In the Brief Eternal Silence

by Rebecca Melvin

  All these small things he observed in his brief periods of wakefulness and he was equally comforted and alarmed by them. For it is peaceful watching the dust settle at times onto furniture and cobwebs. No great activity to stir it up, no great push to clean it away, but to allow it repose for a brief time undisturbed.

  But it was alarming as well, as though all those dedicated to clearing the dust and cobwebs had been drawn away by some greater mission. He appreciated the peace he was left to, but he also wondered what greater mess needed seeing to.

  And Lizzie's face upon each of his awakenings did not reassure him. Her eyes were swollen as though the only time she did not cry were the brief instances when he was awake and aware of her, and she was aware that he was aware of her.

  And in this manner, he came to know that there was something very wrong.

  But also in this manner he filed through all the possibilities in his sleeping mind, one at a time and in various combinations, until he covered every conceivable tragedy of one or more that he cared for.

  And as a man who speculates on what he would do if his left hand were cut off, or mayhaps his right, or what if both, or possibly a leg, or his other leg, or both, or all of his limbs, how he would survive, so he speculated on the losses that were possible. And each time he only told himself with grim determination that as long as he had his heart he could live.

  And of course, Lizzie was there, so he knew that it was not his heart that was lost.

  This time he awakened and his eyes came open without him having to force the lids up. He was still on close terms with his pains but they were not as jealous of his attention as before, and he saw the sun was shining in the windows and Lizzie herself dusted the furniture in the room. The cobweb was gone.

  He watched her, his gold eyes taking in that serene economy of movement, the flutter of hummingbird wings in mid-flight. And when he spoke, his voice was cracked and harsh, and it hurt his chest to speak, but he only said, “Tell me your concerns, Lizzie, and I will endeavor to come up with a solution you may live with.”

  She whirled at his words, a bit of dust on one cheek, and he saw again that her eyes were red and swollen, but she came to sit with him and buried her head in his shoulder.

  “I was beginning to fear that you would never fully come back,” she said, her voice muffled in his neck. He moved his chin in a gesture of holding her.

  “Tsk. I was very tired, you know.”

  “I know.” She raised her head. “As I have been as well, for it has been the most hellish week.”

  “As bad as all that, Lizzie?” he asked.

  Her hesitation confirmed his observances even before she spoke. “Indeed, it is worse than you know. I do not even wish to tell you, but I do not know how I can not.”

  With some hope of easing her burden, he told her, “I know that Tyler is dead, if you fear that I was unaware.”

  She swallowed and nodded. “Ryan rode out in search of him and found—well, the constable was contacted and Ryan went on to Morningside and found Steven there. Steven told him of what he knew. Which was not much, but was enough for us to know that you were aware of. . . that circumstance.”

  “Then it is something more?” he asked, but already knew that it must be.

  She nodded again and had trouble forming the words. “Dante. . . your aunt is dead. And your grandmother has died as well.” She was already crying, and he knew she had cried all of her own tears already and that it were his that she shed for him.

  “So it was grandmother's death that took all the servants from the house.”

  “Yes. For they all wished to go and pay their respects. Mrs. Herriot was going to stay, but I insisted that she go also as you were out of danger and I convinced her that between Bertie and myself and Effington, that we could care for you quite adequately. And of course the doctor comes around daily also. Dante, I am so sorry to have to tell you this immediately upon your wakening and when you are lying here in pain already—”

  “Hush,” he told her, “for you very well know I should have had to strangle you if you had delayed in telling me, for I would not have had you worrying that I should break into many pieces if someone but let slip with the wrong word in my hearing.”

  “I realized that, of course,” she said. “But it does not make it any easier and I can really tell you nothing more. I gather from Effington that there was some sort of altercation between your grandmother and Lydia and that your grandmother died of a heart attack.”

  “Well, thank God for that,” St. James said. “For I very much feared at first that Lydia had managed to kill her. And although you can imagine my distress at knowing she has died, I could not have born it if that woman had laid a hand on her.” He paused for a moment, reflecting. “I had sent Andrew to do something with her.”

  Lizzie sat back, startled. “You sent Andrew to do something with his mother?”

  “Yes, Lizzie. I said you were winning when I went an entire day without a drink, so I do not know why you are so surprised. But you must tell me what happened for I am growing tired again, you know, and I do not know how long I can be awake. Did Andrew go, or was he as injured as I was in that monstrous piece of work that ended with a horse atop me for once instead of me atop it as it should be?”

  “I do not know how you can make light of it, for you have more stitches in you than hairs upon your head, I would wager,” Lizzie told him with irritation. “And you have three cracked ribs and a torn muscle in your leg, which I dare say is because your foot did not properly leave the iron, and the doctor says you will most likely have a limp for the rest of your life even after it heals. Not to mention a very nasty scar across your cheek.”

  “Ah. Bertie will only say that my true colors are showing. But Andrew? I believe he must at least have a twisted ankle?”

