by P. N. Elrod
“Elizabeth, I’m sorry. I should not have asked that of you.”
Another wave. “It would have been the same whether you’d been there or not. Well, perhaps it might have been noisier. In the end I told him that I couldn’t stand to stay in our house alone and decided to walk over to be with them. He was very angry for a time.”
Considering the reputation of the Hessians and their commanders with unprotected womenfolk I could see why.
“But then he asked me why I’d really come.”
Father wouldn’t have taken her story as given. He knew she was too intelligent to leave the house unescorted unless she had a powerful reason to do so.
“I asked Mrs. Montagu to give us some time alone and did my best.” Finished with the candles, she took the chair next to the desk. “He tried not to show it, but I’m sure he thought I’d gone quite mad.”
“No, I was the mad one to leave you to do that by yourself.”
“Mad and selfish and inconsiderate and thoughtless, she added agreeably. “Shall I go on?”
I nodded. “Yes, I deserve it.”
“Indeed you do. Perhaps someday I shall laugh about this. I’m much too tired to see that far ahead. It’s all done, though. What really helped was when we got home and I took him up to your room to show him the clothes you’d left there. That was a shock, but I could see he was beginning to allow himself to believe me. It was then that he had us sit down and bade me tell him everything all over again.”
“How did he take it?”
“He was quiet. Told me to get some sleep, then he went out. He rode over to the churchyard.”
“Dear God, he didn’t.”
“He most assuredly did. He looked so strange when he came back.”
“What? Don’t tell me he went to dig up the grave.”
That idea horrified her as much as it did me. “No, he did not.”
“Then what did he want there?”
“More proof.”
“Proof? But what could be there that—”
“Your shroud.”
That took the wind out of me.
“He found it tangled up where you’d left it.” I dropped my head and groaned.
“So you should, little brother. You’ve been a blister and a boil for doing this to him, you should have stayed with me and not put him through it.”
She was right, right, right. “I’m sorry.”
“On the other hand. . .”
I looked up. “What?”
“He did understand why you had to go off last night. But please God, don’t you ever put him through this kind of situation again.”
To be honest, I didn’t see how I possibly could, considering the uniqueness of the circumstances, but I made no sport of her feelings and gave her my solemn word to behave myself in the future.
“After showing me that thing he wanted to go straight out to the old barn, but Mother was being difficult about something and there was no more laudanum so he had to stay with her.”
Poor Father.
“But the moment he was free he got me and we left. I wasn’t sure what to expect when we walked in and found you. You’d told me what Nora had been like, but you were so still. It was hard not to think that . . .”
“That I was dead after all?”
“Yes, exactly. I feared that some cruel mind was at play to give you back to us for a few hours only to take you away again. It was a very bad time for us, standing there, waiting and watching you. Father said that you had no heartbeat, that you were not breathing.”
“How did you stand it, then?”
“He noticed that you were warm. He picked up your hand and held it, then made me take it to be sure. After that, the waiting was a little easier, but I don’t think he fully believed until you stirred and opened your eyes.”
“And your belief, sister?”
“Tested,” she said archly. “I’m like you, still trying to make sense of it, to take it all in. I hope I shall get over it soon as I am damned tired of feeling this way”
We looked somberly at one another, then the dark mood suddenly evaporated. She was the one to break first and I followed, the two of us suddenly seized by a fit of humor. Our laughter was by necessity firmly restrained by smothering hands. Necessary, for had we really let ourselves go, we’d have raised the whole house. It passed quickly, though. Elizabeth was half-dropping from exhaustion and the movement aggravated the pain in my arm.
She leaned back in her chair, drowsing, and I wondered why Father was taking so long. Perhaps he was trying to somehow prepare Beldon. Perhaps Beldon had taken a dose of his own laudanum. I hoped not. If drink had interfered with Nora’s influence over Warburton, one could logically conclude that a drug might have the same effect. If I could not use my own power of influence to ease Beldon over those first few moments of alarm, things might become much more difficult, indeed.
Elizabeth’s eyes were shut, though I could hear by her breathing that she was not quite asleep. I was perversely alert and listening to the normal sounds of the household. They were distant but strangely clear: the clatter of a pot in the far-off kitchen, the footfall of a passing servant. I found a secret delight in being able to identify each noise, picking it out or discarding it as I chose. I’d adapted rather quickly to this heightened ability; part of me enjoyed it, part shrank away out of a fear for the uncanny
Then I heard the murmur of Father’s voice and the unmistakable sound of them descending the stairs together. Beldon was silent as Father invited him to go on to the library
“Elizabeth.”
She jerked fully awake.
“They’re coming. Stand ready with the brandy.” She rose and moved to the table.
“You know what I’ll have to do?”
“Yes. What you did to calm Lieutenant Nash.” Her tone indicated she still disapproved. “I told Father about it.”
