In the Brief Eternal Silence (78 page)

There was a great spraying up of mud from
beneath eight braced hooves. The carriage jolted forward in a
delayed reaction from the groom that had sat atop watching all of
this with stunned awe, and then there was a sudden squealing,
shrill neighing from the black filly and an answering call of panic
from Andrew's horse as their front legs somehow intertwined and
both horses went down sliding in the mud. St. James was thrown into
the midst of this jumble, sliding limp with the two heavy, flailing
bodies of the horses. Andrew tried abandoning his saddle as he felt
his horse going down, but his already twisted ankle caught beneath
his horse before he could free it, and there was a great yell from
his throat as he was dragged, the full weight of his horse on his
already injured leg.

This whole melee slid for an eternity beneath
Miss Murdock's horrified eyes. And although she had accepted that
St. James may die, she had never in her wildest imaginings thought
that she would be on hand to see it.

“Jesus,” Bertie said as the two horses and
the two men came to a stop, finally, just below the party standing
upon the stairs. For a brief second no one moved, not the horses,
the two men in their midst, nor any of that horrified group that
was just above, looking down on them.

Then all snapped from their immobility at the
same instance. The horses struggled, whickering nervously and with
pain. Andrew gave a long grunt and said, “Get my bloody cousin out
of this mess, damn it!” Miss Murdock, the Squire, Bertie, Mrs.
Herriot and Jeannie all leaped down the stairs. And from inside the
house they heard from above stairs and through the open door, the
imperious banging of the Duchess's cane as she shrilled for someone
to attend her and to bring her below stairs immediately.

“Mrs. Herriot!” Bertie commanded. “Be so good
as to take care of that!” And Mrs. Herriot, rather pale at the
sickening mess before them, was most relieved to be sent away.

“Miss Murdock, can you keep your filly from
rising yet until I see what is what? And Squire, the other
horse?”

“Yes, of course,” Miss Murdock agreed and
went to the filly's head, her face very white, and the Squire,
despite his gout, moved quickly.

“Where is St. James?” Miss Murdock asked
trying to keep calm

but fearing she sounded frantic.

“I can not tell as of yet, for all this
blasted mud!”

“Here!” Andrew called. “By God, he is just
peeking out from beneath my mount's nose! Get him up off of him!
But careful, for God's sake!”

“Oh, Bertie, has Ryan come with the doctor as
of yet?” Miss Murdock pleaded.

“No. Damn it! Groom! Squire, hold him for he
is trying to flail about!”

“The horse? He's not moving!”

“No, damn it! St. James! By God, he is still
alive!”

Miss Murdock grabbed the groom's arm as he
hurried to be of assistance and bade him to hold the filly in her
place, and then she crawled through the mud around her filly's
stretched out head and over to in front of the other horse. “Dante!
Lie still,” she ordered. “Until we get this horse from you!” He had
come around despite everything, and had managed to maneuver one
hand free, and she saw that he still held his pistol, mud plugging
the barrel, and fearing that in some pain filled delirium he would
try to fire it off and it would explode and kill him the rest of
the way, she took the time to pull it from him and fling it
away.

She prayed his other hand did not hold one as
well for she could not even see where his other hand was. Only one
shoulder and his head was visible and the rest of him disappeared
beneath the mud and Andrew's mount.

His eyes flickered open in his muddy face and
she leaned further over him, the top of her head pushing against
the neck of Andrew's mount so that he should see her. He focused on
her and grimaced as he tried to speak and she leaned closer
still.

“Rescind. . .” he gasped, “your. . .
vow!”

“No!” she cried.

“Rescind! You've. . . followed far. . .
enough. Don't. . . need you. . . to follow. . . me to. . . hell. .
. also!”

And she was crying and her hand went to his
muddy hair but she was afraid to move him or jar him and so could
only touch him through its filth. “No.”

