Break of Dawn

by Rita Bradshaw

  ‘No, I’m staying with you.’

  ‘What good is it going to do if you make yourself ill? I don’t want to have to worry about you as well as Kane. Please, Sadie, go home.’

  It took a little more persuasion but eventually she saw Sadie off in a cab and returned to the waiting room. She saw several people looking at her askance and realised her bloodstained dress must appear disconcerting, but she wasn’t about to go home and change. However long it took, she had to stay until she knew he was going to be all right. He had to be all right. But his legs, if they amputated his legs, how would that affect him? But she wouldn’t think like that. Please, God, please save his legs, but if he has to lose them to live, then please grant him life. I can’t bear it if he dies, God. I’ll do anything, anything, but don’t let him die.

  She sat on, praying and beseeching and, when the desperate pain within got too much, pacing the waiting room for an hour or more, only sitting down when she felt too weak and faint to continue. She was frightened, so very frightened.

  At midnight, the surgeon came. Sophy had been surprised when she had seen him before Kane had been taken to the theatre earlier in the day. He looked to be about thirty-five, maybe forty years of age, which she thought young for such an important post. She wasn’t to know that any of the other surgeons whom Kane might have had wouldn’t have hesitated before amputating both legs, so severe were his injuries. But Edgar Grant was not only a brilliant young surgeon, he had the advantage of a formidably intelligent and empirical mind and was bang up to date with the most advanced thoughts and techniques. Kane’s injuries had presented him with the perfect opportunity to try out some experimental surgical procedures at which a lesser man would have baulked. Added to this, Grant was an avid disciple of Joseph Lister, a British surgeon who’d pioneered antiseptic techniques in surgery to prevent the infection of wounds following an operation, and who’d introduced carbolic acid to dress wounds and clean equipment. Through observing various patients, Grant insisted his serious cases be isolated in side rooms within a ward, and that any nurse or doctor attending to the wounds of such patients must wash their hands in a solution of diluted carbolic acid before touching their charge. Grant was not a popular man among his peers and subordinates, having a cold, analytical mind which suffered fools badly, but he was a respected one.

  Sophy rose to her feet as the door opened. The surgeon looked tired and he wasn’t smiling. Again, she wasn’t to know that Edgar Grant almost never smiled. Her heart filled with dread, as she stared at him.

  ‘Please sit down, Mrs Shawe.’ Grant waved at the seat she’d just vacated and Sophy automatically sat. He pulled up a chair and sat down himself, stretching his neck out of the collar of his shirt as he did so. Sophy found she still couldn’t speak.

  ‘Mr Gregory is a fighter,’ he said quietly. ‘He has just survived a very long operation which in itself would have finished most men, but he is a very sick man.’

  ‘His – his legs?’

  ‘I have done the best I can but, should he survive this trauma which I have to tell you is by no means certain, whether he’ll walk again, I don’t know. Apart from the damage to his legs, he also has several broken ribs which I think are due to the horses’ hooves rather than the carriage. He also has some concussion which is not unusual in the circumstances.’

  ‘Can I see him?’

  Grant shook his head. ‘Maybe tomorrow if he’ – he had been about to say ‘lasts the night’ but something in the extraordinary amber eyes holding his made him change it to – ‘is well enough. He’s asleep now and I don’t expect the effects of the anaesthetic to wear off for at least twenty-four hours.’

  The relief which had flooded her at the surgeon’s first words had quickly abated as he’d gone on. He didn’t expect Kane to live. She could tell.

  Grant stared at the lovely young woman in front of him. He knew who she was. One of the doctors who had been to see her in a play had said she was a fine actress, but he had no interest in anything besides his work. She was certainly beautiful, but she had the saddest eyes of anyone he had ever seen. He briefly wondered what had happened in her life to put such a depth of grief in such a relatively young woman. It had to be more than her concern for this fellow Gregory.