Good, for then he mightn’t be too surprised by what was to come. I nodded my gratitude and we waited. The back of the settee was toward the door. Beldon would not see me right away, which was just as well. I wasn’t sure what to expect of him and found myself feeling the dread and disquiet I’d come to associate with this experience. The reward was great, but the actual passage to that reward arduous.
Father played the servant and held the door for Beldon, firmly closing it as soon as they were inside.
“Your patient’s over there, Doctor. Just talk to him and all will be explained,” he was saying.
Beldon put down his case of medicines and came around. He breathed out a quiet greeting to Elizabeth, then turned to confront his patient. His mouth open, he halted in mid-turn to stare, blink and shake his head once, then stare again.
“I don’t . . . Oh, my God. Oh, my. . .”
“Beldon,” I began, “there’s nothing to be afraid of; please listen to me.”
But Beldon was incapable of hearing anything. His already protuberant eyes bulged out that much more and his skin went so pasty as to make a ghastly match in color to his ever-present wig. Lamenting within that I should be the cause of this, I reached out to him with my good hand, offering words of comfort, while trying to fix upon his mind.
A vain effort. Overcome with the shock, Beldon turned drama into farce by pitching flat onto his face in a dead faint.
Elizabeth said “Oh,” Father vented a ripe curse, and as one they dived for the boneless form heaped on the floor. Father turned him over and saw to it that there were no obvious injuries from the fall. Elizabeth gave Father a look of moderate disappointment and straightened Beldon’s limbs.
Father was rather sheepish. “I suppose I might have found some better way to ready him for this, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of one.”
Elizabeth found a cushion and put it under Beldon’s head. When he began to show signs of reviving, the
brandy was brought into play.
“Not too much,” I cautioned. I lurched from the settee and knelt next to him. It seemed important that I be the first one he saw upon awakening.
“Yes,” said Father, missing my real motive, which was to keep the man sober. “Don’t want to choke the fellow.”
Beldon’s eyes fluttered. He was calm now, disoriented by his swoon. This was a great help to me, though. I took whole and heartless advantage of his confusion and fixed my gaze and mind full upon him. Taken so unawares, Beldon had no further chance to give in to his fear. His expression went slack and dull. The results—if disturbing to Elizabeth and a wonderment to Father—were gratifying to me. But the moment was brief, for yet again I was about to take on the task of giving lengthy and complicated explanations for my return from the grave.
And in the pause between taking away Beldon’s conscious will and the drawing of my next breath, I realized I simply could not do it again.
In that instant I knew that if I imparted the least portion of the truth to him and the others who followed there would be absolutely no going back to even an illusion of the life I’d known before. The changes within me were staggering enough; I needed some kind of constancy for the sake of my mind’s balance.
And the solution came hard on the heels of this realization: so neat and simple that I could condemn myself for a fool for not having considered it before. I looked up. “Father . . . I should like to try something different. . . .”
They heard me out. Elizabeth opined that my idea was ridiculous, but admitted she had nothing better to offer. Father shrugged, granting his permission, perhaps for the same reason.
They had the truth, for it mattered much to me that they know it. Nash had the lie, for he did not matter at all. As for the others in between . . .
I went to work.
* * *
Beldon’s eyes cleared and his brow wrinkled in honest puzzlement.
“Dear me, whatever has happened?”
“We’re not sure, Doctor,” I said. “You complained of dizziness and the next thing we knew, you went over like a felled tree. Are you all right? Nothing hurt?”
He took confused stock of himself and pronounced that he seemed to be fit. “I remember nothing of this. I was in my room last . . . I’d had the most awful dream about you, Mr. Barrett.”
“What sort of dream?” I asked innocently.
“It was the most. . .” He shook his head. “Oh, never mind. I should not care to speak of it, lest it come true.”
I did not press him for more details, since I knew them already. If it worked with Beldon—and it had—it would work with everyone else. One by one I’d speak to them and convince them that my death and burial had been nothing more than an unpleasant dream. Or nightmare. Either choice, they would be loath to mention it, even if I hadn’t given instructions on that point. With some unavoidable changes of routine for me, it looked like I might resume the semblance of normal living again. Elizabeth gave a grudging nod to acknowledge this evidence of my success and asked Beldon if he would not be more comfortable on the settee. She and Father helped him to move.
“I’m terribly sorry for this imposition, please excuse my weakness,” he told them. “I’m not normally given to fits of any kind.”
“Of course you aren’t,” said Father, going along with the ruse as though he’d been born an actor. “But it has been exceeding hot today. The sun’s probably caught up with you.”
Beldon offered no objection to that conclusion and accepted what remained of the brandy. He made short work of it and then took note of the rest of us, myself in particular.
“Why, Mr. Barrett, something has happened to you!”
I sighed and eased into the chair by the desk. “Yes, sir. Father brought you down to have a look at this. When you have sufficiently recovered, I should be most grateful if you would . . .”
