“How did your head feel when you woke up? It might be difficult to distinguish that pain from—”
“Sore. It felt like someone had taken a cricket bat to the base of my skull.”
“And what of your neck?”
“Stiff, I suppose. Painful.”
“How long did the pain persist?”
“I don’t know. Weeks? When my leg became infected, and then they took it off, the pain of that drowned out everything else.”
“Of course. Understandably so.”
He turned, just enough to grasp her hand. His skin was cool and unpleasantly clammy.
“What’s wrong with me? You must tell me. Nothing can be worse than living like this.”
“Bear in mind that I’m not a physician, and as such I’m not qualified to make any sort of diagnosis. But I will say that I’ve seen men with symptoms similar to yours. They had suffered severe concussions, as I suspect you did when you were first injured. Amid the chaos of your capture, and then the loss of your leg, the concussion went untreated.”
“That’s all? A concussion?”
“You’ll need to be seen by a physician. We could ask one of the doctors at my old hospital to assess you.”
“No.”
“Then what about Robbie? He won’t tell a soul. We must get to the bottom of this.”
“If it’s a concussion, won’t it go away on its own?”
“Not without help. I’m going to telephone for Robbie now, and then we shall all discuss what is to be done. While I’m gone, I should like you to get out of bed and get dressed. Pajamas and a robe are fine if that’s all you can manage.”
She hurried downstairs and was shown to the library and its telephone by Mr. Andrews. She relayed the heartening news to Lilly, who sounded as if she were holding back tears.
“We’ll be there straightaway.”
“Good. Can you ask Robbie to bring some aspirin? I doubt Edward has any proper medicine on hand.”
Mr. Andrews was hovering, clearly hoping for some good news, but the battle was not yet won. She only smiled and asked him to bring her some tea, hot buttered toast, and a soft-boiled egg. “I’ll wait here and take it up.”
“Thank you ever so much, ma’am. It’ll be the first thing he’s eaten since yesterday.”
Edward was sitting in a chair by the time she returned. He had put on trousers and a shirt, and was wearing his prosthetic leg, but hadn’t on any shoes or socks. The contrast between his bare foot and the dull aluminum form of his prosthesis was faintly obscene.
“That smells horrid,” he said as she advanced with his breakfast tray.
“Only because you’ve been starving yourself. You should be glad it isn’t bread and milk.”
“God help me.”
“Is there anywhere you might eat properly?”
“There’s a table in the drawing room next door,” he admitted.
“Lead the way.”
It was just as dark there, though the air was a trifle fresher, and as Edward picked at his food and grumbled about the absence of coffee she busied herself by opening both of the room’s large windows, though she was careful to draw the draperies almost shut once she’d finished.
She pulled out the table’s other chair, sat down, and stared at him, trying to assess what she observed in a strictly clinical fashion. She saw a man so thin that his clothes hung upon him. Skin that was dreadfully pale. Eyes sunken by dehydration and shadowed with pain. Hands that shook as they reached for a piece of toast or lifted the teacup.
She said nothing, only waited and watched him eat a few bites of toast, one or two spoonfuls of egg. Not enough to sustain a two-year-old child, but it was a start.
“There,” he said, pushing his chair back from the table. “Are you happy now?”
“I am pleased. When was the last time you ate a decent meal?”
“I can’t remember.”
“When did you last venture outside? Feel sunlight on your face?”
He shrugged and began to fuss with a button at the cuff of his shirt.
She heard a motorcar pulling to a stop on the street below, and then the muffled noises of arrival and welcome in the front hall. Footsteps on the stairs, taken two at a time from the sound of it, then Robbie appeared at the door, his doctor’s bag in hand.
“Hello, Charlotte. Hello, Edward. Up with the larks today, hmm?”
“Bugger off.”
“Here’s the aspirin you wanted,” Robbie said, and pressed a bottle into her hand.
Charlotte poured Edward a fresh cup of tea and handed him two tablets. “Swallow these. You can wash them down with your tea. Doctor’s orders.”
