by Jaima Fixsen
“Yes. I was just wrapping his arm when I heard you come in.” He picked up a basin of blood and moved to the door. “Won’t give us any trouble now.”
Mary gasped.
“I haven’t killed him,” her father snapped. “He needs to lose blood if he’s to heal. Can’t let him be obstructive, and he won’t be now.”
“Will he be all right?” Mary sat down. The room wouldn’t keep still.
“Too early to tell,” her father said. “Have you eaten? Did you sleep?”
Mary shook her head. It didn’t seem important.
“See to it,” Papa commanded. “Food and a wash, at least. I’ll need your help to nurse him.”
She looked to Neil, but all he did was nudge her into action with a nod. So she went.
Cook insisted on a bath, and Mary quietly went to pieces in the tub of warm water. Finally she realized she was shivering because the water had gone cold. She washed and dried herself, feeling like a broken cup that had been glued back together, nothing fitting exactly right.
Samuel was washed and in a nightshirt when Mary returned. And awake. “Leave me be!” he spat. “Enough prodding!”
“I just need a look in your eyes,” Papa told him.
“Stay away from me!” Samuel shouted that he didn’t want any doctor, least of all a bigoted fool who oughtn’t to be allowed through the door. “Get out!” he said.
“You’re in his house,” Neil told him.
Nervously watching her father’s frown, Mary was surprised when he turned to her. “Is it like him to be so irritable?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“He’s been alternating between anger and somnolence,” Neil said. “Was like that much of the way here. Vomited too.”
“Talk to me,” Samuel growled, but no one heeded.
“I can fetch Aunt’s laudanum,” Mary offered as Papa took Samuel’s face and pried open his eyes. Samuel protested loudly, but was too weak to do more than that.
“No laudanum just now. Might not wake up. He’s weak as a kitten and barely coherent.” Mary exchanged stricken glances with Neil, but her father wasn’t finished. “He needs stimulants, if we can get him to take them. Brew him some coffee and heat up some broth.”
Coffee they had; Mary was less certain about broth, but Cook provided a thin gruel. Mary returned to the consulting room with a steaming pot rattling on her unsteady tray.
“Don’t look so frightened,” her father said.
“I can’t help it,” Mary said, her eyes on the handle of the coffee pot.
She expected a reprimand, not Papa’s hand settling awkwardly on her shoulder and steering her into a chair. The ease with which he steadied her and donned the face he used for comforting reminded her why, as a child, she’d never minded being ill.
“You should take a cup yourself.” He took the tray and set it on the nearby table.
“I’ll see to Samuel,” Neil said. He poured out a cup and carried it to the bedside chair. Samuel had subsided into the pillows. Neil murmured something and Samuel took a swallow from the spoon. Mary watched him struggle with another until Papa crouched down in front of her, blocking her view.
“These cases are difficult,” he told her. “No telling for certain how he will fare, but there’s no point borrowing tomorrow’s worries today. I’ll do everything I can for him. It will take some time. For now we need to watch.”
Thirty-Seven
Night and day swam together. Mary took her meals from trays, spooned coffee down Samuel’s throat and slept in her clothes. A stupor took hold of Samuel; too often she had to shake and pinch to rouse him or dab away gruel that spilled down his chin. His eyes clouded and he spoke only nonsense that deepened her father’s frown.
“No telling,” he said when she braved the question again. “We must wait.”
It felt like a siege.
Papa attended him often; he was watched in strict rotation by her and Mrs. Wilkins and Neil. Mary had stiff legs and an aching neck and a raspy voice from reading, unheeded, to Samuel.
“He never liked Scott’s novels,” Neil told her. He was wearing a different coat, so they must be on another day.
“Did you go out?” Mary asked, trying not to be affronted.
“You wouldn’t let me relieve you of the morning shift. You’re burnt to the socket, Mary. I wish you’d get some rest.”
“I will. Later.”
He brought another chair close to the bed. “I got your money from the bank. Took it to Annie, your housemaid.”
