can do to hold him. And you’ve had a long journey. You should rest.”
“No.” Her chin went up. “My place is beside my husband. If he becomes violent we shall just have to tie him down. Hurry, please.”
They both left. Drawing up the chair from the writing table, Lisette sat close beside the bed and leaned over to gently stroke back the tumbled fair hair. Strand’s head tossed, and he stared at her without recognition. To see his forceful vitality reduced to this total helplessness was shattering. She blinked tears away and prayed, “Please God, let the midwife come quickly.”
The afternoon slipped away, however, and Best did not come. When darkness fell, the steady beat of the rain increased until it was a driving downpour, while the wind became ever more forceful, the gusts rattling the windows and sending smoke puffing down the chimneys. By nine o’clock Lisette was forced to accept the fact that the roads must be totally impassable, and that whatever was to be done for the sick man would only be achieved by those already gathered in what was left of the old house.
The battle that followed was one she would never be able to forget. Strand’s fever seemed to mount hourly, his outbursts of delirium accompanied by wild thrashing and attempts to get out of bed that sometimes required both Norman and Green to hold him, the threat that he would severely overtax his strength terrifying Lisette. Soon after two o’clock, he fell into a motionless silence that petrified them all, but by the expedient of holding a small mirror to his lips, Green discovered he was still breathing.
“Must be exhausted, poor devil,” said Norman, himself owly-eyed from the combined effects of the long journey a
nd this ghastly night. “Come, Lisette, to your bed. I’ll wake Denise and she can watch Justin for a while.”
The respite was brief. Barely an hour later, the abigail shook Lisette awake, sobbing that the master was raving and she must come at once. She found Strand sitting up, Green’s arms wrapped about him, while the sick man again fought his duel with Bolster, shouting anguished curses because of his friend’s duplicity. Running to him, Lisette soothed, “It is all right now, dearest. I’m here with you. Lie back, Justin. Please, dear, lie back.”
For a moment there was no change. Then he sank down, and she sat beside him once more, bathing his face gently. She glanced up to find Green waiting, his drawn features filled with an expression of despair. “Green,” she whispered, “I am so afraid. Is there nothing—no medicine we can give him?”
He wrung his hands. “Mrs. Rousell—the midwife, ma’am—has some. Dr. Bellows left it with her the last time Mr. Justin was taken ill. It is made from the bark of a tree.” He knit his brow. “Something ‘ona.’ Brincona, or Vincona … oh! Cinchona, that’s it! They call it quinine. Dr. Bellows told Miss Charity it would mean the difference between life and death for Mr. Justin was he to suffer another attack. If only Mrs. Rousell would come!”
Neither of them had heard the door open softly. Norman stood with his hand on the latch, listening to them. His eyes were on Strand, still now, save for the endless plucking of his long nervous fingers at the eiderdown. It was devilish, the boy thought miserably, that in so short a space of time one could become so attached to a man that should he die the hole left in one’s life would be unthinkable. And what it would do to Lisette…! As quietly as he had come, he closed the door.
In the sickroom, hour succeeded weary hour. Sometimes Strand was quiet for a long interval, sometimes he tossed and moaned, crying out half-finished sentences in English or Tamil, or striving to sit up, fighting Green’s efforts to restrain him. But always, running through his delirium like a continuing thread was one name, and whether it was whispered or shouted, the tone was always the same—a yearning disillusionment that wrung the hearts of those who heard him: “Lisette … Lisette…”
By dawn he was perceptibly weaker, his eyes still holding the feverish glitter, but his movements less violent, and his voice almost inaudible. Green, who had slept for several hours in the chair beside the fireplace, awoke to find Lisette holding a glass of barley water to her husband’s cracked lips, while Denise propped his shoulders. Coming swiftly to aid them, the valet murmured, “Mrs. Strand, you must get some rest. We’ll have you ill yourself if you keep on like this. We should take turns. Perhaps, if Mr. Norman could sit with him now…?”
“He is gone,” vouchsafed Denise. “He leave the note for madame. He have to the village go to try and find the medicine for monsieur.”
Her heart warmed, Lisette thought that the rain seemed a little lighter, and the wind was definitely less furious than yesterday’s gale. If anyone could get through, it was Norman. Once the boy set his mind to something, he was just as doggedly determined as was her husband. She looked down at Strand, and his face seemed to ripple before her eyes. Capitulating, she stumbled to her bed, murmuring a demand to Denise that she be awakened if there was the slightest change in her husband’s condition, but falling asleep before she could complete her sentence.
When she returned to the sickroom shortly after noon, she found an unexpected change. Strand was now as cold as he had been hot yesterday. He lay there shivering convulsively, his teeth chattering. She thought at first that he was rational, but when she approached, he sat up, shouting, “Do not … walk on the carpet! Are you addled? Got to … get new … carpet!” She eased him down on his pillows and took up his hand and he turned blurred blue eyes to gaze at her. “Must let her go,” he muttered between shudders. “Have to—let her go … only decent thing…”
And their battle began all over again. She did what she might to keep him warm, prayed for Norman’s return, and talked gently to the sick man whenever it seemed that he might hear her.
At three o’clock Green came upstairs. He had shaved and changed his rumpled clothes, and he looked refreshed. He brought with him a tray, which he placed on the table by the windows, and proceeded to pour a cup of coffee, the aroma drawing Lisette despite her initial avowal that she did not want anything. She was, she found, ravenous, and eating toast and marmalade while she kept one eye on Strand, she asked in the low tone they all employed in the sickroom, “Will the medicine the doctor left still be potent, do you suppose? How long ago was it that my husband suffered an attack?”
