Bennett True

by Cat T. Mad

  They didn’t let Aethel attend the obsequies. Together with Jethro and Kate, he brought the woman to her room, and the housekeeper took care that Mrs. Reddington safely lay down in her bed. Subsequently, Jethro stayed with his grandmother for a while, before he went downstairs to the mourners.

  Here and there, groups of people were assembled who talked to one another in low voices. Bennett had positioned himself in a certain distance to them. His checking gaze merely surveyed the glasses and plates, as well as the staff of the catering service, if everything was running smoothly. When Jethro entered the room, it was his turn to shake hands and to listen to the expressions of sympathy that were bestowed on him because of the absence of the lady of the house. Bennett realized quickly how the young Reddington attempted to get over his grief, when scotch was served instead of the bubble wine that had been drunk a few moments ago.

  The butler prayed that the man wouldn’t overdo it, but his wish went unheard. With each further glass the blond man poured down his throat, Bennett’s grief made way for his grudge against Jethro’s behavior. He was glad that the guests departed early and the house became more and more empty. When solely the service staff of the catering company was present, Jethro was already dead drunk, while he was sitting in an armchair. The last ones of the mourners had left, because the behavior of the man had become increasingly inappropriate. In the course of the afternoon, the voice of the young man had grown louder and louder, as well as his babbling as a result of the alcohol.

  Bennett was profoundly ashamed, although he wasn’t a family member, and he was grateful that Aethel wasn’t among them.

  He turned around and wanted to leave the spacious room, but Jethro pointed out, “You are so damned composed again. Do you actually have a heart?”

  Bennett looked at the man, and he felt that his anger was growing. “I am a lot, Jethro Reddington, but certainly not composed. Where were you while your grandmother was suffering during the past three months? Shut the hell up! Don’t babble this nonsense ever again that I don’t have a heart!”

  Bennett vanished without turning around one more time. He straightway went into the living room and poured himself a scotch which he drank with trembling fingers.

  “No heart,” he panted. Bennett had to admit that he was more hurt than he had ever been before. His hopes that Jethro would pull through the day in the interest of the family had met with his disappointment. He called himself a fool, because he had been deceived by the first encounter with this man on this day.

  “I don’t think that it would be a splendid idea to drive, sir.” A voice penetrated through the open living room door.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Jethro hissed back.

  Bennett shook his head. “Drive into a tree, you stupid asshole! Maybe this will awaken you,” he whispered, and he gulped down the rest of his scotch.

  Bad News

  Bennett was drowsy with sleep. He rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock. It was barely half past six, when he was awakened by the phone. He looked at the display and frowned. It wasn’t an in-house number that was indicated, but one with a London dialing code.

  He briefly cleared his throat and then he lifted the receiver, “Good morning. You are connected with the mansion of the Reddingtons and you are talking to Bennett True. What can I do for you?”

  “Good morning. My name is Nurse Marian Baker. I am calling from the St. Thomas Hospital in London. I am sorry to bother you so early, but would it be possible to talk to a family member of the Reddingtons?”

  Bennett immediately sat up in his bed.

  “I regret, but Mrs. Aethel Reddington isn’t available for reasons of health at the moment. May I help you in any way?”

  The woman on the other end of the line hesitated conspicuously.

  “Listen, Mrs. Baker. Aethel Reddington is in her seventies, and she had to carry her husband to his grave yesterday. The two of them married fifty years ago. Believe me, she is in poor health, and she clearly isn’t able to talk on the phone, and to receive further bad messages even less. I guess you have bad news for her? Otherwise hospitals don’t call, do they?”

  “How is Aethel Reddington related to Mr. Jethro Reddington?” the woman asked.

  Bennett immediately had a feeling of nausea, and his hands began to tremble.

  “She is his grandmother,” he replied crisply. His throat seemed to be sore and his mouth became dry when he answered her. “What has happened?” he inquired nervously.

  “I don’t know, if I…” the woman stammered, but Bennett interrupted her.

  “Listen, I saw Jethro Reddington at the memorial ceremony yesterday. So please explain to me what is going on. He doesn’t have anybody, except for his grandmother, and she already has to take tranquilizer in order to get over the loss of her husband. For heaven’s sake, tell me what has happened, please!”

  The woman took a deep breath, and then she responded, “Jethro Reddington was admitted yesterday evening. He had been in a car crash and he is in our specialty hospital now. Mr. True, his condition is very serious.” The nurse inhaled audibly again, and she continued, “He has suffered severe burns, because his car caught fire. We had to place him in an artificial coma.”

  Bennett puffed quietly, and merely a sound of horror passed his lips. His statement on the previous day that the man should drive into a tree in order to wake up echoed in his head again and his stomach tensed up.

  “Are you still on the line, Mr. True?”

  “Yes,” he rasped. “You said St. Thomas?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” the nurse replied.

  “I will come over as soon as I can. Is it possible that the doctors can give me some information? I know, I am not a family member, Mrs. Baker, but I have already explained to you the situation. I only can appear as a representative for Aethel Reddington for the time being, and to inform the woman cautiously.”

