He nod was less abrupt and I looked elsewhere while he swiped impatiently at his eyes. When his hand was steady once more, he resumed and completed the job of shaving me.
As it was much too late and too much work to prepare a bath, we made do with a wet towel to refresh my grubby skin. A change of linen completed my toilet. Relaxing back on the bed with my dressing gown half on (out of deference to my arm), I felt more like my old self and better able to consider some of the grim practicalities of my changed condition.
"Something will have to be done about that window," I said.
"I suggest that you close and lock the shutters and then find something to stop up the chinks."
"It will be like a sickroom, sir, with no air or light."
"In truth, that's the whole point. I don't seem to need air and I've found the latter to be highly inimical to my continued well-being. Please trust me on this, Jericho. I don't want a single ray of light coming in here tomorrow. And it will probably be best that my door remain locked. I shouldn't care for one of the maids to walk in while I'm... resting."
"Will it always be so for you?"
"I don't know. Perhaps later I can ask Dr. Beldon to suggest a way to help me improve the situation, but this is how it will be for now."
"And you say you are completely unconscious while the sun is up?"
"Yes, unfortunately. I can already see that it's going to be a deuced nuisance."
"More than a nuisance, sir."
"What do you mean?"
"Have you considered what could happen to you should the house-God forbid-catch fire?"
The horror of his idea went all over me in an instant and I sat with my mouth hanging wide as my imagination supplied such details as would have better been left unimagined. Out of necessity, we were all very careful in regard to fire and candles, but accidents happened and if one should occur during the day while I lay helpless...
"By God, I'll have to go back to that damned barn to get any rest!"
"I think you should remain here, Mr. Jonathan, where you can be watched and otherwise protected. It really is much more secure."
"But not as fireproof. I suppose I could sleep in the root cellar, though that might annoy Mrs. Nooth and alarm the rest of the kitchen."
"Actually, I was going to recommend some additional changes be made to the buttery," he said.
"The buttery?"
"There was some discussion before your... accident about enlarging it to accommodate hidden stores against the commissary men. It won't be too much extra work to make it larger than
planned and fit it with such comforts as you might require." "And live like a rabbit in a hole in the ground?" "Rabbits have no fear of being burned alive while in their holes," he pointed out.
I laughed once and shook my head. "Yes, I suppose so. I'll talk to Elizabeth about it. Think she's still up?" "Miss Elizabeth retired some time ago. Mr. Barrett as well." Yes. They'd both been worn out and it was well past their normal bedtime, but I still felt a stab of loneliness for all that. It was as I'd anticipated and I would just have to get used to spending the greater bulk of the night on my own. Oh, but there were many, many worse things in the world and I felt to have been through a goodly number of them already.
"Very well. Hand me that volume of Gibbon from the shelf, would you?"
Jericho selected the correct book and placed a candle on my bedside table. With the shutters closed, I found I needed it. I cannot say that the conflicts of the late Roman empire held my whole attention while he worked to seal up the room from the sun's intrusion, but it helped. When Jericho had finished and I bade him to go off for some well-earned sleep, my study was even less successful. In the end, I left off with Gibbon in mid-word to search out and open my Bible.
I was seized with an uncommonly strong urge to read the eleventh chapter of John again.
Eyes wide, I frantically clawed up from my internal prison, drew in a shuddering breath, and rolled out of bed to slam against the floor. The impact jarred my maimed arm, sending me instantly awake and aware of its every insulted nerve.
"Mr. Jonathan?" Jericho's voice, alarmed.
I shook my head and would have waved him away if I hadn't been busy biting back the the pain. He must have read something of it in my posture, and held off, only stepping forward when I was ready. It took some minutes before I extended my good arm and allowed him to help me to my feet.
"More bad dreams?" he asked.
I nodded and sought out the chair by my study table. I had no wish to return to that bed. Good elbow on the table and forehead resting on my hand, I breathed deeply of the stale air of my room and tried to collect myself. Jericho pulled down the quilts he'd draped over the window and opened the shutters. It was just past sunset, but my room faced east, so the natural glow flooding in was bearable to my sensitive eyes.
"Will you speak to Dr. Beldon?" he asked. His tone was not quite reproachful yet leaning in that direction. He'd made the suggestion yesterday evening and I'd summarily dismissed it.
Time to give in. "Yes, I'll see him, though God knows what good he'll be able to do me for this."
"Perhaps he can determine whether it is, at root, a physical or a spiritual problem."
Or both, I thought unhappily. In the three days since my return, I had gotten no rest to speak of while the sun was up. Cleaned and groomed and tucked away in the comfort of my own bed, my family life resumed with hardly a ripple, one would think that my troubles were abated, but not so. The utter oblivion that I'd known before, that had caused the day to flash by without notice, was gone. Now I was aware of every excruciating second of the passing time.