  His thoughts caused him to say, in a voice that would have amazed the junior doctors on his team who were terrified of him to a man, ‘The will to live is a powerful force, Mrs Shawe, and one that we doctors cannot always understand. I have seen men and women who should have died make a good recovery, and others who should have lived simply fade away. Mr Gregory is fighting back. It’s a good sign.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  His reward for the uncharacteristic thoughtfulness was her smile. As he found himself smiling back, he thought to himself that in Gregory’s position he would do battle to come back to the land of the living too.

  After a few hours’ sleep and a wash and change of clothes, Sophy was back at the hospital at ten o’clock in the morning. She was allowed into Kane’s room with a nurse at her side at twelve o’clock for five minutes, after being warned that he was still unconscious. His face was deathly white on the pillow and the huge contraption to keep the covers from his damaged legs was alarming. She sat down, taking his limp hand which was resting on the counterpane and told him, over and over again, how much she loved him, even though she knew he couldn’t hear her. She still hadn’t cried.

  Taking her seat in the waiting room again, once the nurse had gently told her she had to leave Kane, she sat on. She knew Edgar Grant had relaxed the strict visiting hours in her case and she was grateful, but she didn’t want to leave the hospital again until she had to. He might wake up, and if he did, she wanted to be near.

  She was allowed in Kane’s room for another five minutes before she went home that evening, and the same pattern was repeated the next day. Kane remained absolutely still, so still she had to lean forwards to check if he was still breathing.

  It was a full forty-eight hours before Edgar Grant was sure Kane was winning the fight he’d talked about. Until then his patient had remained in that other world but his temperature had gone up and down with alarming suddenness and his blood pressure had been all over the place. A man who prided himself on remaining detached from his patients, Grant found himself taking a particular interest in this case. Not only because of the difficult and gruelling hours he’d spent putting Kane’s legs together again, but because of his patient’s heroic battle to live against all the odds, and the beautiful woman waiting for him.

  Sophy was in her usual place in the waiting room when Grant walked in just before midday on the third day after Kane had been admitted to the hospital. She was alone, although over the last two days Sadie had joined her on occasion, along with Ralph who had proved a tower of strength. Ralph was so sure Kane would pull through it was difficult to think otherwise when he was present. It was when she was by herself that the demons came. If she had faced it once, she had faced a hundred times the thought of a life without Kane in it, and she knew if he died it would be the end of her. Oh, she might continue to exist, to function on a day-to-day basis and go through the motions of life, but she knew the core of her, the place from whence came all joy and happiness, would shrivel away.

  Now everything had become so crystal clear, she wondered how she could have got it so wrong before. Kane had showed her in a million different ways over the years the sort of man he was. Who he was had been there, in front of her eyes, the whole time. And his last act, and she prayed with all her heart it wouldn’t be that in reality, of saving her at the cost of himself, wouldn’t even have entered Toby’s mind.

  She was sitting in a shaft of sunlight from the small window in the waiting room when the surgeon walked in. She had been half-dozing, so tired her limbs felt like lead and her mind fuzzy, but even so she had kept up the steady begging and pleading and wild promises to God she’d engaged in since the accident. She had got to know the routine of the hospital a little d
uring the last days, and she knew that this consultant – this god as the medical staff seemed to regard him – did the rounds of his patients every morning between eleven and twelve o’clock. She jumped up, with an alertness she would have thought herself incapable of a second before.

  When he motioned for her to sit down again she did so, but on the very edge of the chair. She could read nothing from his face. He was the most reserved individual she had ever come across. And then he contradicted this thought when his face split into a smile, the second since she’d known him. ‘Mr Gregory is back with us, Mrs Shawe, and waiting to see you. Only a few minutes though, I’m afraid. We mustn’t tire him. There’s still a long way to go.’

  She was glad now she was sitting down. And she must have looked as she felt because Mr Grant said, with some concern, ‘Are you all right, Mrs Shawe? Can I get you a glass of water?’

  ‘No, no.’ The faintness was receding. ‘Oh thank you, thank you so much. I don’t know what to say.’

  His smile was back. ‘“Thank you” is more than adequate. Now as I say, ten minutes at the most.’

