Rape of the Soul

by Dawn Thompson

"I-I'm not! ‘Tis Mr. Chapin. His arm is giving him a bit of bother today, and he thought the doctor might come ‘round and have a look at it, that's all. ‘Tisn't serious . . . really."

  "Kyrie eleison!” snapped Elliot. “You must all think I'm a fool. For Colin to send for George, he'd have to be on his deathbed. Well? Don't just stand there, George—go to him!"

  "Not until I've gotten you back in your bed where you belong. I can't be in two places at once, Elliot."

  "I knew there was something wrong. He hasn't been ‘round to see me since the morning of my seizure. That was six days ago! What are you all keeping from me?” the vicar roared, glancing among them.

  Nobody spoke.

  "Oh, my God,” he groaned, “you're lying to me—every last one of you."

  The doctor took his arm. “Come along, Elliot. Do you intend to have the deacons conducting services for good and all? We want you back in that pulpit, not out in the graveyard."

  The vicar wrenched free. “I'm going into the church to pray for Colin, and if any one of you tries to stop me, so help me God, I'll strike you down.” Squaring his posture, he turned back and staggered along the corridor disappearing into the church through the vestry.

  The doctor sighed. “Go along, Ted,” he charged wearily, “keep an eye on him, and get him back into that bed just as soon as you can."

  "Yes, sir,” the boy murmured, hesitating. “Dr. Howard, what is wrong with Uncle Colin . . . really?"

  Annoyed, the doctor paid him cursory lip service. “He opened the wound last week—the day you sent me out there. It's infected."

  Ted swayed where he stood as though Howard had struck him, his quivering lips drained white. “Is . . . is he going to be all right, sir?” he breathed.

  "If we're lucky. He may lose the arm, son—or worse. I can't tell from here. I've got to go."

  Ted moaned, blinking back tears, and the doctor shook him. “Stop that sniveling,” he barked. “Stand like a man and go to your father. Tell him nothing. Do you hear?"

  Ted nodded, swallowing hard.

  "Go along then, and don't let him out of your sight,” said Howard turning Ira toward the door.

  Overcome, Ted stumbled through the vestry into the church and sank down on the kneeler beside his father. Absorbed in prayer, Elliot scarcely noticed him, and the boy was grateful for that as he shielded his eyes with his hand. Guilt had conquered him, and despite the doctor's scolding, his tears came streaming down.

  * * * *

  Howard's surrey rolled to a stop in the circular drive at Cragmoor in the midst of a shower of horizontal rain. Though it was scarcely mid-afternoon, the squall had called the twilight close as it did so often in spring, and a bitter wind blew its cold breath upon the mighty house.

  In his chamber, Colin lay delirious as fever raged through his body, trembling with chills and cold sweat. Eyes blind with pain stared toward the doctor, and the moans from his parched throat hung heavy in the damp, putrid air.

  Howard stripped the bandages away and shrank back with a grimace, “Christ!” he breathed, frowning toward the rancid flesh festering black over Colin's raw arm. “Chapin, can you hear me?” he said hoarsely, his gruff voice become muffled behind his handkerchief.

  "I hear you."

  "That's gangrene. I'm sorry, the arm's got to come off—and quickly. You won't last the night if I don't amputate. Do you understand me, Chapin?"

  "Go on, then. Take it."

  "I'll save as much as I can, but you won't have anything below the elbow. I'm going to have to take it off above. Chapin, are you sure you're clear on what's got to be done here?"

  "You can take it off to the bloody shoulder, should it please you,” spat Colin, “just . . . see if you can keep me alive! Well? Go on, damn you. Have done with it. You're itching, I'll wager, and don't you breathe a word about it to Elliot as he is, either, or so help me God it's the last bone you'll saw this life, butcher, I swear to you . . . unless you've got sense enough to take both arms while you're about it."

  The doctor scowled down at him, his mustache twitching. “Will you spit in God's face on the day of judgment, Chapin?” he brayed.

  "Ha,” popped Colin, “you're a far cry from God, old man. Well? What in hell are you waiting for, hack the damned thing off!"

  The doctor continued to glower through narrowed eyes. “All right, Chapin,” he said, “but I may as well tell you here and now, I am going to have to tell Elliot. You aren't thinking clearly. If I don't, the minute he sees you again he'll come down and you know it. He knows something's wrong out here. He's going to want a full account. If I tell him, I'll be right there where I can help him should there be need of me, which there doubtless will. Now, if you want revenge over that, God bless you—have at it!"