  “Indeed he did. And I will not ask how you would know of that, or indeed how his face came to look so frightful even before that accident. Just as I will not ask how your stitches came to be torn out so completely again, of which his knowledge that you were bleeding like a sieve as well as your obviously poor condition upon your riding in leads me to believe that did not happen in the accident either.”

  “And you, Miss Murdock,” he teased her gently, “are finally learning not to ask questions I can not easily answer.”

  “I am learning, milord, not to ask questions that I do not think I will like the answer to,” she rebuked. “So do not think I am merely acceding to your wishes on that head.”

  “But of course not,” he agreed. “But Andrew? Is he at least alive, for it seems that everyone else has died in this fiasco,” and as much as he tried to prevent it, his words were bitter.

  “Yes. Effington said he will be delayed for a few days as he is seeing to the arrangements,” Lizzie told him, bowing her head. “And St. James, please, do not feel as though it is all your fault for if you recall—”

  “Hush, Lizzie, for you are exhausting me and I did not wish to spend all my time awake hashing through this now. Lean forward, lass, for I swear I am so damn weak I can not even raise my arms.”

  And she did, trembling, and he grinned a little that she should be so timid even when he was as helpless as a baby. He raised his head a degree and met her lips and with only the power of his mouth on hers he drew her with him when he again lay back.

  Her lips were as he remembered, as shy on his mouth as a hummingbird plundering nectar from a morning-glory and all the dark and brooding thoughts that he still had to ponder were pushed back in his urgency to delve into that serene center of her. The tiredness washed over him and he gave a soft groan of frustration that he could not embrace her and roll her beneath him and turn all of her body into blushing rose to match her face.

  Then the sleep washed over him once again and in his sleep he swallowed his acceptance a little further and his grief settled gently instead of churning with bitterness in his heart.

  Again he wakened and the sun was no longer slanted but be
amed down from full and high in the sky. The room was bright but there was no longer direct beams through the windows and so he understood it was early afternoon.

  Effington was in the room and St. James watched as that man bent frowning over a pair of milord's boots. He knocked the caked mud and blood onto newspaper upon the floor and brushed them one at a time with earnest and energetic swipes.

  St. James smiled at this picture of intense battle being fought between man and mud but he only asked, “Whatever day is it, Effington?”

  Effington, with a little jolt of his thin shoulders, raised his doleful head in surprise, but answered with unerring precision, “Tuesday. Of the first of December, milord. And the year is 1863 if you are in ignorance of that also.”

  “Very funny, Effington. Fetch me—” and St. James nearly said 'a drink' for old habits did die hard but he amended his words, “something to eat. For I can not see how you expect me to regain my strength when you seem to be intent upon starving me.”

  Effington set aside the boots and advising milord that he would be but a moment, went from the room to secure this request.

  St. James, left alone, began taking full stock of his injuries. The original wound in his chest was again sewed, and although it was wrapped and covered he had the suspicion that Andrew's abrupt tearing of it had necessitated more stitches than it had originally needed.

  His wrapped ribs made his breaths tight and shallow but did not seem to impend his movement to any great degree. And although he had a great deal of various cuts, some stitched, some not, and a greater deal of bruises, he didn't believe there was anything that would vitally restrict his movement other than the torn muscle in the calf of his right leg. And weakness, of course.

  He did not like being confined to his bed. He understood that the peace about the house would not last. The funerals would take place. The servants would return. The work begun on the house would continue when the workers that had left in respect for the grief of the household returned.

  And Andrew, he expected, would arrive not too many days after the completion of the duties that interring loved ones involved. It irked St. James that he could not help his cousin with these tasks but that Andrew was forced to bear all of this himself.

  It was not supposed to have ended in this manner. Not with Steven without a father. Not with Tyler dead, and his grandmother dead, and Andrew in grief over his mother also.

  No. He did not like feeling helpless. He did not like being bedridden. And he had a sense of urgency, as though there was something that still must be done before the servants again arrived and Andrew again arrived.

  And he did not doubt that Andrew would come. St. James may have been without strength and unable to control the black filly on that dreadful charge up the lane, but he had not been unconscious. He knew of Andrew's relentless riding of his own horse in attempting to prevent St. James from further difficulty.

  He understood that between ripping his cousin's stitches and attempting to save his cousin's life, Andrew had reached a point in his own acceptance. He may not have understood the full significance of what he was accepting, but he must have at least conceded all was not as his mother had presented.

  And so St. James had no doubt that Andrew would return. And he feared he would spend a good deal of his energy defending his own actions that had resulted in the deaths of Tyler and Lydia and grandmother. How he was to manage defending the undefendable, he did not know.

  It wearied him even thinking upon it. It seemed that instead of lying in bed and watching the peace of the house shorten in time and then disappear into a maelstrom of violent emotion in just a day or two hence, that there was something that must be done in this small interim.

  And he pondered this as he lay in the silence of the room.

  Effington returned with a tray, set it aside, helped St. James to sit up. St. James cursed his weakness, but managed to feed himself. As he ate his thoughts deepened and by the time he was finished and Effington took the tray again, St. James' eyes were dark with his recondite deliberations.

