Laura Kinsale (44 page)

‘That is what is done for such things, among the Bedu,” she said.

Dr. Wells shook his head. “Barbarians,” he muttered, and leaned over, listening with his instrument to Lord Winter’s lungs.

As the doctor tied him down and bled him, Lord Winter continued to speak hoarsely through his difficult breathing. Zenia sat beside him, stroking his forearm over and over below the tight knot of the binding, while his father sat on the other side, his fingers intertwined with his son’s, gripping hard.

She did not tell them what Lord Winter was saying; how he spoke to her over and over, never by her name, but calling her wolf cub and little wolf and Selim, telling her that he would bring her home, that she must keep walking, that he would carry her if she could not, but they must go on.

“He is asking for water,” she said to the doctor, when he had said fretfully for the fourth time that the bags were empty.

“He refuses to take it,” the earl said unhappily. “I’ve tried to make him drink.”

Zenia filled a teacup from the pitcher on the dressing table. She leaned over him, stroking the damp hair back from his hot forehead.
“El-Muhafeh,”
she whispered, “this is your portion.”

His restless motion lapsed a little. His lashes lifted. Without turning his head, he looked slowly toward her. “Now?” he asked, the question turning to a cough. His eyes that were such a deep blue seemed cloudy and dim.

“Drink it now,” she said, still in Arabic. “I know how much you need.”

“So hot,” he said in English, closing his eyes again. He drank eagerly when she lifted the cup, and then said, “Where’s Beth?”

“Asleep,” she said.

“I’ll bring her home,” he said, jerking his arms against the bonds.

The doctor finished binding a pad over his patient’s arm and said, “Come, if I may see both of you for a moment in the other room while he is constrained.”

“El-Muhafeh,
I will be very close,” she whispered, touching his forehead. “Only call if you want me.”

He heard her, she thought, for he opened his eyes, but then he closed them again and tossed his head, every breath a deep struggle.

In the parlor, Dr. Wells was writing instructions. “I will leave you with some tonic, and have the pills compounded and sent over within the hour. Lady Winter, do you have any sickroom experience?”

“Yes,” she said. “I nursed my mother for many years.”

“Excellent. A hot bran poultice would be highly beneficial, as often as you like to apply it to the chest. There is a little maid here who was most helpful in describing to me the course of his illness—I believe she had been watching out after him, according to her own lights, and will be eager to assist you in obtaining what you need. Any food of a nutritious and stimulating character that you can get down him, and as much water or wine. Keep some beef tea to hand at all times.”

He went on with his instructions, writing them down. When he finished, the earl said in a hard flat voice, “Is it at all possible—that he may not survive?”

“My lord, I have hope that he can. I think he
will,
but I shan’t pretend to you. He is gravely ill. An adult’s course in these diseases that are more commonly contracted in childhood is fraught with peril. There is already a serious complication with the brain fever. If another develops in the next twenty-four hours, pneumonia or pleurisy or a worsening of the encephalitis, the outlook will be very poor. That is what we must avoid if we can.” He began to pack his medical bag. “I don’t scruple to say that it would have been far wiser of him to have got the measles when he was still in short coats.”

The earl’s face was pale and set. He nodded. When the doctor rose and took his leave, Lord Belmaine hardly seemed to see the hand that he held out, and shook it with a vague nod and murmur.

“Ma’am.” Dr. Wells turned to her, as if he recognized that the earl’s mind was not focused. “I will return this evening. Here is my card; you are to send directly if there is any change, in particular with regard to the lungs.”

Zenia dispatched word to Bentinck Street that she would not be home that night, with instructions about Elizabeth’s bath and what she was to wear in the morning, and a request for her own necessities. But it was a short note; she was fully occupied with sickroom tasks, and with answering Lord Winter’s turbulent and rambling discourse. Sometimes he thought they were in the desert, and sometimes he seemed to be lost in some unknown place, looking for something, for her or for Elizabeth or a string of pearls. She spoke back to him in Arabic or English, and pulled the sheets into place as he constantly tore them loose with his ceaseless motion.

“I believe he is calmer since you came,” the earl said, standing in the doorway of the bedroom.

She held the hot poultice to Lord Winter’s chest, her hands rising and falling with each hard breath he took. He tried to pull it off, his fingers dragging at the muslin.

“Hot,” he muttered. “It is so hot.”

“I know,” she said. “But we are almost there.”

“Ghota?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I can see it,” he said, lunging in the bed. “Christ! Get my rifle!”

The earl stepped quickly to the bedside, pulling his son back onto the pillows. “You don’t need your rifle here, old fellow,” he said firmly.

Lord Winter began to cough, his chest heaving under her hands. He turned his head toward the earl, his eyes focusing a little. “Father,” he said hoarsely. Then a faint smile lifted his mouth. “I didn’t think you would come.”

The earl scowled ferociously. “Of course I came.”

Lord Winter turned his head away, as he had when the light was too bright, his smile vanishing. “Here’s my tunnel,” he said sharply.