“Great heavens, of course. I shall need my—oh, thank you, Miss Barrett.” He accepted his case from Elizabeth and took charge of the situation. Except for my injury, as far as he was concerned absolutely nothing untoward had happened in this house over the last few days. I felt a great surge of joy wash over me. To be looked upon as myself again and not as some ghostly horror come back to trouble the living, to simply be me, as though the terrible event had never been . . . more and more my burden became lighter. Over Beldon’s shoulder, Father caught my eye and smiled, his expression of pleased relief a mirror of my own feelings.
I was obliged to remove my coat, an exercise which I found most painful. Elizabeth offered to cut open a seam to facilitate things, but we managed to avoid that action. Beldon rolled up my shirtsleeve and clucked over the damage.
“How did this happen?”
“I already told you, Doctor. Don’t you—oh, forgive me. It was just before your . . . ah . . . fall and you . . . must have forgotten. I was helping Nash and got into a fight with one of those damned rebels. The fellow tried to crack my skull with his musket barrel and I found it necessary to thwart the attack with my arm.”
“Definitely broken just here below the elbow,” he stated. “It must have been a fearsome blow.”
“It was,” I wheezed. He was being gentle, but to no avail. “Both of them.”
“Yes, it would take more than one to account for this sort of damage. And you received them last night?”
I confirmed that fact with a short grunt.
“But why did you not call for me sooner?” He was accusatory.
“There were delays that could not be avoided,” I answered through clenched teeth in a tone that did not invite further comment.
He made none, distracted as he was by his examination. “Very odd.”
“What is?” asked Father, leaning forward.
“The evidence I see is that this injury’s several weeks old.”
The blood had done that, I knew. Just as a man’s body tells him to take in liquid to ease the pain of thirst, mine had compelled me to take in additional blood to quicken the process of mending. Father’s face was eaten up with curiosity, but I quietly signaled to him that he should remain silent for the moment.
“The healing is remarkably progressed,” Beldon marveled.
“Doesn’t feel like it,” I muttered.
“That’s because the bone was not properly set. See, there’s no swelling or bruising, but you can feel here—”
“Softly, Doctor, softly,” I cautioned.
“I do beg your pardon, but if you run your finger along here you can feel under the skin where the bone has joined crookedly at the break. Combined with the other fracturing, well, that explains why you’re in such discomfort.”
“ ‘Discomfort’ is hardly the word that comes to mind,” I snarled. “What can you do about it?”
“It will have to be rebroken, of course, then correctly set,” he said matter-of-factly.
After all I’d been through, one would think that I could face anything, but the idea of breaking my arm once more in the endeavor to fix it again turned my guts to water. In the heat of battle an injury was one thing, but in the cool reason of the consulting room it’s quite another.
“Might I have a little time and think this over?” I asked in a none-too-steady voice.
“Certainly, but I’d advise not delaying for long or the healing will have gone too far, making the process of breaking more difficult to accomplish.”
“It’s all right, Jonathan,” put in Elizabeth in response to the groan I could not suppress. “Perhaps it can be done during the day while you’re unaware of things.”
My qualms against this upcoming treatment swiftly vanished. “Heavens, sister, but that’s a brilliant idea.”
Beldon looked questioningly at her. She and I both suddenly realized her faux pas. She generously gestured for me to step in and clarify.
“I am an unc
ommonly sound sleeper, Doctor,” I blandly explained. “I doubt that anything, even having my arm broken again, could rouse me once I set head to pillow.”
He made a noncommittal sound and looked highly dubious. Ah, well, if I had to influence him again, then it would just have to be done. Thinking it through, I could see its looming necessity, otherwise Beldon could not help but become alarmed while treating me during my daytime oblivion.
“In the meanwhile, is there some way in which you can make it more comfortable?”
The soldier’s rough-and-ready field dressing was soon replaced by a proper splint and sling. Beldon’s work was practiced and thorough and Elizabeth helped. I thanked them both and politely refused his offer of a solution of laudanum for the pain. Had I the remotest chance of keeping the stuff down, though, I would have taken it without hesitation.
Beldon announced that he was in need of solid refreshment and begged be excused so he could see to the inner man. We graciously gave it along with our united thanks for his help and he left.
Father heaved a great sigh and dropped upon the settee in his turn. “That I have lived to see such wonders. You did it, laddie.”
“The wonder is that I got through it, sir,” I puffed.
“It’s enough to persuade one into believing in the power of witchcraft,” Elizabeth put in.
“Oh, now, that’s hardly fair. You know I only did it because I felt I had to.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch.” She hunched her shoulders as though to fight off a shiver. “And you’re planning to give that same story about everything having been a bad dream to all the others?”
“It would seem to be the best compromise for my situation.”
“Even your mother?” Father asked, leveling his gaze hard upon me.
I could not endure that look for long and let my own gaze drop. “I should like permission to do so, sir, as I seriously question whether she would be comfortable with the truth.”
He snorted. “By God, laddie, I can respect that answer.”