  Colin emptied his lungs. “Just have the grisly thing done. Goddamn you to rot in hell, Howard!"

  The doctor turned to the open doorway where Amy stood waiting. Tears glistened in her faded eyes behind the round, rimless spectacles, and her wrinkled lips trembled, leaking a whimper.

  "Get hold of yourself, Mrs. Croft,” he barked. “Go down and fetch a board. Pad it with towels, and bring boiling water. Check your cutlery. I need something sharp and sturdy enough to do this. Bring what you have. I'll decide. I'll need soap and water to wash in, too—clean linen for bandages, and all the antiseptic you've got about—and bring brandy—lots of it. Hurry! You've got to help me with the chloroform. Well? Get your wits about you, woman. There's no time for wailing here now."

  Having set her in motion, Howard went to the hearth and examined the pokers. Choosing one, he thrust it into roaring flames and propped it there to heat. Turning back to the bed he saw Colin watching. “You won't feel it, Chapin."

  "Doesn't matter,” murmured Colin, “couldn't feel any worse than it does right now."

  "This could be done at hospital you know. I could have you there in two hours time."

  Colin lurched and cried out with the motion. “No hospital!” he snarled. “Oh, Christ . . . Elliot . . . I'm so sorry! You know I didn't mean it . . .” he moaned, lapsing back into delirium. “Mary's going to die, isn't she? Why won't you tell her? Father would be so pleased . . . if you two should marry. Elliot . . . I'm sorry . . . so . . . sorry."

  "Christ,” growled the doctor as Colin raved on. “You're wrong, Chapin. I'm not going to enjoy this. I'm not going to enjoy it at all. And no amount of 'sorry’ is going to help Elliot this time. Not this time."

  Outside the wind howled attacking the shuddering terrace doors. Anxious fingers of hail tapped at the panes, and drafts wriggled in attacking the flames in the hearth. The amber glass lamp on the nightstand labored, and more were brought and grouped there, for the light was fading.

  The doctor stripped off his jacket, rolled back his sleeves, and scrubbed his hands in the basin of hot water Amy had provided. Meanwhile, Elsie brought bandages, antiseptic, and an assortment of butchering knives, saws, and cleavers, and laid them neatly on the dressing chest. Overweight in her fifties, the servant stood mute awaiting the doctor's orders, her eyes moist, and her lips quivering.

  Minutes later Amy brought another basin and a steaming kettle of boiling water, and Howard chose his instruments and set them in it to sterilize. Stern-faced, he barked commands and they obeyed him as he strapped their master's mutilated arm to the linen-covered board.

  Amy's hands were trembling as she held the cloth leaking chloroform over Colin's restless head. Finally it lay still, and the moans seeping through his cracked lips ceased at last. He floated on the wind. Cool and moist, it fanned his hot face as he bounded over the moors in the arms of anesthesia. There was no pain in that soft twilight quiet. But for the distant wail of the wind that seemed to move him, no sound violated the delusion, and he embraced it with both his strong, sinewy arms and clung to it desperately. Then came the darkness black and deep, like a cool, moist cave that swallowed him whole as the doctor worked with quick skilled hands to sever the gangrenous member.

>   * * * *

  Downstairs dinner had been served, but none save Malcolm ate it. Stark terror and anxiety had moved Jean through that week with her heart suspended, for Malcolm hadn't left the house again. Now the doctor had returned, and he'd been so long in Colin's chamber. So long! Fear that he was dying closed her throat and stilled her voice of all but prayers uttered in silence, while Malcolm looked on with his crooked half smile savoring her grief.

  They passed a quiet hour in the conservatory after the meal, and still no word came from the doctor, neither could any sign of a servant be seen. The house, like a tomb, lay in utter stillness except for the melancholy moan of the wind that had risen driving a relentless mix of rain and hail that threatened the panes in the magnificent room of glass.

  Bored at last, Malcolm left Ira arranging his brushes and paints for the next day's sitting, and led Jean up the staircase toward their chamber to retire. When they reached the second floor landing, Amy's wizened shape parting the shadows of the north wing turned them sharply toward her. Sobbing gently, she shuffled close clutching a bundle of bloodsoaked towels to her bosom.