He gasped harder, and she was afraid he was
gasping his last, but he still choked out, his voice faint and,
with all the frantic speaking about them, nearly indiscernible, but
she strained to hear him. “Lizzie. . . I. . . want. . . to. . .
live. No longer. . . need. . . you. . . to prop. . . me. . . up.
Stubborn. . . lass!” He moved his hand that she had robbed of his
pistol and grasped her hand resting near his throat. He squeezed it
hard with the waning strength of his body. “Rescind. . . damn you!
I. . . shall. . . fight. I. . . will. . . not. . . give in!
Rescind. . . just in. . . case. Rescind!”

His eyes would not close and she realized he
was wasting himself on these efforts and with a complete
capitulation to his will she said, “I rescind! I rescind! Just
live, damn you! Just live! Or even though I shall live I shall
still be in hell! Without even you to comfort me!”

He gave a slight nod, and his eyes closed and
his hand slackened in hers and the other voices about her came
again into her awareness.

Andrew clawed his way free. He lost his boot
in the process, it still being beneath the horse, but the mud was
such that his foot had sank into it instead of being trapped
against hard ground and this circumstance gave Lizzie some hope
that St. James may be as lucky.

A groom supported Andrew as his stockinged
foot rested with gingerness just touching the ground, and Andrew
barked orders almost as fast as Bertie. “Go! Go, damn it! For he's
losing blood like a sieve also!”

“Back, now, Miss Murdock!” Bertie told her,
and she freed her hand from St. James' now still one and hurried
aside. Her father rose from where he knelt, his hands firm on the
horse's halter as he directed its head up and helped it to rise.
“Grab him and pull him, ye bloody useless footman!”

Then Ryan appeared, and another man that Miss
Murdock recognized as the doctor he had been sent to fetch. And
Ryan rushed in beside the half-risen, trembling horse that the
others were endeavoring to keep from rising further and stepping on
the man beneath it, and at the same time trying to keep it from
collapsing again upon St. James. Ryan grabbed St. James' shoulders
and tugged him out with a mighty pull and the horse sank back to
the ground and Miss Murdock saw with horror that one of its
forelegs was broken and she had not even noticed.

Then the doctor knelt over St. James. He
checked his pulse and his voice was clipped as he bade that the
duke be carried into the house and a bed, that water be fetched,
and by God what was this hole in the man's chest, for he did not
rightly get that from this mishap, and the ripped stitches
fluttering from it were proof he was right.

But Lizzie was only numb and beside herself,
and she swallowed the fact that she did not have to hold herself
together because for once, St. James had someone a great deal more
able than herself to care for him. She was not even aware that she
was crying hysterically until she heard the Dowager from the door
to the house above her bidding Mrs. Herriot to come down and fetch
her from that sorry scene. And if the Dowager's voice was choked at
the sight of her grandson, possibly even now dead, being carried
into the house by Ryan and Bertie, Lizzie barely understood it.

She only knew that Mrs. Herriot came down to
her and gathered her into her great bosom, and then helped her up
the stone stairs and into the house, St. James carried ahead of
her.

They placed him in the Squire's bedroom.
Several maids scurried past Miss Murdock with large basins of
steaming water, and she realized that she really was not needed in
any way. She made no argument when Mrs. Herriot took her to her own
room, but only collapsed on to the bed.

But she only lay there for a brief moment
before she sprang up again, because where before the thought that
St. James had someone more able than herself to care for him had
brought her comfort, now it brought a great dread to her heart. For
how else had he survived his prior misfortune except for his team
of odd and mismatched care-takers: the groom, the valet, the lad
and Miss Murdock?

And Tyler was not there. Nor was Steven. And
Effington was many miles away in London. Only Miss Murdock remained
and she feared leaving St. James in the care of another.

But Mrs. Herriot would have none of it, and
between she and Jeannie, they nearly sat on Miss Murdock to keep
her in the bed and they pled with her that there was nothing more
she could do and that it was out of her hands now. And Miss Murdock
understood at that point that it very much was out of her hands.
She had done everything in her power and if Dante died now she
could in no way prevent it.

