The Loving Spirit Page 12

  Justin didn’t answer this. He didn’t feel equal to explaining that her son was the only person Kate loved. He returned to his hotel room and tried to sleep, but after an hour he gave up, dressed and went out to walk along the promenade. An hour in one direction. An hour in the other. One step in front of the other, endlessly, trying to deny what had happened, but it wouldn’t be denied.

  Suddenly the image of Kate was there again. And this time it was Kate alone, with no touch of Amelia. She had done much for him, but had he brought her anything but pain?

  He saw her face as he said goodbye, smiling to hide the hurt of rejection, assuring him that all was well. But all had not been well with her.

  Now the need to see her was overwhelming. He would stay here until tomorrow, and ascertain that Tom was not among the wounded. Then he would return home.

  There was an ache in his heart, not the pain of the previous year, but a bittersweet feeling that was almost joy.

  Justin, with Ferris, arrived on the quay early. Even so the ship had docked and disembarkation had begun. He watched with mounting horror as a stream of ragged skeletons descended the gangplank. First came those who could manage to stand, leaning on their companions, heaving painfully with every stumbling step. Justin managed to join the crowd studying the faces of these men, but to his great relief was unable to find Tom.

  ‘He’s not there, sir,’ Ferris said.

  ‘No, thank God! But there are more.’

  Orderlies appeared bearing stretchers, each one with a soldier, his arm flung over his eyes, vainly seeking to escape the shocked scrutiny of the crowds.

  The army had requisitioned a warehouse on the waterfront where the sick and wounded could be carried while arrangements were made for them. Some were met by their families, who swept them away hurriedly from the hands of army doctors. Many had no choice but to stay.

  Justin paused on the threshold of the warehouse. Although only half full it was already a place to be shunned, full of pain and hopelessness. He had to force himself to enter, and only the thought of Kate enabled him to overcome his revulsion.

  A sergeant sat at a rough table, shuffling papers. He looked up as Justin approached.

  ‘I’m seeking Cornet Thomas Hendricks.’

  ‘Not on my lists,’ said the sergeant, hunting through. But before Justin could breathe again he announced, ‘I’ve got several unidentified, two of them dead in the last few minutes. Over there.’

  Justin followed his pointing finger over to the far corner of the huge room. It was like staggering through Hell. All about him, desperately ill men groaned with pain or simply lay in despair, their faces pale, their eyes bright with fever.

  God help anyone who came here, he thought. They might as well have been

  left to die on the battlefield.

  In the furthest, darkest, corner he found several men stretched out, horribly still. Some he knew at once, were dead. Overcoming his repulsion, he pulled one body off a young man beneath it, and turned the boy’s head towards him.

  The skin had the ghastly yellowish-grey colour of death, the eyes were sunk, the lips livid. Horror descended on him like a pall and he wanted to scream out his bitter disbelief.

  It was Tom.

  Groaning, he knelt beside him, cradling his head and shoulders, bending his own head over to hide his misery. This was what he had brought about in the teeth of Kate’s protests. A young life snuffed out uselessly, a woman’s heart grieving without end. And he had done it. Was there not enough misery in the world, but he must add more?

  He didn’t heed the noises behind him until a coarse voice said, ‘Any others?’ and he turned to see two men hauling at the dead bodies.

  ‘Got to get them away,’ said one who wore a private’s uniform. He was a rough fellow of middle age whose uniform was much torn. ‘I’ll take him, sir.’

  He reached for Tom but Justin’s hand streaked out and held him. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Orders, sir. The dead have to be removed fast.’

  ‘And which doctor has pronounced him dead? None, I’ll warrant. Get a doctor here.’

  The private sighed. He’d met this before, relatives who couldn’t accept the truth.

  ‘Look at him, sir,’ he said patiently. ‘No man ever looks like that unless he’s dead.’

  ‘He’s still warm, damn you!’

  ‘And so he will be for a few minutes, but he’s dead for all that. Now, sir, I have to take him.’

  For a moment murder flashed in Justin’s eyes, but then his cold brain took over. Nothing would be gained that way.