Mary straightened. “Thank goodness! Then she’ll be all right.”
“She’s well. Sends it back with thanks. Teary ones.” Seeing her confusion, he added, “She says she and Ben don’t need it. That they’ll marry in the summer and she’ll come see you, if you wish it, as soon as she can.”
“If I wish it?” The bigger question was how such a thing could be possible. “You can’t have heard right,” Mary said.
“I assure you, she was entirely confident. Do you wish me to return the money?”
“I suppose so. Since there are still banks.” She knew nothing of what had happened since Samuel’s injury. She might step outside into a republic all unknowing, but couldn’t summon any reason to care.
“Go on. Let me watch him for a spell.” He nudged her with his elbow, so Mary conceded the chair.
“Call me if he wakes,” she said.
It was quiet in the library. Mary thought her father was asleep until she heard him shake his newspaper. The noise made her jump.
Papa lowered the paper. “Mr. Murray’s back?”
Mary nodded, taking the opposite chair. She tucked up her knees and pulled a blanket over her. “He said he’d sit with Samuel.”
“You should be in bed.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Papa was very good at skeptical looks, but this one was more expressive than usual. “You’re dead on your feet,” he said.
Mary didn’t bother denying it. She felt slow and heavy, like she had weights hung on her hands and feet—even her eyelids—so there was no point attempting to be clever.
“It’s a load of tripe, but he’s good with words, I grant you.”
“What are you reading?” Mary asked. Surely not Samuel’s articles.
“The literary output of your Mr. Brown,” he said, contradicting her. “Your drawings are good, Mary.”
She shrugged, not knowing what to say.
“I was afraid you’d run away to Exeter.”
It took a moment before Mary realized what he meant. “To my moth—Mrs. Wilton?” She hadn’t thought of that. She supposed she could—perhaps. Mary wasn’t sure she’d be welcome. No reason to assume there was a place for her. Furthermore, she wasn’t all that certain she wished to go. It seemed too quick. “I think I’d like to write her,” Mary said carefully. “I know you don’t like the idea, but—”
“I’ll adjust.”
Mary frowned, not trusting him.
“You’re your own mistress. I can see that. I hope—what I mean is—in future, I wish to know your plans. No more running off without telling me. And I want to speak to your editor. I should make certain he’s not cheating you.
“I expect this comes as a surprise, but I’ve had ample time for reflection. I shouldn’t be angry with you because of your mother. I don’t want to lose you, Mary. I can put up with cartoons and letters to Exeter. Even Mr. Brown, if I have to.”
Mary studied her fingers, hiding a smile both swift and fleeting. “What will you do when I do things you don’t like?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know. Better than I’ve done before, I hope. One can only try.”
Mary looked up, then down, for she could only blink so quickly. “Then I will try, too. Thank you, Papa.”
Mary hadn’t meant to fall asleep in the library. When she woke it was evening, and she was wrapped in Aunt Yates’s best paisley shawl. Alarmed that so much time had passed, she hurried upstairs to the gue
st bedroom where Samuel lay. A fire burned in the hearth, and a shaded lamp gave Papa enough light to read without troubling Samuel.
“How is he?” Mary asked.
“Sleeping. You’ll be glad to know he took a good supper. A whole cup of broth. We talked for a while, but he tired quickly.”
“How was he?” Mary asked, half afraid of the answer.
“Mostly coherent. He asked for you and what had become of the bill, but I wasn’t sure he remembered it hadn’t passed.”
“If he forgot I’m not sure we should tell him,” Mary said. “Is Mr. Murray still here?”
Her father shook his head. Mary bit her lip.
“Let me,” she said and Papa vacated the bedside chair. “I’m sure you have calls to make.”
“I went this afternoon while Mr. Murray sat with him.”