  One hour later, Bennett True was sitting together with the housekeeper in the kitchen, and he desperately stared at the content of his cup.

  I will set off now. Don’t let on anything. Is it okay with you, Kate?”

  The addressed woman merely nodded, and with glazed eyes, she looked at her entwined fingers. Bennett wanted to get up, but his body seemed to refuse to obey his order. He inhaled deeply, and then he forced his momentarily heavy bones to set in motion.

  When the butler entered the hospital two hours later, he followed the signposts, and he took the elevator up to the second story of the building. He stopped in front of a small reception. A nurse was sitting behind it. A quick glance at her name tag revealed to him that she was the woman he had talked to on the phone in the early morning.

  “Hello Mrs. Baker. My name is Bennett True. We talked to each other on the phone a few hours ago. It is about Jethro Reddington.”

  “Hello Mr. True. Please take a seat for a moment. I will inform the physician in charge that you are here.”

  Bennett solely nodded and sat down in the waiting area which was established in the close distance. It didn’t slip his attention that the nurse scrutinized him attentively, but finally her facial expression reflected her satisfaction. Bennett knew which impression he left on other people; reliable, friendly and respectable. Features, that automatically went along with his profession.

  Bennett stared at the picture on the wall opposite of him, while he tried to power down his thoughts. Over and over again, he heard the voice that had requested Jethro not to drive in his condition, the subsequent reaction of the blond man and his own curse. For a zillion times, he desperately thought that he had simply been annoyed and hadn’t meant these imprecations. Feelings of guilt obviously tried to take his breath away, because he should have hindered Jethro from driving off under the influence of so much alcohol.

  “Mr. True?” A voice startled him out of his thoughts.

  Bennett jerked his head around. Then he got up and shook the outstretched hand of the doctor.

  “I am Doctor Michael Fenac, the atte
nding physician of Mr. Reddington.”

  “Bennett True,” he replied briefly.

  The man scrutinized him for a moment, and he asked immediately, “May I get to know your relationship to the Reddingtons?”

  He answered frankly, “I am Mrs. Aethel Reddington’s butler. She is Jethro’s grandmother. I don’t know if Mrs. Baker has already explained to you the present situation?”

  With an appraising movement of his head, the physician said, “She merely mentioned that Mrs. Reddington had to experience a loss.”

  Bennett nodded, “Mrs. Reddington’s husband died recently. The two of them were married for decades, and the funeral was yesterday. Under medical supervision, she is treated with lorazepam. She clearly isn’t able to come to this hospital, and to be honest, I still don’t know I shall break the bad news of Jethro’s accident to her. And I wanted to come over anyway, so that you have a contact person at least, Doctor Fenac.”

  The physician nodded in agreement. “Accompany me, Mr. True,” he requested the butler, and they went along a hallway.

  After they had walked past two doors, Michael Fenac stopped in front of a big windowpane. Bennett positioned himself at his side, and he looked into a room that seemed to be overstuffed with technical appliances. He fancied that there was a nurse in the room, but the person was wrapped up to such an extent that he only could anticipate that it was a woman. He spotted something which didn’t look like a bed at all. It rather resembled an extraordinarily formed gurney with many levers. Someone was lying on it, and he guessed that it had to be Jethro Reddington. Compresses prevented Bennett from taking a look at the blond man.

  “Mr. Reddington was lucky that the transport was quick. In addition to the main building, we established a specialty hospital for burn victims two years ago,” the doctor explained in a low voice.

  We had to place him in an artificial coma. The burns on the front part of his body are not so much of our concern, and we hope that they will heal speedily with the help of our treatment. The back part of Mr. Reddington is in a much worse condition. As it looks like, he had a synthetic cover on his seat which obviously melted by the heat and came directly into contact with his skin. My colleague Dr. Verns was standing in the surgery all night long. He had to remove big parts where the plastic material had burnt the skin. His injuries reach to the subcutis, and they are so serious that…”

  “Subcutis?” Bennett simply interrupted him at once, because he wanted to know exactly what the physician was talking about.

  “Even the deepest layer of skin is affected. Nerves and blood vessels run in this area.”

  The butler nodded in order to indicate that he had understood.

  “Tomorrow, we will begin with the first skin transplantations, but a part of the tissue must be cultured in our laboratory. The burnt area simply is too big in order to replace it by the remains of unimpaired skin. These lappets will be at our disposal no sooner than in about four weeks’ time. Until then, artificial tissue protects the wounds. We are mainly occupied with measures of his sustainment and the prevention of complications. That’s critical enough. Moreover, we don’t have to treat his burn wounds only. You said that the memorial ceremony was yesterday?”

  Bennett nodded, and he whispered, “He was heavily drunk.”

  The doctor didn’t reply anything, but he moved his head in agreement. Then he took a deep breath. It seemed that he wanted to tell him something, but he was tongue-tied.

  “Cocaine?” Bennett guessed in a low voice.

  The man at his side nodded, and he almost sighed with relief. “Yes - and actually a lot of it. I am glad that I don’t have to keep this point a secret. I suppose Mr. Reddington already was in a poor condition before his accident. That makes the situation even more life-threatening.”