When the light came and my body froze inert where it lay, so came the dreams, sinuous things that wound through my mind like poisonous snakes. Striking at my most tender thoughts and feelings, I was helpless to escape from them by waking and yet could not fully sleep. All that was my life was drawn forth and twisted if pleasant, lived and relived without mercy if not. After three days of it I'd lost count of the times Tony Warburton had tried to kill me or the times I'd found myself back in that damned coffin screaming away my sanity.
After the first day of this private hell, I'd asked Jericho to stay and watch for signs of inner disturbances and to wake me should he see them. He saw nothing more than my still and unresponsive outer shell. The next time his instructions were to try waking me throughout the day, in hopes that that might help. Though I was aware of his presence and his efforts, it was ultimately useless. The dreams, worthy of the darkest fantasies of an opium eater, continued.
More weary now than when I'd retired that morning, I had to force myself to dress. Jericho managed to get me properly turned out except my coat. For that, I could only slip on the left sleeve and drape the rest over my shoulder. Previous attempts to straighten my arm had proved to be too agonizing to complete and the constant inconvenience was such that I would have to see Beldon, anyway. Loath as I was to have him rebreak it to put things right, it was rapidly coming to that point.
Leaving Jericho to continue his duties, I walked downstairs to the drawing room. Elizabeth was practicing something new on her spinet and having trouble with a particular phrase, but the sounds were a fresh delight to my ear. She stopped when I walked in, smiled, then went on.
Mother, Mrs. Hardinbrook, Beldon, and-I was surprised to see-Father were playing at cards. He usually had no patience for them, preferring his books, so I could guess that Mother had
nagged him into joining their game. They also looked up and nodded at me.
Everything was so unutterably, wonderfully normal. I wanted to embrace them all for just being there. Until faced with its loss, I'd never truly valued all that I'd had.
"So you're finally up," said Mother.
"Yes, madam." Even she could not dampen my goodwill.
"You've missed the entire day, you know. How can you help your father with his work if you play the sluggard?"
If she had a talent for anything it was for asking im
possible questions. It was also interesting to me that though possessed of an active contempt for Father's law practice she found it useful enough now to point out my apparent laziness.
I bowed toward Father. "My apologies, sir."
He restrained a smile. "Never mind. Just get that arm well, then I'll find work for you."
"You're too soft on the boy, Samuel," she sniffed.
"Perhaps, but he's the only one we have," he smoothly
returned.
Beldon and his sister maintained a diplomatic silence during this exchange. Elizabeth paused again in her play to glance at me. My mouth twitched and I jerked my chin down once to let her know that everything was all right. It was becoming easier to find amusement, rather than resentment, in Mother's foibles. The three of us had passed through the fire and with that shared experience, we'd discovered that the irritations Mother had to offer were very minor, indeed.
I drifted over to the spinet to watch Elizabeth. "How you can read that is beyond me," I said, indicating her music.
"It's just like learning another language. One day it suddenly all makes sense."
"But to translate it with your eyes to your hands and thus to the ear..."
"Jonathan!" Mother's voice cut between us like an axe blade. Elizabeth missed her notes and stopped playing altogether. Mother glared at us with disturbing malevolence, recalling that awful night more than three years past and her obscene accusation. "Haven't you anything better to do with yourself than disrupting your sister's practice?"
Her lips quivering, Elizabeth was about to say something we might all regret. I quickly stepped in first. "Quite right, madam.
I am being most inconsiderate. Please excuse me."
She said nothing, but some of the tension in her body eased back just a little. This was the only sign that I'd received her pardon. Her eyes flicked back to her cards. "Find something to do, then. Your wandering about the place is most annoying."
"Yes, madam. I only came down to ask when Dr. Beldon might have a free moment."
"Then you should have said so in the first place. The doctor is, as you can see, occupied."
Beldon raised his head. "Your arm?" he asked.
"Partly. But as you are busy, it can wait. I'll be in the library."
Beldon read enough from my manner to know that this medical call was not urgent, so he had no need to risk Mother's ire by immediately answering it. He resumed his play and I left the room.
My feet took me to the hall, past the library, and out the side door, leaving the flagged path to wander in the yard. It was better out here, the air more free, the scents it carried of earth and grass and flowers more pure. I wanted to roll in it like an animal. I settled for sitting beneath a tree and stretching out my legs. Here was peace and a kind of rest. I was so very, very tired. In days past, I napped here in the summer heat. No more. While the sun was down, sleep perversely eluded me, even when I tried to find it.
But I closed my eyes in another hopeful attempt. My other senses leaped in to take up the slack. I heard the rustle of every leaf and night creature, the sweet tones of the spinet, felt the cool ground and each tuft of grass under me, smelled the hundred messages on the wind, tasted the first dry swallow of thirst.