If he’d been with Samuel through the afternoon and evening she couldn’t expect him to stay. Next time he came round—tomorrow?—she’d make sure to thank him. It might set things right; over the last few days she’d come to the uneasy realization that he didn’t look at her the same way anymore. You’d think that devastating kiss had never happened, he was so polite and cool, which was absurdly unfair. She hadn’t started it. He was generous and attentive to her and Samuel and Papa, but she sensed a reserve she hadn’t felt before. It pained her.
“Have you eaten?” Papa asked.
“I’ll get something from the kitchen when I’m hungry.” Mary settled down, chin in hand, and scarcely heard her father slip out the door.
Samuel woke shortly after four; he tossed and murmured, sputtering over the spoon before at last subsiding again into fitful sleep. Mary rearranged his pillows, built up the fire and watched the coals burn, her fingers resting on the back of Samuel’s hand. He’d gotten thin, his bones as fragile as a bird’s.
It was difficult, but she had to face the prospect. Sometimes blows changed people. Papa had explained that, saying it was best to be prepared. Sometimes they woke like nothing happened, other times in spite of improvements they forgot who they were or died in their sleep. Mary smoothed the blankets, wondering what she would do if the Samuel she knew was gone. There were so many good things about him. She was lucky he’d taken the house on Wimpole Street.
When she got up to stir the fire at half-past five he moved. Practiced by now, Mary returned to the bed, speaking softly as she raised the pillows. She’d try to get some more broth in him. She was filling a spouted cup from the pot over the spirit lamp when Samuel sighed and looked at her.
“Mary.”
His eyes were clear. For a moment she forgot herself and nearly overfilled the cup.
“Drink this.” She held the broth to his lips and counted three good, strong swallows. Before she could praise him he sighed again. “I suppose Wellington is Prime Minister. If we still have one.”
“I don’t know,” Mary said. “I haven’t—I haven’t thought of it at all since you were hurt.”
“Been a while, has it?”
“It’s been days.” She tried to count but couldn’t. “I could get you a newspaper,” she offered. Yesterday’s might still be waiting unread, downstairs.
He shook his head slowly from side to side. “I’ll have to face it eventually, but for now I’d rather not know.”
Her fingers closed fast around his hand. The time would come. Maybe not now, maybe not this year, but if he was well, surely they would do it when the time came to try again. Lord Grey might resign, Lord Durham curse and say he’d been betrayed. They might flounder for a time in a sea of anarchy, but Samuel wouldn’t give up. So long as he was himself, he would write the words to make reform happen. “You must give yourself time to recover,” Mary told him.
“It’s very quiet,” he said.
It was. She could feel the pulse in his wrist. She didn’t know how to judge such things, but to her it beat steadily. “I should tell Papa you’re awake.” She went to rise, but he held onto her fingers.
“How long have you been tending me?”
“We all have,” Mary told him. “Neil, Papa, Mrs. Wilkins. Even Aunt Yates. She read you her poems, but you were asleep for that.”
He rolled his head to one side. “I remember a lot of you.”
“I’ve been worried,” she told him, glad the darkness would hide her blush. “Sometimes they’ve wanted to help and I haven’t let them.”
Samuel settled into the pillows. “You’re good to me, Mary. Always have been.” Relieved, Mary was about to make some inconsequential reply when Samuel lobbed another question. “May I ask why?”
Mary resisted the urge to turn away. “I was ignorant before I met you. Without you I would never have begun satirical drawing. I’d be as silly as I was.”
“Silly?” He said it with disarming scepticism.
“Girls often are.”
“But you aren’t like most girls.”
“So Papa tells me. I cause him no end of trouble.” She didn’t know where his talk was going. It alarmed her.
He smiled sleepily. “I remember the first day I met you. Gave me a bit of trouble too.”
Mary’s heart lurched. “Did I?” She couldn’t have. This couldn’t be.
“I was tempted to kiss you.” He studied her face. Mary wondered if it looked like his own, half shadow, half rosy in the light of the dimmed lamp. “Since then, I think I’ve been trouble to you. I didn’t mean to be.”
“I don’t mind. I never have.”
