In the Brief Eternal Silence (83 page)

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 beamed 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.