  He dozed again and upon awaking later, asked, “When are the interments, Effington, do you know?”

  Effington was going through Andrew's clothes that he had left in the room in his haste to again reach London. “I believe they were scheduled for yesterday, milord. This robe should do adequately if you should wish me to help you into it,” he added, “for although I had made arrangements for your own clothing to be sent down when I left London night before last, they have not yet arrived.”

  “That will do, Effington. And I should also wish a wash and a shave. And a cane. The Squire, I imagine, should have one or more about to aid him when his gout is at its worse.”

  Effington looked a little startled at this request, but only said, “Very well, milord. I shall see to it, of course.”

  “And how is Miss Murdock, for I have not seen her since this morning?” St. James asked.

  “She is well, milord, and has been sleeping since being in your room earlier. It is the first real sleep she has achieved since your accident so I have not disturbed her.”

  “No. I am glad you have not. I should like a very large dinner, Effington, for I plan on gorging myself to an unusual degree.”

  “It would be well if you did,” the valet agreed. “For I need not point out that you shall regain your strength all the faster if you will for once eat appropriately.”

  “Well, let us become busy on these minor details, Effington, and then I am going to have several more tasks for you to see to a little later. But we shall discuss those while you are shaving me, shall we?”

  A few hours later Effington fetched Bertie and Ryan at milord's request. St. James was bathed and shaved and sitting up in his bed in Andrew's robe, and the two men walking through the door with a great deal of pained concern on their faces drew up short at sight of him.

  “How does he do that?” Ryan exclaimed upon inspecting the duke, who although looking worse the wear was remarkably alert and recovered for someone who had been near senseless just that morning.

  “Damn you, St. James!” Bertie said with irritation. “You never fail to make me feel like a fool for spending my precious time worrying about your sorry life.”

  St. James, amused at these sayings, only said, “As I believe my betrothed is still sleeping and I do not wish to disturb her, perhaps you would be so kind as to close the door.”

  “Of course,” Bertie said, and did so. “Needn't tell you, St. James, that you have put that chit through more than her share of grief this past ten days.”

  St. James frowned, the stitched cut on his cheek pulling down to make him look more ferocious in his displeasure than even what he normally appeared. “No, you needn't tell me that in the least, Bertie, for I am well aware of it. Which brings us to the little request that I have for you two gentlemen for this evening.”

  “Of course, St. James,” Ryan said from where he stood at the foot of the bed as his brother seated himself in the chair. “You should know by now that we shall be of whatever assistance to you that we possibly can!”

  “Well it is not so very big a thing,” St. James chided. “It is just that I have come to understand that the servants have left to go to the funeral of my grandmother and I dare say that Miss Murdock has taken it upon herself to do at least some of the preparing of meals in their absence.”

  And both Bertie and Ryan looked guilty. “Well, St. James,” Bertie began, “we did endeavor to fix our own, you know, but damned if I could get that bloody stove to work as it should. A monstrous piece of equipment, that!”

  “And I certainly tried to put together a few edible dishes, but I am afraid that it is not as easily done as I had always assumed,” Ryan added.

  But St. James raised a scraped hand to cut them both short. “I am not blaming you. I can well guess that Miss Murdock saw to it with some relief, preferring it very much to having Mrs. Herriot here fagging her to death. I am merely saying that since I am no
longer on my death bed and she has at last been able to find some rest for herself that we do not interrupt it this evening but that perhaps you would care to take the Squire and travel to the inn for your meal.”

  “Why, yes, of course. Should be happy to,” Bertie agreed, but his eyes twinkled and he controlled a grin as St. James gave him a look of warning.

  Ryan, oblivious to any deeper intent, said, “Jolly good, St. James. Can not think why we did not hit upon it ourselves. We shall enjoy a nicely prepared meal and Miss Murdock shall get her well deserved rest.” He gave St. James an earnest look. “You are surprisingly considerate, St. James.”

  St. James chuckled but did not disabuse him of his summation. “And I can not see why you need hurry back. I dare say it has been a most trying time for the two of you and the Squire also. By all means, enjoy a hand or two of cards. Bertie,” he continued, “I am sure the Squire would welcome a few drinks and a release from his worries for a night.”

  “Indeed, St. James,” Bertie said. “I am quite certain that we all should. I don't imagine we would be back much before dawn, if even then. May be better to just stay the night and allow Miss Murdock time to adequately recover.”

  “You understand me completely, Bertie.”

  An hour later, Effington returned to St. James' bedchamber. “Is there anything further I can get for you, milord, before my leaving?” he asked.

  “No, Effington, thank you.” St. James sat propped against his pillows. His robe was opened showing the white of his bandages, and his hands fingered the cane in his hands. “Just see to the arrangements I have asked you to see to and I should see you in the morning, I expect.”

  “Of course you realize that if I should run into no difficulty I could well return late tonight?” Effington warned.

  St. James glanced up, his eyes dark and preoccupied. He focused on his valet long enough to say, “But that would be very unwise, would it not, Effington?”