  She sat for a moment more when he had gone, endeavouring to overcome the choking sensation that was filling her breast as she told herself she couldn’t cry. This wasn’t the time to cry. He was going to be all right. He was conscious and in his right mind, and he was going to get better. Ralph had been right.

  No nurse accompanied her into the little room off the main surgical ward this time, although as she walked across the highly polished floor towards Kane’s door, the Sister called, ‘Ten minutes, Mrs Shawe. No more. Doctor’s orders.’

  She hesitated for one moment as she reached the room, her heart thudding so hard she couldn’t breathe. When she pushed open the door and stepped inside, his gaze was waiting for her. He had been propped up slightly by a wad of pillows under his back and his face was as white as the pillowslips, but his eyes were brilliantly blue as he looked at her. She thought he breathed her name as she covered the distance between them in one second, bending, and with no sense of decorum, pressing her lips against his.

  Kane remained absolutely still for one moment and then his arms came out to pull her close, only for him to wince with pain as his broken ribs made themselves felt. ‘Damn it.’ It was a whisper. ‘I’ve waited to do this for years and now look at me.’

  ‘Oh, Kane, Kane.’ She was half-laughing, half-crying. And all the laws of propriety went out of the window as she murmured, ‘I love you, I love you so much and I’ve been so frightened I wouldn’t get the chance to tell you. And it’s my fault you nearly got killed, trying to save me. If I hadn’t gone on the tour, if I’d stayed here and faced what my heart was telling me . . . Oh, Kane . . .’

  She was sobbing in earnest now, the pent-up anguish of days pouring out as she half-bent, half-lay on the side of the bed, wanting to hold him but terrified she’d inadvertently hurt him.

  ‘Ssh, ssh.’ Oblivious of the pain in his chest he folded her against him, his mouth seeking hers so the first real kisses they exchanged were salty from her tears. His lips covered her face in small burning kisses a few moments later as he murmured passionate words of endearment between each one, words which Sophy repeated as her hands came up to cradle the rough, pock-marked skin of his cheeks.

  It was minutes before, still within the circle of his arms, Sophy whispered, ‘Do you forgive me?’

  ‘Forgive you?’

  ‘For nearly getting you killed, for avoiding you and running away, for – for being such a coward.’

  ‘That you have never been.’ As she sat up, rubbing at her wet face with the back of her hand, he smiled at her. ‘And although I didn’t like it, the fact of you running away, as you put it, gave me hope that you might be beginning to see me as a man at long last, rather than some old gentleman on the perimeter of your life.’

  ‘You’re not old.’

  ‘I’m forty-seven, Sophy.’ His face was straight. ‘Seventeen years older than you.’

  ‘What does age matter?’

  ‘A great deal when you are still an active and beautiful woman pushing an old man in his bath-chair.’

  ‘Kane, I wouldn’t care if you were twenty-seven, thirty-seven years older than me.’ Her voice was soft, as were her eyes. ‘I love you.’ She could see he was exhausted and knew it was painful even to breathe. ‘Go to sleep now and I’ll be back later.’

  ‘Sophy?’ He held out his hand and she put her fingers into it. ‘When I can walk out of here, and I will walk again, whatever the doctors say, believe me, I will ask you a question. But I won’t ask lying on my back. Can you wait for me?’

  ‘Forever and a day.’ Her smile was luminous. ‘And when you ask your question, my answer will be yes.’

  Sophy didn’t have to wait forever and a day – just four months, in fact. On a mild but windy day towards the end of October, Kane left the hospital on his own two feet, flatly refusing a wheelchair or crutches although he did compromise by having a walking stick. Edgar Grant had predicted Kane might be walking again in nine months initially when Sophy had asked him, then Ralph had suggested that knowing ‘the boss’ as he called Kane, it would be more like six – and Kane did it in four. He was still in considerable pain most of the time, although Edgar Grant had assured him that would diminish over the next six months as muscles and sinews strengthened, but the bones in his legs had knit together extremely well. He would always walk with a stick, the surgeon had told Kane, but he would walk. They both agreed it was an excellent outcome.