“Have you finished your breakfast?” Robbie asked.
“As much as I can stomach.”
“Good. Charlotte, would you mind waiting in Edward’s bedchamber while I examine him?”
“Not at all.”
She knew Lilly was downstairs, waiting for news, but she wanted to be nearby in case she was needed. So she busied herself with nursely duties: stripping the bed, opening the windows wide, and collecting a mountain of dirty dishes, empty brandy bottles, and overflowing ashtrays in the only available receptacle, an empty hearth bucket. Carrying this downstairs to the kitchens, she exchanged it for a set of fresh sheets from a startled and apologetic Mr. Andrews.
“I used to be a nurse,” she explained. “I can make a bed in no time at all.”
By the time Robbie called for her to return, perhaps a half hour later, Edward’s bedchamber was in perfect order, if not as clean as it ought to be. But then the poor housemaids likely had been banished from the room for months.
“It’s impossible to be certain without doing a series of X-rays,” Robbie began, “but I suspect that you have, in addition to your other, more obvious injuries, a skull fracture that has healed indifferently, a degree of whiplash to the upper cervical spine, and almost certainly the remnants of a severe concussion. How severe, it’s impossible to tell at this late juncture, but I think it serious enough to have kept you bedridden for months even if your leg had remained uninjured.”
Robbie turned to Charlotte. “Was this what you suspected?” She nodded. He heaved a great sigh and rubbed at his temples.
“This is all my fault. In my eagerness to bring you home I never considered a physiological explanation for your troubles. The physicians in Belgium never said anything about a head injury, and fool that I am, I never thought to ask. I am more sorry than I can ever say.”
“Don’t apologize. I forbid it.” Edward leaned forward and grasped hold of Robbie’s near hand. “Do you hear me? You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing.”
“May I ask what made you consider traumatic neurasthenia?” Robbie asked Charlotte.
“It was his persistent headaches and dizziness. Of course it could have been a host of other things, but we saw it often enough at the hospital. Men whose nervous shock was overlaid by concussion.”
“It’s been more than a year,” Edward said quietly. “Will I never recover?”
Charlotte looked to Robbie, but he seemed content for her to answer. “I believe you will, but the truth is that you have been making it worse. Everything you do, and have done since you returned home, is interfering with your recovery. Shall I tell you the only cure for something like this?”
“Go on.”
“It’s an old-fashioned rest cure. Perfect quiet and calm until you are recovered.”
“I’d rather be dead than go to a sanatorium. I swear it, Charlotte.”
“Who said anything about a sanatorium? What you need is nothing more complicated than fresh air, nourishing food, exercise, and plenty of sleep. And quiet. Above all you require quiet.”
“Up north, perhaps?” Robbie asked.
“Not Cumbermere Hall. Mama would install herself and badger me from dawn to dusk.”
“Think of your estates. Isn’t there anywhere you could go?”
“What about Cawdale Cottage?” Robbie
suggested.
Edward closed his eyes and let his head fall back against one wing of his chair. “It might do.”
“Cawdale Cottage?” Charlotte asked, though admittedly she was no expert on the smaller properties on the Cumberland estates.
“My bolt-hole when I was younger and needed some peace and quiet. I haven’t been there in years.”
“Let me telephone the estate manager,” Robbie suggested. “He’ll know if it’s been kept up.”
“Wait a moment. Who will go with you? You can’t do this alone,” Charlotte said.
“Mr. Andrews?”
“Thank you, Robbie, but no. I am fond of the man, but if his face were all I had to look upon I should expire after the first day.”
“Perhaps we could hire a—
“You, Charlotte. I’ll do it if you accompany me.”
If he had slapped them across the face, one after the other, he couldn’t have shocked them more.
“She couldn’t possibly—”
“You can’t ask such a thing of—”
“I’ll get Lilly.” This from Robbie, who practically ran out of the room to fetch his wife.
