But she no longer cared for news. Only for the suffering in the city and her own helplessness to alleviate more than a very small portion of it. And her obsession with looking into the faces of all the soldiers stumbling past or stretched on straw beds in the streets.
Was some other woman caring for Charlie? she wondered as she hurried back along the Rue de la Montagne after an hour away early on Monday morning. Was he well and still fighting somewhere? Was the battle still on? Was he dead?
Deaden the mind. She hurried on.
But she looked up sharply at a group of horsemen proceeding slowly along the street, all in military uniform. The one in the middle was slumped forward in his saddle. The soldier to his right held a steadying hand against him. She felt all the blood draining from her head.
“Do you know this man, ma’am?” the soldier on the left called, touching a hand to his shako. “He said the Rue de la Montagne, but that is all he seems to remember. I don’t think he even knows his own name any longer.”
“Eden,” she said past lips and a tongue suddenly dry and feeling twice their size. “He is Lieutenant Lord Eden. Yes, this is where he belongs. Bring him in, will you, please?”
The soldier who had spoken to her saluted more smartly. “This is the house, my lady?” he said. “We are going to have a hard time. He can’t move. All swollen up. Is there anyone who can help?”
“Go inside and call some servants,” she said. She was alongside the horse, touching his boot, seeing that indeed his legs were badly swollen, seeing too that he was not quite unconscious. His breath was being drawn in labored rasps.
“You are home,” she said softly. “You are home now, my dear. We will have you inside and in bed in no time. Just a few minutes more and then you can rest.”
She did not know if he heard her. The same two servants who had helped her carry the man from outside the cathedral came out of the house. Ellen had to turn her back and bite her lips as the four men eased Lord Eden from the saddle. He screamed when they first touched him, and moaned with every agonized breath after that.
She led the way up the stairs and into her own bedchamber.
“Set him down here,” she said. “Oh, how am I to get his boots off?” His legs were so swollen that the boots were cutting into his calves.
“I’ll fetch a knife and cut them off, ma’am,” one of the servants said.
“May we leave, my lady?” one of the soldiers asked. “Is there anything else we can do?”
“No,” she said. “You have your duty to get back to, doubtless. I shall care for him now.”
“Lucky man to have his wife here,” the other said before the two of them withdrew.
And yet again she set about the task of cutting away an entire uniform. She washed the caked mud from his body and patted gently with a towel. She winced at the sight of the heavy bandage around his ribs and over his chest and at the sticky mass of blood that had oozed from the bandage and run down his right side and thigh. He moaned constantly.
“You are home, my dear,” she said, washing his face finally and looking down into the pain-racked eyes she had been afraid to look into until that moment. “You are home and safe now. And may rest. I shall not change your bandage until later. You are safe. No one is going to harm you now.”
“Safe,” he said thickly. “Always safe. Here.”
“Yes,” she said, touching his fair wavy hair and putting it back from his brow. “Safe, my dear. You are always safe here. Do you know where you are? Do you know who I am?”
His breathing was labored again. He closed his eyes and moaned. She stroked his hair.
“Charlie,” he said.
Her hand fell still. “Yes,” she said. “I am Charlie’s wife. And I am going to look after you.”
“Charlie,” he said. His eyes were open again, glazed with pain.
“Yes?” she said softly. His hand was waving weakly above the blanket she had laid over him. She took it in both of hers.
“Gone,” he said. “He’s gone. I was with him.”
“Yes.” She was stroking the back of his hand. “You must not let it worry your mind any longer. Rest now. You shall tell me all about it later. Thank you for bringing me the news. Is that why you directed those soldiers here? Thank you, my dear. You must sleep now. Sleep now.” She smiled down into the eyes that were looking into hers. “Sleep now.”
The boy was calling for water.
LORD EDEN HAD COME to himself in a farm cowhouse at Mont St. Jean, seven hundred yards behind the crossroads. The shells were falling more thickly there, someone was saying, than at the front itself. He looked about him. The ground was thick with wounded. Was he one of them?
His chest felt so swollen that he could hardly breathe. He could feel blood oozing down his side. He was lifted to a table eventually. He rather thought that the scream he heard had come from his own mouth, though it was not by any means the only one he had heard during his half-hour of returned consciousness.
The surgeon who looked down at him with weary eyes was splattered with blood from head to waist. Lord Eden closed his eyes and gritted his teeth and concentrated on not shaming himself any more, now that he was expecting pain and it was not to take him by surprise.
He was fortunate enough to faint while the flattened ball was cut from his chest, but the gush of clotted blood that came from the wound brought consciousness and relief from the terrible pressure at the same moment. He heard himself groan, and cut off the sound in the middle as hands lifted him from the table and set him on the floor again.
It was amazing how small the world became when one was in pain, he thought. He was shuttered and enclosed by it, an agony of knifelike pain. He must have broken ribs.
He did not know how long he lay there before hands were lifting him again and setting him astride a horse.
“It’s not the best, sir,” a voice said. “But the roads are so clogged up that it might take you days to get through on a wagon. You are one of the lucky ones.”
One of the lucky ones. The words ran like a refrain through his muddled, fevered, agonized brain for the rest of the night. He did not know where he was or who was with him. He did not know where he came from or why he was on this ride.
But there was something ahead of him. Someone. Someone he must reach, and then he would be safe. All would be well. Mama? She was in London. Edmund? Yes, Edmund. Alexandra would look after him, and Edmund would make everything right, as he always had done. A big boat, Christopher had said. A big boat. Edmund was gone.
Madeline? He had to reach Madeline. She would be worried. He had promised not to die. He mustn’t die. Madeline would be fit to throw hatchets if he did. He had to get to Madeline. Where was she? Not at Edmund’s. Edmund was gone. Where was she? Had she gone too? Was she in London? At Amberley? She shouldn’t have gone. He needed her. She should have stayed.
Charlie. He would go to Charlie. The Rue de la Montagne. He must remember that. Rue de la Montagne. He said it over and over to himself. He said it aloud. There was comfort there. He would be able to rest there. She would be there, and she would not fuss him or talk too loudly. She would look after him. Yes, she was the one he had to go to.
He had something to tell her. She would look after him, but he had something to tell her first. He couldn’t remember what. He would remember when he saw her. The Rue de la Montagne. The Rue de la Montagne.
And then he heard her voice. But he could not move. He did not dare move. Someone was touching him, pulling at him. They would kill him. Where had she gone? Was that him screaming again? Not again. He must not do that again. He would frighten her and disgust her perhaps. But who was making those sounds?