  Malcolm grimaced stooping over her. “Oh, dear,” he sniffed, raising a hand to his flared nostrils. “I say, that looks grim. Whatever have you got there, Amy?"

  The housekeeper groaned. “'Tis the master's arm,” she wailed. “The doctor's just cut it offa’ him!” Sobbing openly, she staggered past them down the stairs with it cradled like a baby against her.

  Swaying, Jean moaned as all color drained from her and dropped like a stone to the carpet unconscious at Malcolm's feet.

  * * * *

  Inside Colin's chamber, the doctor stood beside the bed arms-akimbo, staring down. Swathed thick in bandages, Colin's maimed arm was strapped to a clean padded board. His bare chest heaved beside it trembling with the broken rhythm of fever.

  Howard sighed. Soaking towels in cold water from the basin on the dressing chest, he began to sponge Colin's hot face. “You aren't out of the woods that easily are you, Chapin, damn your stubborn hide?” he growled. “We may lose you yet."

  Outside hail tapping at the terrace doors caught his attention, and he threw them open and scraped some of the missiles, as big as walnuts, into an empty basin. The yield was scant, but he was able to gather enough to chill the water, and he soaked the towel again and sponged Colin's face and shoulders doggedly.

  He could feel the heat in his body through the cold, wet linen the instant it made contact with his skin. “Christ, you're burning up,” he muttered. “Goddamn it, cooperate a little, blast you, man."

  Elsie slipped inside from the shadows of the corridor, and the doctor's head flashed toward her. “Go and fetch alcohol—all you can find, and bring it here quickly,” he charged. “I've just collected some hailstones from the terrace for ice water to bathe him. See what you can glean from the porches downstairs before the rain melts it all. We've got to get his fever down. Well, don't just stand there, woman—move!"

  Answering him with a dry sob, she fled.

  Howard turned back to Colin. He'd begun to stir, his restless head rolling on the pillow, and his lips leaking breathless groans.

  "All right, Chapin, all right,” said the doctor, pouring laudanum into a spoon.

  Colin's glazed eyes came halfway open. Dilated in the darkness, they stared. “Is it done, then?” he murmured.

  The doctor nodded grimly. “Open,” he barked, offering the spoon. The dry lips parted and he forced the opiate between them.

  "I . . . I can still feel my hand,” Colin panted. “How is it I can still feel my hand?"

  "You will for awhile—the nerves. It's to be expected. Don't talk, Chapin. You've lost more blood than the average man has in him, and you're burning with fever. Lie quiet."

  "Uhhh, don't leave me, Elliot. I . . . I can't see,” he muttered, delirious. “Bastard . . . laid in wait. Uhhh, Jesus, Elliot . . . don't leave me."

  The doctor breathed a nasal sigh. “Where are you now, Chapin,” he wondered, “back in the brake when that cob threw you some odd fifteen years ago? Any pain's easier to take than this here now, eh, my fine, surly rake? Christ! Can't say as I blame you. Go to sleep. You're a rugged young fool, but one of these days—soon like as not, the grim reaper's going to win this joust you're staging here. I'm running out of miracles.

  * * * *

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  Chapter Forty-four

  * * * *

  Howard kept his vigil beside Colin's bed through the night, remembering another vigil in that chamber four years earlier, and another raging fever brought on by the bullet wound from the gardener's pistol.

  Restless, Colin tossed there delirious while the doctor sponged his burning skin with ice water and alcohol, and forced laudanum through the dry, cracked lips that cursed and moaned and murmured the vicar's name. Just before dawn he quieted, his heaving breast seeking a calmer rhythm as the opiate carried him into a deep sleep devoid of the visions that called the past forward. At last his skin grew cooler and the doctor drew an easy breath. Though the stubborn fever still threatened, it had begun to subside, and for the first time since he entered the house the previous afternoon, Howard was ready to count Colin among the living.

  He was exhausted. Sleep weighed heavily upon his wrinkled eyelids, and his arms were stiff from holding Colin down when delirium threatened to do damage. But as far as he was concerned, the worst was yet to come. Elliot would be expecting some answers at the vicarage.