Once again Edward had confounded them all. Rather than mulishly refuse help, as she’d been certain, he was accepting it—with one impossible condition.
“I can’t do it,” she said at last.
“You can.”
Lilly came in and sat next to her on the sofa. “So. Robbie has explained everything, though I’m not certain why you’re insisting on Charlotte. Can’t we hire a nurse to accompany you? Or perhaps an ex-RAMC medic?”
“No. It’s Charlotte or nothing.”
“But why, Edward? You’ll be turning her life upside down.”
“Not necessarily. Her Miss Rathbone has been accommodating in the past. I don’t see why she’ll balk at this.”
“It may take weeks. Months. It isn’t fair of you to ask.”
“I know it. God help me, I do. But I won’t go without Charlotte.”
“Charlotte?” Robbie prompted. “If you were able to arrange a leave, would you do this for him? We’d ensure you were paid in the interim, of course.”
“I don’t care about that,” she said. “It’s only . . . what if word got out? That he and I were alone in that cottage? I doubt even Miss Rathbone would have me back then.”
“No one would have to know,” Lilly said. “We could arrange for provisions to be delivered. John Pringle would help.”
“And the cottage is remote?”
“Exceedingly so,” Edward answered.
Still Charlotte hesitated. Not to anyone, not even Lilly, could she voice her truest, deepest fear: that in helping Edward to restore his future, she would lose her own.
She looked him in the eye, though it hurt her to do so. “Edward, I—”
“I would kneel before you, Charlotte, if there were a prayer of my getting up again.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m at your mercy. I need you.”
“Stop. All of you stop, just for a moment. If I agree, and I’m not saying I will, but if I do, you must accept whatever measures I impose.”
“Understood.”
“That includes no drink. Of any kind.”
He swallowed hard. “Agreed.”
“If at any point you reject my treatment, or refuse to comply with any of the measures I impose, I will leave immediately.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. Will you help me?”
It was madness, the acutest form of self-delusion, to imagine that she could spend weeks alone in his company and not be forever changed. It was impossible to remain unaffected by his charm, his kindness, his easy grace, even his maddeningly blinkered view of the world.
That day in Oxford when they’d first met, so long ago now, he had crashed into her—and she was still reeling, never to be sure of herself again.
“Yes, Edward. I will help you.”
Chapter 19
A month’s leave, you say?”
“If not more. His recovery is still so uncertain. His family has asked me to accompany him on a rest cure.”
Miss Rathbone didn’t seem so much perturbed as mystified by Charlotte’s request. “And you say he will allow no one else to nurse him?”
“I’m afraid Lord Cumberland is quite intransigent. He’s had a very bad time of it, you see, and he’ll only accept someone he trusts as his nurse.”
There had been no recourse but to tell her employer the truth, or at least most of it. Miss Rathbone already knew of her connections with the Cumberland family, so it was a straightforward enough matter to explain that Edward’s health had taken a turn for the worse and required a period of convalescence.
“If you feel you must dismiss me, I understand.”
“Of course not. You are far too indispensable. As such, I am prepared to make do without you for a month if I can be sure you’ll return.”
“You can, Miss Rathbone. Of that I am certain.”
“Excellent.”
“The Cumberland family has offered to cover my wages while I am gone. I ought to have said so already.”
“How very kind of them. I’m sure we can put the money to good use. When were you thinking of leaving?”
“Not until the end of the week, and only then if everything here is arranged perfectly. Perhaps I might train up Gwen Vickers to take over some of my duties? Miss Petrie could easily take responsibility for anything directly involving constituents.”
Miss Rathbone steepled her hands beneath her chin and thought for a moment. “No. Gwen is very good, but she’s only been here a matter of months. I’d rather you ask Miss Margison. She knows the workings of the office better than almost anyone.”
Charlotte acquiesced, for what else could she do? Instruct Miss Rathbone on the running of her own office? So she nodded, and agreed that it was for the best, and said she would show Miss Margison where everything was before Friday was at an end.