  Sophy and Kane had talked frankly during the time he had been incarcerated. She had told him about her dreams of opening a theatre run mainly by women, and as they’d discussed the possibilities, the idea of returning to the north-east had evolved. Sophy’s cousins and their families were there, and Kane had no family ties of his own; furthermore, Sunderland was a fast-growing town which had absorbed many of the small villages on its outskirts into the fold. The town centre, with its fine buildings, busy shops and urban streets, along with the beaches, piers and promenades and bustling docks, meant the music halls and theatres would find plenty of customers. And, although neither of them voiced it, London held too many painful memories for Sophy.

  But all these plans and discussions had been somewhat abstract. The all-important question still had to be asked. So it was, on the morning he left the hospital, standing on the Infirmary’s steps with his head lifted to the windy sky and racing clouds, Kane told Sophy he was taking her out that evening, refusing to listen to her protests that he should rest on his first day at home.

  The Hippodrome was no longer a variety theatre after its reconstruction the year before, and he told her he had tickets for the Russian Ballet performing there, after which they were having dinner at a secluded little restaurant in Leicester Square. Ralph had arranged it. It was done and dusted. No argument.

  Sophy spent some time with Kane at his home, helping Ralph to settle him in and making sure he ate the tasty lunch Ralph had prepared. Then, Kane having reluctantly agreed to an afternoon nap, she flew home to tell Sadie and Harriet she was going out that evening.

  ‘I knew it.’ Sadie looked in triumph at Harriet. ‘I told you he wouldn’t waste any time, didn’t I? And he’s doing it proper, I like that. You’ll come back with a ring on your finger, ma’am, and no mistake.’

  ‘He might not ask me to marry him, Sadie.’

  Sadie snorted. She had a repertoire of such sounds which were far more effective than words. ‘And pigs might fly, ma’am, but it’s not likely, is it? No, he’ll ask you, and a better man than Mr Gregory doesn’t draw breath, bless him.’

  ‘What are you going to wear, Sophy?’ Harriet had been busy ironing when Sophy had burst into the kitchen, Josephine fast asleep in her pram outside the back door so she got her quota of fresh air.

  Sophy looked at her two friends. ‘I don’t know. Nothing too fancy, although, if we’re going to the Hippodrome . . . But I don’t want him to think I expect him to ask t
onight, do I? It wouldn’t be seemly.’

  Sadie, forever the one to speak her mind, said, ‘I think you’re past that stage with Mr Gregory, ma’am. Telling him you loved him and whatnot saw to that.’

  Sophy giggled. Dear Sadie. Dear Harriet. Dear everybody. This was a wonderful, wonderful day.

  For the next hour the three women had a lovely time as Sophy paraded in one outfit after another. Eventually they decided on a pale green evening gown in crushed silk which had a matching coat trimmed with ermine. The shade brought out the burned honey of Sophy’s eyes and her magnificent golden-red hair.

  When Josephine woke up, Sophy spent some time playing with the baby who was now crawling and into everything. A happy little girl with a mass of dark brown curls and big brown eyes, Sophy adored her as much as Josephine adored her Aunty Sophy. She hadn’t seen Peter since her visit to Sunderland over eighteen months ago, and although Patience wrote regularly to keep her up to date with all the doings of her godson, it wasn’t the same as being involved in the child’s life on a day-to-day basis. Josephine satisfied a need in her, and she was grateful to Harriet in a way she couldn’t express. Harriet, in her turn, with the memory of the terrifying time she’d spent trying to survive on the streets before Sophy had rescued her burned into her mind, couldn’t do enough for Sophy. In fact, Sophy and Sadie were continually having to persuade her to do less; she would have worked every moment she was awake if they had let her.

  At six o’clock Sophy had a long hot bath in soapy bubbles, and once Josephine was tucked up in her cot fast asleep in the room she shared with her mother, Harriet came to help Sophy fix her hair. Sophy normally wore her hair in a simple chignon at the nape of her neck, but tonight Sadie and Harriet had persuaded her to put it up in a mass of curls and waves secured with tiny jewelled pins which twinkled like diamonds when the light caught them. The result was better than they could have imagined.