  ‘Of course you have,’ he said calmly, ‘but not just for a moment.’ A coin changed hands. ‘You can give me a little while.’

  ‘I’ll be back in ten minutes, sir.’

  As the man moved on his ghastly errand, Ferris appeared and knelt beside them. ‘Is he really dead?’ Justin demanded urgently. ‘For God’s sake, tell me he still has a chance.’

  Ferris moved his hands expertly over Tom, feeling his wrists, his neck. ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘There’s a faint pulse.’

  ‘Send one of those quacks over here.’

  The waiting was interminable. He could see now that Tom was breathing very faintly, but he was clinging to life by the merest thread. There was such a little time, Justin thought, such a faint chance. If he had found him only to see him slip away...he wouldn’t think of it.

  An army doctor appeared, slightly belligerent at this interference. Judging his man perfectly, Justin assumed his top-loftiest manner and, as he’d expected, the doctor backed down before Lord Farringdon and his determination to remove his young relative. He even detailed a couple of orderlies to carry the stretcher out to the waiting carriage.

  When they were moving, Ferris said, ‘With that fever they won’t want to take him in at the hotel.’

  ‘I know. I’ve come prepared.’ Justin reached into his pocket and took out a roll of notes. ‘Tell the manager my present rooms are now too small and I want the largest, most expensive suite he has. Use these to grease every palm in sight, and come to me for more if you have to. Give them every penny.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Ferris looked startled at a note in his master’s voice that he’d never heard there before.

  The hotel manager was apprehensive, but agreed to smother his fears in return for a sum of money and the promise that the patient would be taken in through the back door, not to alarm the other guests. The most luxurious suite was hastily prepared. They reached it without being seen, and Justin immediately dashed off a note to Dr Thornton, sending it by one of the hotel servants. He assisted Ferris in stripping Tom’s clothes away and washing the emaciated body with its ugly, inflamed wound. Then there was nothing to do but wait.

  Chapter Seven

  The hour it took Dr Thornton to arrive was the longest of Justin’s life. Tom was breathing, but in a faint, ragged way that filled him with dread. It seemed impossible that the boy could cling to life another moment.

  As soon as the doctor arrived, Justin spoke hurriedly to Ferris. ‘Take the fastest horse you can find and ride to Farringdon Park to fetch Her Ladyship.’

  ‘It’s serious,’ said the doctor, speaking as soon as Ferris had gone. `He has a bad wound to his side and he’s had no treatment to speak of. God knows what he must have suffered on the journey! I’ve dressed the wound and given him a paregoric draught, but his temperature’s mounting, and that’s my greatest worry.’

  ‘But he will live,’ Justin urged. ‘He must.’

  Dr Thornton hesitated. ‘He’s young and strong, but he needs care around the clock. I’ll send a nurse.’

  The nurse was there in an hour. She was large and blunt-mannered. She also appeared clean, efficient and sober. Justin was soon thankful to have her, for Tom’s fever mounted rapidly. In contrast to his death-like torpor, he now began to toss and turn violently, breathing harshly and sometimes crying out. It took both of them to hold him down on the bed and continually replace the covers he’d
thrown off.

  He settled at last, falling back into the dreadful stillness that was even more frightening. Justin had stripped off his jacket and sat in his shirtsleeves. He had eyes only for the desperately ill boy. Night fell, and he sent the nurse to get some sleep while he took the first watch. It was a fatal mistake. Once alone she succumbed to the temptation to take ‘just a nip’. By the time she returned to duty her speech was slurred.

  Justin thrust some coins into her hand and ordered her out with instructions not to return. As he sat alone in the semi-darkness, he tried to calculate how much time must pass before Kate could arrive. Farringdon Park lay twenty miles off. On a swift horse Ferris might cover the distance in three hours. The journey back in the carriage might take four. She could be on her way at this very moment.

  Dr Thornton came again and heard the story of the nurse.

  ‘She’s an excellent nurse when she first arrives,’ he said with a sigh, ‘but the temptation overcomes her. I’ll find someone else.’

