"Wakes?"
Joan swung round, her ravaged face bemused as hope waged war with disbelief.
"Wakes?"
"Aye,"
Ginny smiled. "The crisis is past. He is sleeping peacefully." Joan
fell to her knees beside the bed, and Ginny went out into the gallery, blinking
painfully at the light. Her legs felt suddenly shaky, and she leaned against
the wall, for the moment unaware of the circle of anxious eyes fixed on her.
"Mistress
Courtney," Patience said hesitantly, "is there news?"
Ginny
rubbed her eyes and shook her head with an impatient movement as if to dispel
the cobwebs, then raised her head, her face tired but radiant. "Your
pardon. The child will live."
Alex
had been standing apart, looking down at the devastation of his family's
park through the now glazed window, when Ginny had come into the gallery. When
she had leaned against the wall in a manner almost defeated, his first thought
had been that little Joe had died of the typhus, and sorrow had welled, keeping
him at the window for a moment, even as his mind reached out to her across the
room. Then, when he heard her words, he strode over, taking her in his arms,
heedless of the others who were too full of their own joy to pay much attention
anyway.
"You
are exhausted," he chided, his voice stern, belying the love and relief as
he held her face between cupped hands and examined the drawn skin, the
purple-smudged eyes, the gray cast of fatigue. "And you are grown
thin."
That
made her smile. "In but three days, Alex? It is not possible. I am as
robust and round as ever."
"You
are neither robust nor round," he asserted. "You must eat and sleep
at once."
"First,
I must make a syrup of rose hips for little Joe," Ginny said, pulling away
from him.
"Patience
and Aunt Martha will do that," Alex stated firmly. "Will you
not?" He turned to the two women, the old and the young. "Mistress
Courtney has done sufficient for the Granthams, I believe."
There
was a harshness in his voice that made Ginny wince and protest softly, "I
have done little enough, Alex. There is no call to speak in that fashion."
But Alex had listened enough to the angry, ungrateful words, and while he was
prepared to accept them for himself, he would not allow his family to ignore
the obligation they stood under to a stranger who had given so much of herself
without thought.
Ginny
turned away from their embarrassment with a dismissive gesture and went to the
door. Alex followed, catching her arm. "I am going to look after
you," he said. "Come with me."
Too
weary to protest, and, indeed, not loath to yield control in this moment of
utter weakness, Ginny allowed him to take her hand and lead her through the
corridors into the west wing of the house. Here, no attempt had been made to
restore the rooms to habitability. Doors hung on their hinges, giving glimpses
of ruined chambers where the wind whistled through smashed windows. Plaster
dust and sawdust lay thick on the floors of the passage, and Ginny wondered why
he was taking her on this desolate expedition, when all she wanted was to curl
up in a corner of the gallery and sleep.
They
came to a door at the end of the passage. Alex opened it, ushering her inside
with an imperative hand in the small of her back. The room contained a feather
mattress, the covering a little torn, but otherwise it was whole, a chair,
table, and Alex's belongings.
"This
was my boyhood room," he explained with a tiny smile. "I have taken
refuge here with my memories. Sit down." He pushed her onto the stool,
went over to his baggage, and drew out a leather flagon. Take some of this, and
I will be back in a moment."
There
was brandy in the flask, and the first sip was almost enough to render Ginny
unconscious in her fragile state. She sat on the stool and blinked bemusedly,
feeling the warm lethargy seep through her. There was such utter silence in
this deserted corner of the house she could almost imagine she was alone in the
world. But the door opened again, and Alex came in carrying a round tin tub and
a jug, both of which he placed on the floor. "I cannot find a proper bath,"
he said, "but this will do well enough. Stand up, now."
Ginny
obeyed, taking another sip of brandy first. "Feels wonderful," she
said.