  Wearily he secured the restraints on the board, making sure Colin wouldn't be able to dislodge them, and covered his naked torso with the quilt, tucking it in place to ward off a chill in the cool morning dampness. The fire was dwindling and he chucked several logs into the hearth and kindled them with rough hands. Then collecting his jacket and satchel, he made his way down to the kitchen in the servants’ wing below.

  Finding Amy there red-eyed and toil-worn, not having slept herself, he issued her instructions for Colin's care, assuring her that given strict adherence to them her master would indeed recover. To be certain of that, he promised to come on a regular schedule to monitor his progress personally.

  After wolfing down a hearty breakfast of hard-cooked eggs wrapped in sausage meat, thick slabs of bacon, and warm caraway biscuits oozing butter that Cook set before him, he bid them farewell, took one last look at Colin, and dragged himself to his surrey in the stable, where Ira had taken it out of the weather. And though he dreaded what lay before him, he wasted no time making it ready and drove off toward the vicarage through a dense black fog that had rolled in off the headlands; the precursor of a brighter day—at lease weatherwise.

  Ted led him in by way of the vestry, his gaunt image mirroring the ghostly mist that swirled in with him. “How is he, sir?” he begged, searching the doctor's strained face.

  Howard emptied his lungs through his nose after his fashion. “He's going to live, lad, if he behaves himself, but he's lost the arm. I couldn't save it. I'm sorry."

  Broken, the boy burst into tears, and the doctor shook him roughly. “All right, Ted, get hold of yourself,” he barked. “Stop that now and act like a man. There's neither time nor place here for children. Your father's got to be told this."

  Ted nodded, his head hung low and shut his moist eyes tight to contain his tears.

  "He is all right, isn't he, son—your father?” Howard probed, misreading the boy's reaction.

  "Yes, sir,” Ted forced in a small voice, swallowing hard to hold back the vomit that had risen in his throat, “but I'm glad you've come. He refuses to do one thing I tell him, sir. He got out of bed and dressed himself right after breakfast. He's up in his chamber. I . . . I don't know what to do. He hasn't slept. I sat with him all night, and now he's threatening to go ‘round to Cragmoor."

  Howard breathed another sigh. “Right now you can go and wash that face,” he said sternly. “I'll see to your father. Go along, then, I'd best do this alone."

  "Please, I want
to be with you, sir,” cried Ted.

  The doctor hesitated. “All right,” he conceded, “that mightn't be such a bad idea at that. Wipe those eyes. Christ, he'll take one look at that face and I won't have to open my mouth."

  "Yes, sir,” Ted sniffed, groping for his handkerchief.

  Together they went to the vicar's chamber. He was seated in a wing chair before the hearth, his journal in his hands, and he rose slowly and set it aside as they entered. “Oh, my God,” he breathed, his eyes oscillating between the grim-faced doctor and his stricken son. “He's dead!” he moaned.

  "No—no, Elliot,” Howard assured him, coming closer. “He's very much alive and he's going to be all right—I swear it!"

  "No! He isn't! I can see it in your faces. My God, don't lie to me—you have all along. You've got to tell me the truth, George."

  "Sit down, Elliot. You've no business being out of bed and you know it."

  "I will not sit down! What are you keeping from me?"

  The doctor exhaled pursing his lips tight, his racing heart visibly moving his waistcoat. “He's alive I tell you,” he growled, “and he is going to recover. He'll be up and about in next to no time at all, as surly and libidinous as ever I'll wager, but . . ."

  "But what,” cried Elliot,” but what, George? Answer me!"

  The doctor hesitated. There was no way to avoid the issue, and he didn't labor long over his reply. The rage in the vicar's eyes fueled his own cantankerous scowl and the words blurted out, “I couldn't save his arm."

  The vicar stiffened. Staring wide-eyed, his trembling lips worked as he tried to process the words that had hit him like cannon fire. Nothing came from them, however, but a groan as he collapsed in the doctor's arms.

  "Father,” cried Ted bolting toward him.

  Together they carried him to the bed and eased him down upon it.

  "Oh, sir, his medicine,” the boy urged.

  Howard shook his head. “It isn't a seizure,” he said, loosening Elliot's collar. “He's passed out. He'll be all right in a moment. He's weak, son, and he shouldn't be out of bed yet. He's had a great shock. Let's hope this is the worst of it. Fetch the smelling salts—hurry now."