  ‘No more nurses,’ Justin said firmly. ‘I’ll care for the boy myself until his mother arrives.’

  At that moment Tom began to thrash about. Between them, Justin and the doctor managed to get a draught of laudanum down his throat, and at last his strugglings abated.

  The hours crawled past. One o’clock. Then two. What was keeping her? What would she say to him when she arrived? Would there be reproach in her eyes? Hatred? Did he deserve it? Yes.

  At last came the sound he was waiting for, carriage wheels on the cobbles below. A glance out of the window showed Ferris handing Kate down and showing her into the hotel. By the time Justin had crossed the outer room and reached the door her step was already outside. As he pulled it open she flew into the room.

  ‘Where is he?’ she cried.

  He indicated the door to the bedroom and she hurried past him and into the room to throw herself on her knees beside the bed.

  ‘Tom,’ she whispered. ‘Tom?’ She turned a frantic face to Justin. ‘Why doesn’t he move? Oh God, he’s so hot.’

  ‘He has a fever,’ Justin said, ‘but the doctor treating him is excellent.’

  ‘Where is the doctor? I must speak to him.’

  ‘I’ll send for him.’

  ‘Yes, quickly. At once.’ She turned back immediately to Tom. Justin could no longer see her face but her whole attitude was redolent of passionate anguish. He left her to give directions for fetching the doctor, and ordered some refreshment. When he returned to the bedroom, Kate was in the same position by the bed, except that she had dropped her head, as though weeping.

  ‘Kate.’ He laid a light hand on her shoulder.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said quickly, jerking upright. She was not weeping. Her face was dry and set, and she gave a forced smile. ‘It was just a moment...‘

  He helped her gently to her feet. ‘Steady now. All is well. When you’ve had something to eat you’ll feel stronger.’

  ‘But the doctor...’ Her hands gripped his arms. ‘Please, Justin...’

  ‘I’ve sent for him. But he’s already been here several times, and he takes a very favourable view of Tom’s condition.’ He knew he was skirting around the truth, but he couldn’t increase her agony.

  ‘Is that true? Is it really true?’ Her grip on his arms became painful.

  ‘Kate, you’ll see him well again, I swear it. He has the best of care. I wasn’t satisfied with his nurse, so I dismissed her to look after him myself.’

  She might have softened at that moment, thanked him for his care of her son, and it was only when she didn’t that he realized he’d been hoping for a kindly word, or some indication that she was aware of him, her husband, sparing no effort for her sake. He had a strange sensation that though she was looking up at him she didn’t really see him. She heard his words only insofar as they touched Tom. Nothing else mattered to her.

  Mechanically, Kate removed her cloak and bonnet, but her eyes never left her son, who was beginning to toss and turn again. She hurried to the bed and tried to take hold of him, but he thrust her aside, groaning and throwing back the bedclothes.

  ‘Tom,’ she tried to attract his attention. ‘Tom...dearest.’

  ‘He won’t know you,’ Justin said, coming quickly to the far side and seizing hold of the boy just in time to prevent him getting out of bed.

  Between them they managed to restrain Tom and force him to lie back, but his eyes were wild and his colour high.

  ‘Oh God, he’s on fire,’ she whispered. ‘How did he get like this? Your letter said only that he was wounded.’

  ‘The losses at Vittoria were heavy. They shipped as many of them back home as they could, but it was a bad journey and his wound received no attention. But now he’ll soon be well.’ He prayed that he was speaking the truth. He was full of a fear that he couldn’t put into words.

  The doctor arrived and spoke reassuringly to Kate. But he could not conceal that he would be happier when Tom’s fever abated, and his wound became less inflamed. Kate returned to Tom’s bedside, unable to take her eyes from him. The sight of his thin, flushed face went to her heart.

  ‘Tom,’ she said, taking his hands. ‘Tom, it’s Mama. Can’t you hear me?’

  But he stared at her with eyes that did not see, and his breath came in hot, painful gasps. She wanted to put her arms about him and defend him from death with her own body, but there was nothing she could do. Tears sprang to her eyes, but she refused to shed them. She had been strong for so long. She could be strong again.