"Yes,
well, you may not have any more until you have eaten something," he told
her, removing the flagon from her grasp before beginning to undress her with an
efficient objectivity. "Stand in the tub." She stepped over the rim
with unquestioning compliance and stood still, swaying slightly, as Alex
sponged her body with cool water from the jug. "You are definitely
thinner," he remarked, passing the cloth over her ribs, lifting her
breasts in the palm of his free hand.
"I
am capable of doing this for myself," Ginny murmured, although, in her
state of satisfied exhaustion, the sensation of yielding control was quite
wonderful.
"You
are too tired to do it properly," Alex replied calmly, sliding the cloth
inside her thighs. "For three days you have been wearing the same clothes
and have not moved from that room. You stand in sore need of a little soap and
water."
Ginny
chuckled weakly but did not disagree. Her eyes kept sliding to the feather
mattress that seemed to become larger and fluffier at each glance. There was a
knock at the door, and Alex draped a towel over her shoulders and went to open
it. She heard Patience say something in a hesitant voice and Alex respond,
sounding kinder than he had done before. Then he came back into the room
bearing a steaming bowl and a hunk of rye brown bread.
"I
am too tired, Alex," Ginny protested, knowing the food was for her.
"You
will eat a little," he replied. "Tomorrow we must leave here and ride
hard, sweetheart. You have to regain your strength quickly."
He
crumbled the bread into the rich broth and patiently coaxed her to take enough
to satisfy him, interspersed with sips of brandy. At last, she was allowed to
curl onto the mattress, which proved to be every bit as soft and fluffy as
Ginny had anticipated. It enclosed her in its softness, and she was asleep
before Alex had drawn the coverlet over her.
He
left the room quietly, although doubting that an earthquake would disturb the
sleeper, and went back to the gallery where the others were having supper.
"Have
you supped, Cousin Alex?" Patience asked in a tentative voice. It was the
first time he had been afforded any signs of courtesy, let alone friendly
acknowledgment, from anyone but Joan.
"Not
yet, Patience," he replied with the warm smile that transformed the
soldier's generally unyielding countenance. "I wish to talk with Joan
first; then I will dine with my officers." The club-footed Jonathan
Marshall humphed at this. "We shall be gone from here by tomorrow noon,
Jonathan," Alex told him tonelessly. "I'll not come within your sight
again, you may rest assured."
"And
what of Mistress Courtney?" Aunt Martha demanded. "You'll leave her
here to help Joan?"
"I'll
do no such tiling!" Alex exclaimed. "It is not her job to bear the
burdens of the Granthams. It is for you to support Joan, something you will do
a great deal more effectively if you spend a little less time
complaining!" With that, he stalked into the little chamber where his
nephew lay, attended by his mother.
"Oh,
Alex," Joan said softly, "you should not have said that to Martha. It
is hard for her with that inflammation of the joints, and she is in pain much
of the time. Ginny said she would make up a poultice for her."
"Ginny
is asleep, and if I have anything to do with it, she will remain so until just
before we leave on the morrow" Alex stated with a degree of force.
"She seems to think it her duty to aid the afflicted whenever they come to
her notice, and I do not seem able to break her of the habit."
Joan
smiled slightly. "Will you lift little Joe for me? I wish to give him some
more of this physic. I am sure it is what has saved him. Ginny has been giving
it to him every two hours."
Alex
sat on the pallet, raising the scrawny little body against his shoulder,
whispering soft reassurances as Joe whimpered. "Are you able to manage
alone, Joan?" he asked bluntly.
"Now
I am," his sister-in-law said steadily. "Had you not come when you
did, I do not know what would have happened. Joe would have died, I am sure,
and I . . ." She shrugged. "I was at the end of my strength, without
hope or resource. Now, I am strong again and we can live, if not in great
comfort, at least without too much hardship." She was silent for a moment,
then bit her lip before saying, "I can but hope that when your brothers
come to hear of your assistance, they will not castigate me too severely for
accepting it."
"They
were not always unreasonable," Alex said.