Of course she put it off for as long as possible, working late each night so that nothing would be left half done. Friday dawned, and her desk was nearly clear.
She went to the woman’s desk, in the big room where all the clerk typists sat, and cleared her throat lightly. “Excuse me, Miss Margison. Might you have some time to go over things with me before I leave?”
“Oh, right. You’re off on holiday, aren’t you?”
“Not on holiday, no. A leave of absence.”
“All right for some.”
Never had Charlotte experienced such a punishingly penitential day. With every new file that she opened, every binder of meeting notes that needed to be transcribed, every letter that required a response, Miss Margison’s expression grew more and more smug, presumably from the satisfaction of seeing so much work left undone.
Of course she had no notion of the true burden of Charlotte’s duties, for she’d never had to go into people’s homes and speak to them of their troubles, or go cap in hand in search of aid for those same families. Sitting at her typewriter all day, her mind preoccupied by petty jealousies and resentments, a woman like Miss Margison could not possibly understand the sort of work Charlotte did.
She stopped by the Herald’s offices on her way home, knowing that John would be at his desk until ten or eleven that night. He already knew she was going away, for she’d written to him at the beginning of the week. But it seemed only right to speak to him directly, and assure him that her column would not be delayed.
“You did receive my letter?”
“I did. It’s a family friend who has taken ill, you say?”
“Yes. He was injured during the war, but has recently suffered a relapse. I’ve offered to supervise his recovery.”
“That is kind of you.”
“His family has been very good to me,” she said, wincing a little. That was rather too close to a lie for comfort.
“Will you write to me while you’re away? Not simply about your work, but to let me know how you’re getting on? I a
sk as your friend, that’s all.”
“I know.”
“I, ah . . . well, I might as well admit that I did hope, when we were first becoming acquainted, that we might one day become more than friends. We get on so well together, you see . . .”
“I do. I felt that way, too,” she admitted. “And I did try. I promise I did.”
“Don’t look so mournful, Charlotte. I ought not to have said anything.”
“I don’t mind, not at all. As long as we remain friends.”
“We will. Of that I am certain. Will you stay and have a cup of tea with me?”
“I should love to, but I leave first thing tomorrow.”
“When you’re back, then.”
“Of course. Good-bye, John. I’ll see you when I return.”
“Farewell, Charlotte. Good luck.”
SHE WAS MORE forthcoming with her friends at the boardinghouse. They knew that Lilly’s brother, wounded during the war, was experiencing a relapse, and that she was going to Cumbria to nurse him there. Unlike her colleagues at work, they also knew that Lilly’s brother was a young, handsome, and exceedingly wealthy earl. Norma all but swooned at the romantic possibilities this presented.
“It’s like something out of a film.” She sighed. “‘Injured war hero finds a reason to live in the caring arms of his nurse.’”
Well-meaning words, so why did they feel like a stiletto jabbing between her ribs? “Please don’t talk like that of him. Lord Cumberland is my friend and nothing more.”
“Besides, anyone who thinks we nurses are constantly falling in love with our patients should walk a day in our shoes,” said Rosie. “It’s hard to look at a man with stars in your eyes after you’ve emptied his bedpan.”
“Rosalind Murdoch.”
“Sorry, Miss Margaret. I was just trying to prove a point.”
“Have you finished packing yet?” Norma asked. “Don’t forget to take something for the evening. They all dress for dinner, you know.”
The notion of her and Edward, dressed to the nines as they ate their supper in a tiny country kitchen, was comical enough to make her smile. “We won’t be dining formally. But thank you for the suggestion.”
With her doing the cookery, their meals would be far from the gourmet fare that usually graced Edward’s table. She knew the basics, for her mother had been adamant that Charlotte learn some rudimentary cooking skills before she went to university, but it had been years since she’d done anything more than butter a slice of toast.
After the War Is Over: A Novel Page 17