She remained in the bed crying, aware of the
door across the hall from her room opening and closing repeatedly
with urgency and the low voices of the doctor and Bertie, he of the
steady nerves, coming from the other side of it.

The hours ticked on and Jeannie returned at
some point and convinced her that she should bathe and change again
as she was quite muddy, and Miss Murdock agreed that of course she
should. But even through this she was aware of every activity she
could possibly be aware of going on across the hallway.

Somewhere in her consciousness she was also
aware of the sounds from outside and below her window: the voices
of Andrew apologizing to Ryan for the ruination of his horse, and
Ryan's reply back that he should think nothing of it before
summarily pulling his pistol and shooting that poor beast. The
duchess's coach when it was brought around and after that the
dowager when she was helped into her coach. And she heard the
sounds in the room next door when Mrs. Herriot tended to Andrew's
ankle and his various other scrapes and bruises, some from the
accident, some not, and then she was aware of his leaving also.

She was aware of all these noises but she
paid them no mind except to be irritated by them, for they at times
rose to drown out the small sounds of furtive and frantic activity
from behind the closed door across the hall.

More hours went by and she went from pacing
and wringing her hands to again lying on the bed but still the door
remained closed, not even opening and closing to admit or relieve
someone from the room as before. And she lay very still and finally
half slept and St.

James galloped dead through her dreams and he
said, come to me, Lizzie. She awoke, startled, standing by her bed
and it was many, many hours later, for the house was still and it
was dark outside, and she was given to understand that it was
sometime in the night. But Bertie was before her, holding a dim
lamp and looking tired and not relieved in the least, but he only
said, “He asks for you.”

And the door opened to her and she went
through.

He lay, face tight and white, in her father's
shabby bed. There was a cut with ten stitches just below one cheek
bone. The bed sheet was pulled to his waist and his pale chest was
again wrapped with bandages, but there were far more than he had
needed before and they extended down the length of his rib cage and
she understood by these bandages that some of his ribs were broken.
She prayed that he had not punctured his lungs or any other vital
organs.

The doctor looked up at her entrance, his
face grave and tired and bloody, and as she looked to him for
guidance, he nodded and said in a low voice, “Miss Murdock. I will
give you but a minute with him and then I am going to give him a
dose of laudanum so that he may again rest without pain.” He wiped
his hands on a wet cloth and then dropped it back into a
red-clouded basin of water. Taking off his spectacles, he went from
the room and it wasn't until the door closed behind him that Lizzie
moved toward the bed.

She sat upon it and took one of St. James'
scraped hands in both of hers, held it up to her cheek. His eyes
did not open, but his tight set mouth twitched in an attempt at a
smile, and she knew by this that he was aware she was there.

Her calmness returned. He was not dead. He
had promised to fight and she knew the power of his will and took
comfort in it. She began to speak as she had once before when he
had lain helpless and weak and she had sought to comfort him. Her
words were choked and unsteady at first, but they became more even
and softly lilting when his hand squeezed hers and she knew that he
heard.

Do you remember the story of King David and
Bathsheba, Dante? And her husband Uriah? I am sure that you do,
although I dare say it has been some time since you have read your
Bible. But I am not going to say what you have done is wrong, or
that it was right. I am only going to say that perhaps it was not
the will of God that you followed.

But David, he was as you have been. What he
did he knew was not right and not pleasing in the sight of the
Lord, but he seemed helpless to stop himself once he had seen the
beautiful Bathsheba, and he took her, even though he knew her to be
a wife of another, and got her with child. And her husband, Uriah,
who was a soldier, he ordered sent to the part of the war they were
waging where the fighting was heaviest and there were a great many
deaths. And Uriah was killed, all so that David could marry
Bathsheba and claim the child he had put into her womb.

And God was not pleased, Dante. No, He was
not pleased at all.

And because God was not pleased, when the
child was born, it died. And although David repented and prayed
mightily that it should not be made to pay for his sin, he accepted
this as his punishment.