That would be tended to later, though, while everyone slept.
Mrs. Nooth's first instinct had been to provide food for me and thus she required further influencing on the subject. Now she and all the rest of the household simply ignored the fact that I did not eat with the family anymore, indeed, that I seemed not to eat, period. No one questioned it, no one remarked upon it. It was quite the best for all concerned.
Elizabeth's playing was interrupted again and I saw movement against the curtains of the drawing room. The card game may have ended. I heaved up and stalked back to the house, feeling considerably better for the respite outside. As much as I
desired the company of my family, perhaps getting away from them now and then was what was needed.
Beldon was waiting in the library and I apologized for not being here as promised. He bowed slightly to dismiss the issue and I inquired if he would like some sherry, which he declined. "I am still astonished at how quickly it healed after the injury," he remarked, nodding at my arm. "How is it for you?" "The same. I still cannot straighten it." "I fear we shall soon have to-"
"Yes, I know that, but I wanted to consult you about something else." "Indeed?"
We seated ourselves and I explained my problem to him. "You're getting no rest at all?" he asked. "None. I seem to fall into a kind of waking doze, a halfway state, and can neither rouse from it or sink into true sleep. During this, I'm subject to endless dreaming, so even if my body rests, my mind does not, and that's what leaves me so fatigued all the time."
"And yet but a few days ago you assured me that you were a very sound sleeper."
"So I was-a few days ago." "Has there been any change in your usual habits?" More than I could begin to number, I thought. "Any change in your room, bedding, or night clothes?" "No, nothing like that."
"Does the pain from your arm keep you awake?" "It only hurts when I try to move it and I take care not to do so."
"I can prescribe something to make you sleep," he said reluctantly.
Laudanum, or some other preparation, no doubt. I shook my head. "I should prefer some other treatment, Doctor."
He sat back and crossed his arms, studying me from top to toe. "There are always many reasons why a man cannot sleep. Has anything been troubling you lately? Any problem, no matter how minor, can prick at the mind like a thorn just at the moment when one most wants to forget it"
"Perhaps it's this business with Roddy Finch," I offered lightly, after a moment's consideration. "There's been some protest, but there's no doubt they'll soon be hanging him."
"And you were the one who turned him in. Yes, a burden like that can't be easy for a young mind like yours to bear. It's well out of your hands, though. Like it or not, justice will be served," he said grimly.
Justice or the law? I well knew there was often a wide difference between the two.
"The best thing for you is to try and forget about it."
My belly gave a sharp twist at these words. The knowledge flamed up in my mind that the one thing I could not do was to feet.
Knowing what his fate would be, I'd turned Roddy over to the soldiers without a qualm. Now the doubts were creeping in. I'd had dreams about him, about what his hanging would be like. I kept seeing his father rushing forward to drag on his son's heels to hurry the work of strangulation. After what my own family had experienced, would it do any good to put Roddy's through the same anguish and grief? How could that serve justice?
But it was the law that murderers and thieves and now spies should be executed, and Roddy was guilty of all three crimes as far as the courts-martial were concerned. It was out of my hands, but not my heart. Beldon thought I should forget it, but Father had always taught us to face our problems, not run from them.
"When you come to a fence either jump it or go through the gate, but don't let it hold you in," he'd said.
Thank you, Doctor," I heard myself saying. "You've given me some ideas that want turning over." I excused myself and left before he could raise further questions. On the way up the stairs, I hailed Jericho and kept going.
"What is it, sir?" he asked, rushing into my room.
"Get my riding boots out. I want some exercise."
"At this hour, sir? The soldiers have been most discouraging to travelers out after curfew."
"To the devil with them."
He correctly read my mood, fell in with it, and found my tails. Before a quarter hour had passed, Belle was saddled and one of the stable lads gave me a leg up onto her back. I took the reins with my good hand and swung her around toward the front lane leading to the main road. Not sure how good her eyes were
at night, I didn't ask for an impossible pace, especially along
areas steeped in shadows, but once on the
road, the way was
fairly clear and I kicked her into a decent canter for as long as
my abused arm could stand the motion.
Not very long.
She never really worked up a sweat, though if she had, the remaining walk would have cooled her down. Despite the curfew, we met no one along the way, not a single soldier until we reached Glenbriar and The Oak came into view. There I was challenged quickly enough, but after giving my name and a formal request for an audience with Lieutenant Nash, I was immediately escorted in to see him. Apparently the guards on duty hadn't heard any strange rumors about my blood drinking from their fellows.
"This makes a fine change from having to shout at you from the street," I said after greetings had been exchanged.
P N Elrod - Barrett 1 - Red Death Page 33