“I know.” He sighed. “You’re practically a saint. Is your father furious with me?”
“Yes, but he can’t do anything about it when you’re unconscious. Don’t worry about it, Samuel. It isn’t your fault. I think I’d have pitted myself against Papa eventually for other reasons. We’re like magnets with different poles.” She passed him the cup and waited while he drank.
“He doesn’t approve of me.”
Mary set the empty cup back on the tray. “I’m not sure he approves of me either.”
“That can’t be comfortable for you.”
Mary shrugged her shoulders. “We may have reached a truce. I think he’ll leave me be. Soon enough I’ll be twenty-one. If I haven’t saved enough from my drawings to set up on my own—” She still had her money since, incomprehensibly enough, Annie didn’t want it. And there was her mother. Guilt or curiosity or unexpressed love might urge her to help. It was possible.
“That’s what you want?”
She shrugged again. “I think so. I haven’t thought of it much lately. We’ve been so worried for you.” Below, she heard the hall clock chime. “Never mind. I should let you rest.” He shouldn’t spend his energy talking. Mary rose, dimmed the lamp, picked up the tray, and went for the door.
“What’s your full name again?”
She stopped before her fingers reached the handle. “Mary Gabriella Buchanan. My mother chose the second one, which is probably why it sounds so needlessly extravagant.”
Samuel pushed himself up on the pillows. “I like things simple. What do you think about Brown?”
His question made no sense. “I don’t understand.”
“Do you like the name?” he persisted.
“It’s yours.”
“So it is.” He smoothed the sheets on his lap. “I’m asking what you would think about taking it?”
Mary walked back to the bed and sat down. “Samuel, you aren’t well. Your head—”
“Only hurts when I move it. But I’m not a block. We work well together, you and I. You’re uncomfortably circumstanced. And I would like keeping you with me.”
“That’s—”
“I’m bad at this, Mary, but don’t dismiss me out of hand just because I haven’t got beautiful words.”
Mary gave a relieved laugh. “You always have them for your writing.”
“Because I study and work at it. I’ve only begun to study you. I wanted to that first day I saw you but you were too young and I was so muddled up with guilt. It wasn’t right, and
so I couldn’t.”
“What’s changed?”
“I don’t know. But this feels different, doesn’t it?”
“It ought to. It’s past two in the morning.”
He stretched out his hand and Mary found hers sliding into it without thought—these past days their hands had lived side by side for so long. He interlaced their fingers. “You know I like Mary Buchanan just fine, but if you were Mary Brown—”
It sounded like love, what he was saying. There was friendship in the offer, a great deal of it, but there was more, that tug on her hand, that gleam in his eyes that was all at once hunger and food. It was almost like Neil—
“All right,” she whispered, then—“Wait.” Tremulous, her heart racing, Mary took a breath. Everything he said was true, but being uncomfortable in her home wasn’t reason enough to marry. He had been a trouble to her. All that dreaming and sketching and spying, imagining what she would say and how he might look at her. He was doing it right now, and she wasn’t ready for it.
Tell him yes. It’s all you’ve wanted.
“Are you sure?” Mary asked. “Maybe you still aren’t yourself. I can’t accept you until I’m sure you’re in your right mind.”
He laughed but broke it off, winced and lifted a hand to his forehead. “I’m sure. In spite of how I look, I feel stronger. And having you here…it’s not right, you know, to feel this way and not do what I can to keep you.”
Mary blinked and blinked again. “Yes, then. So long as Papa says you are well enough.”
Though his face was thin, he gave her the most disarming smile. With a courtly grace straight from her most delirious imagining, he took up her hand and kissed her fingers. “Doubly yes,” Mary whispered, convinced the occasion deserved a better affirmative.
His thumb brushed over her lip. “Thank you, Mary.”
It was more excitement than she could bear. “I must get rid of the tray,” Mary said and escaped. It didn’t suit the dignity of an affianced lady, but the tempo of her heart made it impossible not to soar down the stairs.