Green hesitated a moment, then, pouring more coffee into her cup, said, “Why, it was when you first were wed, ma’am. Mr. Justin knew he was ill before the ceremony. I begged him to delay, but he would not.”
Incredulous, Lisette gasped, “He—he was ill? But I thought— Oh! Why on earth did he not tell me?”
“He’ll have my ears for telling you now, ma’am,” Green sighed. “The thing is—well, I’ve been with him these four years, and—and I—”
“You love him,” she nodded gravely. “I am well aware.”
He reddened. “Why, he took me up, ma’am, when no one else would. God knows what would have become of me, else. I’d been cast off without a character by a very powerful gentleman high up in the East India Company, because I’d chanced to see him in—well, doing something he’d no business doing. Mr. Justin risked the ruination of everything he’d half killed himself to build up when he hired me. But he did it and earned the respect of a lot of gentlemen who had cause to dislike my former master. Still, it was a dreadful chance he took; you’d know how very dreadful if you knew how he longed to come home. The climate didn’t suit him, and every day he was breaking his heart for England. I’ll never forget it, ma’am. And that’s why I—I suppose I take an interest in—in anything having to do with him.”
Lisette smiled. “I understand, and indeed am grateful for your loyalty. But what I cannot understand is, why he did not postpone the ceremony. I remember noticing how hot his hand was when he put the ring on my finger, but—” She remembered also the interpretation she had placed on his heated touch, and on the glitter in his eyes, and she felt sick and ashamed and was silent.
“If you will forgive me for speaking plain,” Green said hesitantly, “Mr. Justin dared not postpone the wedding. Oh, he never spoke of it to me, but I knew, because Lord Bolster kept at him to change the date, and one day he rounded on him, and said it was more than he dare do. Mr. Garvey was courting you also, and the master was deadly afraid of losing you. Afterwards, well, you see how it is when the fever really has him in its grip. He couldn’t bear you to see him like this—and on your wedding night.” He looked at her pleadingly. “You can scarcely blame him, ma’am.”
A soaring joy was lifting Lisette’s heavy heart. She said, “So he came down here, and this—Mrs. Rousell nursed him?”
“No, ma’am. Mostly, it was Miss Charity.”
“Miss Charity?” Lisette gave a rather hysterical little trill of laughter, and Green stared his astonishment. “Charity!” she exclaimed again. So the blond paramour she had so resented all this while did not even exist! Strand had left her, not because he loved another woman, but because he did not wish her to see him racked by this dreadful fever. “Oh!” she said in a half-sob, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Oh! If only I had—”
“Oliver…? Are you here? Is—is anyone here…?”
Fighting the impulse to run to the bed in response to that feeble call, Lisette rose and went swiftly to bend over the invalid. “Hello, my dear tyrant,” she said gently. “Are you—”
She had quite forgotten the circumstances under which they had parted, and was shocked to see his eyes widen in horror. “No!” Strand gasped. “No! Go away from me! I do not want you here! No!”
Sinking to her knees beside the bed, she implored, “Stop! Justin, I beg you—it was all a ruse, my darling. Garvey planned it, hoping you would call out Tris
tram. Dearest, please listen to me! I went to see Charity and Rachel, it is not what you—”
But it was useless. As rapid had been his return to normalcy was his relapse into delirium. This time, however, his frenzied ravings swiftly grew feebler, his strength so obviously failing that Lisette was distracted with fear and scarcely dared leave his side for a moment without dreading what she might find upon her return. She prayed as she had never prayed in her life that Norman would come, but the hours crept past, and the afternoon was waning when at length Strand’s faint voice again asked lucidly, “Are you still here … Lisette?”
She had been sitting close beside the bed, a hand over her eyes, and at once, fearful of the possible response, said timidly, “Yes, Justin. I am here.”
He peered at her uncertainly. “Did—did I dream…? You said—Garvey…?”
With a muffled sob, she knelt and, nursing his hand to her cheek, said a tremulous, “Yes. Oh, yes. Justin, I did not betray you. My dearest, I never shall.”
He smiled in a faint shadow of his mischievous grin. “You are … very kind. And—and I’m glad you— Jeremy!” The sunken eyes opened wide. “Is Bolster dead?”
“No. Very much alive. And with Amanda’s promise to wed him. You did not shoot him, love. It was Garvey. Beatrice told us.”
He sighed, “Now, thank God!” and closed his eyes wearily, but after a moment peered at her again. With an ineffably tender smile, he whispered, “I think, my dear … that you will not be burdened … with your tyrannical husband, much … longer. I wish you would kiss me … just one last—”
“No!” With a wail of anguish she leapt up. “You shall not! Not now!” She climbed onto the bed and lay down beside him, sliding an arm beneath his shoulders, totally uncaring that Green, tears streaking his cheeks, stood by the fire as if rooted to the spot. “You are not trying to live!” she accused fiercely. “Wretched, wretched man! I will not let you leave me!” She turned his pale, surprised face towards her and began to kiss his brow, his lean cheeks, his eyelids, between kisses whispering she knew not what terms of endearment and pledges of devotion, interspersed with scolding and demands that he make an effort to cling to life, for her sake. How long she held him thus, how much she said, she could not afterwards have told, but when Norman crept in later, the precious medicine bottle clutched in his hand, he found them both asleep, Strand’s head cradled on his wife’s shoulder, her cheek against his tumbled hair, her arms fast about him.
Married Past Redemption Page 33