  Justin brought her a chair but then left her alone while she sat by her son. He lay still, and it seemed to her that he breathed a little more easily. All that day she stayed with him, only moving to give him the medicine the doctor had left. Justin brought her some food and set it by her, but she ate only a small cake and drank half a glass of wine, before seeming to forget food.

  As the evening drew on, Justin said, ‘You must eat. There’s a table laid in the next room.’

  ‘I can’t leave him.’

  ‘Then I’ll have it brought in here.’

  He carried it in himself, rather than send for servants whose presence might have agitated the boy. Ferris gave him some assistance, regarding his master out of astonished eyes, and then withdrew.

  Kate let him guide her to the table and drank the wine he poured for her.

  ‘Ferris has told me everything I owe you,’ she said. ‘How you went looking for Tom, and got him away when they’d written him off for dead. I can never thank you for all you’ve done for my boy...’

  ‘Don’t,’ he said harshly. ‘Don’t thank me.’

  ‘But isn’t it true?’

  ‘You should rather blame me...you never wanted him to enlist.’

  ‘But Tom was so determined, he was bound to evade me one day. Besides, he’d already joined up when you reached the recruiting office, you told me.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true but...I used my influence to improve his position, but perhaps if I’d used it a little more I might have got him out altogether. I didn’t, Kate. I knew your wishes, but I didn’t even try. Forgive me.’

  He waited for her anger and contempt, but after a moment she said, ‘If you had done that, he would have blamed me, and perhaps hated me. And he would have just run off again and joined as a private. Don’t blame yourself. He was too much for both of us. He’s happy in the army, and I know he has a better life as a cornet than he would have done as a private.’

  Silence fell. Both of them had suddenly realized that they were speaking face to face for the first time in eight months. It was bound to be an awkward meeting, but circumstances had delayed the awkwardness until this moment. Now they both felt it in full.

  Justin saw a subtle change in his wife. She was still attired modestly, but no longer like a servant. The plain, linen cap had gone, replaced by a tiny lace cap such as any wife might have worn, revealing her hair to be a shade of rich brown that seemed to glow with a lush beauty. She wore a dark blue dre
ss, demure, but made of silk, and with a touch of elegance. Her eyes were as he remembered, large and lovely, deeply blue, dramatic. He reflected with satisfaction that he had chosen the brooch well.

  He tried to divert his attention into a more proper direction. It was surely disgraceful to be admiring her in such a way under these circumstances. But he found his body suffused by memories he’d done his best to suppress. It was hard to imagine that this woman whose appearance and behaviour were distinguished by their propriety, was the same wild creature who had pulled him close, urging him to enter her more deeply, whose cries of need and fulfilment had thrilled, even while they startled him.

  Yet she was the same, and his flesh knew it. They had become one, that night, unforgettably. But then they had been one only in body. Now his heart, too, yearned for her.

  Kate’s sharp eyes noticed more. She saw that her husband was thinner and had the appearance of a man who’d been through the fire. She felt strange, not knowing if this was the same man who had left her months ago.

  But she too was different. The woman who had stood watching his departing chaise, not knowing when, if ever, she would see him again, now seemed to come from another world. That woman, whatever her inner fire, had been used to having the decisions of her life made by others. Her parents, her seducer, even kindly Amelia, she had been subservient to them all. Lastly there was the man who had spurned what she could offer him to drive away in the chilly dawn without a backward look.

  In the rose arbour she had found no comfort, only confusion and sadness. Nor could she tell whether the sadness was her own or Amelia’s. After a while the confusion faded, and there was only silence, which was worse.

  She understood. She was alone now.

  After the initial moment of dismay she drew a long breath, raised her head, and walked into the house of which she was now undisputed mistress.

  An interview with the steward and Justin’s man of business, revealed that he had left her in complete command. Subject to their greater knowledge and experience, the decisions were hers. It was a gesture of trust that startled her, and partly mitigated the pain of his departure.