  Bennett swallowed hard, and he visualized the physical appearance of Jethro. He remembered his sullen cheeks, his haggard body and his constantly trembling limbs which he numbed with alcohol.

  “Dr. Fenac, I request you, if it is possible, please don’t mention it in the presence of Aethel Reddington. She doesn’t have a clue of the drug consumption of her grandson.”

  “But you knew it?”

  He nodded and explained, “I have guessed it. All signs pointed to this assumption. Mrs. Reddington however thought that Jethro would need rest and relaxation in order to regain his health. But he hid his consumption of alcohol to a certain degree only.”

  A depressed silence between the two men followed. After a while, Dr. Fenac said quietly, “We will keep him in coma for the following four or five weeks at least. Then we will see how the first time-consuming transplantations will turn out.”

  Once again, the doctor went silent, and after a felt eternity, he continued, “If Mr. Reddington survives this, his way back to a normal life will be more than hard and stony, and he won’t be able to manage it on his own, Mr. True.”

  Bennett nodded, and he ran his fingers over his face. “I will try to break the news to Mrs. Reddington as soon as possible. I am not sure if she should see her grandchild in this condition. Please give me a call in case of any changes. Although I intend to drop in from time to time, we may miss each other.”

  The physician nodded and reached out his hand to him. Then he left the butler standing alone in front of the windowpane, and he vanished behind an adjoining door. A few minutes later, Bennett saw that the doctor, he had talked to moments ago, entered Jethro’s room through a separate door. Equally as the other person in the room, he also was completely covered with protective clothes. He checked the appliances, and subsequently he approached the dividing windowpane. Bennett observed that the man pushed a button, and then he heard his low, muffled voice on the hallway. “I will change some of the compresses now, Mr. True. I would like to spare you from the view, all right?”

  Bennett nodded with a sinking heart, and he silently watched how another, non-transparent windowpane was automatically shoved in front of the transparent window when the doctor touched one of the buttons one more time. Eventually the butler left the hospital with slow steps.

  When Bennett was sitting behind the wheel again, he wasn’t able to start the engine. In front of his inner eye, Mrs. Reddington popped up again and again - weak, desperate and suffering from the loss of her husband, followed by the images of the hospital room that obviously were etched in his retina.

  He thought of Jethro and of his constantly furious and arrogant expression. He remembered his staggering steps and the tears the blond man had shed at the funeral.

  Bennett buried his face in his hands, and all of a sudden he felt grief that overwhelmed him with such an enormous power that he couldn’t brave. With the first trickle on his skin, he painfully cursed the day, when he had agreed to work for the Reddingtons and signed the labor contract.

  The two Sides of the same Coin

  He didn’t know how long he already was holding Aethel in his arms and comforting her. He felt as if he had stabbed the old lady with a sword, after he had as cautiously and sympathetically as possible told her that her grandson was in hospital.

  Bennett had wrestled with himself, whether he should tell Aethel about the accident, however, he had a feeling that it certainly would be wrong to delay the bad news. He didn’t mention anything about the seriousness of his burns, and he only vaguely informed her about the medical condition of her grandchild.

  He continuously reminded her how urgently Jethro would need her, and that it was about time to leave her bed. He explained to her that he had talked to the doctor and that he would drive to hospital time and again in order to check if everything was in good order, until she would be up to accompany him.

  It took two weeks until Aethel Reddington left her sleeping room with Kate’s help and accompanied Bennett to hospital. For him however it was the fifth time that he looked through this windowpane. On his previous visits, it had been an emotional roller coaster inside him. Sometimes he cursed Jethro, because he had gotten in the car when he had
been dead drunk, and now he gave even more grief to the old lady. On the other hand, there were times when he tormented himself with self-reproaches, since at the end of the obsequies he had indirectly accused the man of not having supported his grandmother during the past weeks before the funeral. Mainly however his grief was prevailing that had put itself on the lives of all of them like a breathtaking bog which attempted to force them to their knees.

  Jethro’s body bravely stood up to the medical treatments, and the physicians informed Aethel and Bennett that the minor burns would heal very well, they merely were worried about his back and his buttocks. The butler felt how difficult it was for Aethel that she wasn’t allowed to enter the room of her grandchild. She was only permitted to look at him through the windowpane which even didn’t reveal that it really was Jethro who was lying there.

  When he and Aethel jointly went to hospital next time, a part of his face was already recognizable. They saw red spots on his skin, but they were meaningless in comparison to the many tubes which ended in this area. Although Jethro was drip-fed, his cheeks appeared to be even more sullen, and his breathing hose gave everything an unreal impression. When Aethel reached for Bennett in order to keep her balance, he knew that she as well as he, too, had realized that it really was Jethro who was lying in this bed fighting for his life.

  Two more weeks went by with regular visits, until Michael Fenac informed them of the date for the first, extensive transplantation surgery. It was solely due to the doctor that Mrs. Reddington refrained from waiting in the hallway for six hours. Instead of that, she arrived only then when half of the time was over.