“Yes,” his father said at random.

There was a long silence. Zenia watched Lord Winter’s eyes drift and listened to his rasping breath.

“Do you want to come in?” he asked in a small whisper, hesitant as a child’s.

The earl folded his son’s hand within his own. “There is nothing I want more,” he said, his voice cracking.

Lord Winter moved his lips, but an uneven series of deep pants overtook him. He began to toss his head again, breathing heavily. Zenia took up the cooling poultice and carried it into the parlor. It did not seem to have had much effect. As the night came on, she expected the oppression of his lungs would grow greater—it had always been that way with her mother. She tried not to think of that horrible time when both Lady Hester and Miss Williams had taken the fever, when Zenia was only twelve, and all the servants had stolen what they could and run away but for one girl of Zenia’s age. From her bed, her mother had insisted that one of her black draughts be prepared for Miss Williams, but Zenia was sure now that the little servant girl had got the proportions wrong. It was after the draught that Miss Williams had felt such pain in her stomach that she had cried and writhed, and finally fallen into a deathly stupor that lasted three days before she died. When Lady Hester had heard Miss Williams was gone, her screams had echoed from the walls, as terrible as a wild animal or a devil shrieking in Hell.

It was after Miss Williams died that Zenia had been sent to the desert. She stood in the parlor, staring blindly at a small table beside the door, until she wrenched her mind away from old terrors and noticed the corner of a paper that had fallen beneath the table. She bent and picked it up—and found her own note, written to him days ago, with the seal still unbroken.

Zenia held the note. It might have been delivered under the door, and kicked aside unnoticed. Perhaps he had not simply refused to come or answer. He had been ill for some time, though the maid had told Dr. Wells he had not lost his reason until just today, after she had believed him on the mend.

Zenia thought of the legal papers that had been delivered to her. They must have been sent before he grew so sick—they would have taken some time to compose. But she could not concentrate her mind on them. It did not seem important; nothing seemed important but the arduous sound of his breathing, and trying to make him drink, and take the tonic and the pills, and keep the temperature in the room steady as the night came on and he seemed to lose even the strength to speak or toss, but lay still, his forehead dry and burning, each breath a heavy gasp. Dr. Wells had taken a room at the hotel, warning them to expect a crisis, and leaving instructions to call him when it came.

Lord Belmaine stayed in a chair beside the bed. He seemed to think Zenia knew much more than she did—he asked her more than once if she thought he was getting worse, and if they should call Dr. Wells.

“I believe he is asleep,” she said.

“Oh, asleep,” his father said in relief.

He sat looking at his son. In the dim light of a shielded lamp, his eyes had a glitter.

“I have never seen him ill,” he muttered. “Never once!”

Zenia heard the panic underlying his voice. She said with forced calm, “He must have been very, very strong to survive the wound he had in the desert. He will be stronger now, having had a month of excellent food and rest in England.”

“Yes, that’s true.” Lord Belmaine said, in his simple longing to be reassured. After a long silence, he said, “Miss Elizabeth suffered like this?”

“Oh, no,” Zenia said. “No.”

“I’m glad.” The earl cleared his throat. “It is much easier in children, I take it.”

“Yes, that is what Elizabeth’s doctor said too.”

Lord Belmaine stared at his son. He stood up suddenly and took a few steps, then stopped and turned. “It is my fault.”

Zenia looked up at him. He was standing in the center of the room, with a fixed look of anguish. “It is my fault,” he said. “I made sure that he would never get sick; I dreaded that he would get sick. Measles, God forgive me.”

She shook her head in automatic denial, but he rushed ahead.

“I would not let him go away to school, or mix with the village children. He was never sick. I thought it a positive good—I didn’t know—I thought these things were outgrown. I didn’t know an adult could have measles at all, far less that—” He stopped. “God knows, I learned to know how I could lose him to all the damnably desperate things he does! To see that scar on him! But if I have done this; if he dies and I have been the cause—” He shook his head blindly. “I pray God to forgive me. I will never forgive myself.”

It was after one o’clock that they sent for the doctor. At first it seemed that Lord Winter’s breathing had eased, growing so quiet that Zenia set her hand on his throat to feel it. Beneath her fingers, his skin was fiery and dry, but she could not even feel a pulse, only the faint, faint lift of his chest in tiny soundless pants. She gripped his slack hand and shook him, but he lay unresponsive, his head rolling aside on the pillow.

She looked up at Lord Belmaine, but he was already out of his chair and striding for the door. The minutes Dr. Wells took to come seemed like hours—Zenia did not let go of Lord Winter’s hand, squeezing so hard that her muscles ached.

The doctor came hastily in, calling for more light, displacing Zenia and leaning over to lift his patient’s eyelids. This time, Lord Winter made no response at all to the bright lamp.

“He has slipped into a coma. Now, Lady Winter, I want you to talk to him. And you, my lord. On any subject; ask him questions, say whatever you think may evoke a response. The Arabic would be appropriate, since he used it in his dementia. I will see a hot bath prepared.”