"No,"
Joan agreed, "but their enmity goes beyond rational thought. I pray that
you do not come up against each other, else the blood spilled will be a dark
blot on the Grantham escutcheon."
"There
will be no brother's blood shed if I can avoid it," Alex said quietly, and
Joan felt immeasurably comforted, although she could not say why, unless it lay
in the sense that Alex was in command of so much more than his own destiny and
could be safely entrusted with so much more.
"What
of Ginny?" she asked, that thought following naturally from the previous
one. "Does her future lie with yours?"
"I
would have it so," he answered, getting to his feet. "But the future
is a mere chimera, my dear Joan. When this war is finally over, if we still
live and I am whole, not some wounded piece of war's flotsam, then we shall
see."
Chapter
17
"Ginny,
we have to leave
now!”
Alex paced the gallery, his spurs jangling, his
hand on his sword hilt, trying to keep a rein on his swelling impatience.
"In
a minute," Ginny said over her shoulder. "Can you move your wrist
just a little, madam? I know it hurts, but I wish to feel the movement of the
joint." Aunt Martha, huffing and puffing, obliged, giving vent to a
pitiful little moan.
"I
will make a poultice to reduce the inflammation.'' Ginny straightened.
"Patience, if you will come with me to the kitchen, I will show you how to
do it, so that you may prepare fresh ones when I am gone."
Alex
swore beneath his breath and strode out of the gallery, into the outer court
where the division's officers waited under a lowering sky. "We are obliged
to bide our time," he said in clipped tones through set lips, "until
Mistress Courtney has manufactured a cure for Aunt Martha's arthritis!"
His audience maintained a prudent silence, keeping their expressions neutral.
Alex looked up at the sky. "There will be a deluge before this day is
done," he muttered. Five minutes later, he snapped, "Diccon, fetch
her!"
There
was no mistaking the command, or the fact that the general had finally lost
patience. Diccon went into the house at a run. "Ginny?" he called
through the echoing hall. There was no reply, so he thundered up the broken
staircase, paused, heard the murmur of voices, and burst without ceremony into
the gallery. "I beg—beg pardon," he stammered, at the incredulous,
indignant faces turned toward him. "But, Ginny, you must come at once. The
general is about to explode."
"Oh,
pshaw!" Ginny waved a dismissive hand. "Five more minutes will make
no difference, and I must see little Joe before I leave. There, now, madam.
Does that not feel better?" She turned back to Aunt Martha.
"Ginny,
please," Diccon pleaded urgently. "You do not understand. The
division is drawn up and ready to leave on the instant. The general will not
stand to be kept waiting any longer."
Diccon
appeared to be quite genuine in his urgency. "Very well, I will come
directly," Ginny said. "Tell him that I am coming." She went
over to the pallet in the corner where the little boy had been moved, now that
the danger of infection was past, back amongst the company.
The
aide-de-camp wrung his hands in pathetic indecision. He did not dare return to
the general without Virginia since that would be tantamount to disobedience,
but the longer he delayed the greater would be the commander's ire.
Joan
read his expression correctly. "Ginny, I will accompany you
downstairs," she said with a soft choke of laughter. "That poor young
man looks as if he expects to be drawn and quartered on the instant."
"At
times, your brother-in-law is a veritable bully," Ginny told her
unequivocally. "But he does not make
me
quake in my boots."
She examined the child's eyes carefully and felt his pulse. "I do not
think there will be a relapse if you do not allow him to overtax his strength.
Keep giving him the medicine. It is prepared from foxgloves and has some tonic
effects on the heart. If there has been any strain, it will help to counteract
it."
"Ginny,"
Diccon almost whimpered, and she got off her knees.
"Yes,
Diccon, I am coming right away." But she did not join him until she had
gone round the room making her farewells. Joan was hard pressed to keep a
straight face, and even more so when they gained the courtyard and Ginny
greeted Alex, whose face was black as thunder, with a cheerfully insouciant
apology.