“What about Joe?” she inquired anxiously.
“Some cuts and scratches. Nothing more.”
“Have all the men gone?”
“Long ago. The pistol brought them to their senses, especially when I followed up the first shot with another for good measure.”
“I’m so thankful you came. It was like a terrible nightmare.”
“It’s over now.” He put his hand on her wrist, unobtrusively feeling her pulse again. “You must get some sleep. It’s almost dawn. I’ll be back later to see how you are.”
When he had gone she rolled her head round on the pillow, looking about at the room in which she had found herself. Bryne was in every part of it. His silver-backed brushes gleamed on the chest of drawers where his shirts and underwear were folded away. There was a painting, in a gilt frame on the wall, of the big white house in Massachusetts that had been his childhood home. A book on the bedside table held the leather marker he had slipped into place when he had finished reading. That had been such a short time ago. Even the sheets she lay between were those he had slept in. How strange it was to feel so close to Bryne when he was far away from her.
The children were her first visitors when she awoke, brought in by Mary Anne to kiss her gently on the cheek instead of giving her their usual exuberant hugs. Flora brought her a bunch of flowers from the garden and was full of talk about the trampled rosebeds and the churned-up lawn.
“Dere’s half de fence down, too,” she informed Sarah cheerfully, “and some of de shutters splintered, and—”
“That’s enough of all that,” Mary Anne interrupted firmly. “We don’t want to worry Mrs. Garrett about those things now.”
“Everything must be put right before …” Sarah hesitated. She had been going to say that it must be done before Bryne came home, but that could be months and even a year away. “Will Joe be able to repair it all by himself, or will he need help?”
“He’ll manage fine,” Mary Anne assured her, bustling the children away with her.
Hardly had they gone when Lucy, straight-faced and tired-eyed, entered the room. “Are you in much pain?” she asked, approaching the bed.
“It will be better soon,” Sarah answered, making light of it. “I want to thank you for going to fetch Philip last night. It was a most sensible thing to do. He came in the nick of time.”
The girl sat down on the end of the bed and plucked absently at the cover with her fingers. “I didn’t think about fetching help when I first ran from the house, so don’t make me into a heroine or anything like that.” There was the edge of self-scorn in her voice. “I was panic-stricken. It was only when I was tearing down the street that I remembered Philip Manning telling me where he lived, and it came to me where to go.”
“We were all scared,” Sarah said easily. “I’m only glad that Bryne wasn’t here to have his life endangered—”
“I’m not!” Lucy exclaimed savagely, springing to her feet. She crossed quickly to the window and stood staring out, clasping and unclasping her hands. “I wish he had been here! I’d have laughed when they dragged him out! I’d not have run a step to help then!” Her malevolent expression showed that she was picturing such a scene being enacted on the lawn below.
“You can’t mean that!” Sarah tried to rise from her pillows, stretching out a hand to Lucy. In her state of pain and lingering shock the tears came swimming into her eyes, and she could not hold them back. Who would have thought that Bryne’s small disciplinary action—probably the only one he had ever made in dealing with Lucy—should have resulted in such vitriolic spleen?
Lucy turned round and her eyes were deadly. “I do mean it. Once I loved Bryne with all my heart. I’d have died for him. Now I hate him!”
Neither she nor Sarah saw that Philip had appeared in the doorway on his morning call. “Are you upsetting my patient, Lucy?” he reproved her sharply, hurrying to Sarah, who was lying with the back of her hand pressed against her trembling mouth, the helpless tears flowing. He drew her hand away, took her pulse, and felt her forehead. “How are you now? Much pain? I’ll give you another draft.” He glanced across at Lucy, who was standing hesitantly, undecided whether to go or stay, much subdued by his reproof. “It doesn’t look as if Sarah’s bed has been made yet. What nourishment has she had? Who else is to look after her if you don’t?”
“I’ll go down to the kitchen and get something immediately,” Lucy said hastily, and went darting from the room.
Surprisingly, Lucy became as efficient and willing in the sickroom from that time forward as she had been during the initial session at Philip’s side. It was as though, having been made aware that there was no one else to take over the reins of the household, she had accepted the role thrust upon her with a certain pride, spiced with a gloating satisfaction at finding everyone looking to her for guidance. Perhaps at Philip’s instructions, she did not mention Bryne’s name in the sickroom again, except once in an indirect way when she asked if Sarah would like to move back into her own bedchamber.
“Not yet,” Sarah answered, knowing inwardly that she intended to postpone the move for as long as possible, and added vaguely: “The view from the window is better here.”
She made steady progress as time went by, but she became restless and bored. Philip came twice every day to see her, making it a professional call in the mornings, and returning later to sit and talk with her.
When she was able to get up again it became the usual thing for him to stay for dinner unless some urgent matter called him away. She looked forward to his visits, and although they talked on all subjects and about all matters, Bryne’s name rarely, if ever, came into the conversation beyond Philip’s polite and conventional inquiry as to whether she had heard from him. She always shook her head.
The weather moved to the height of full summer, and it was necessary for the blinds to be drawn through all the hours of sunlight to ensure some coolness in the house. Flora was coming on well with her reading, and Sarah began to widen her education. These lessons, apart from Philip’s visits, were the most interesting part of Sarah’s day, although she enjoyed the hours when she sat in the shade in the garden, watching the children at play.
Lucy was no company. Since the cessation of her sickroom duties she had lapsed into laziness, getting up late and lolling about the house doing nothing to help or to alleviate her own boredom. She found fault with everything, created trouble whenever she could, and blamed the absent Bryne bitterly and constantly for the ostracism that made invitations to local events pass them by.
Sarah was hard put at times to keep her patience with the girl, who made her the target for countless jibes and complaints. Many times a day Sarah reminded herself of how good Lucy had been in the sickroom, and that a lack of girlfriends to giggle with and beaux to escort her was enough to set on edge the nerves of any young girl eager for life.
News of the war reached the city daily. There had been skirmishes across both the Niagara and Detroit rivers, but nothing dramatic happened until British forces made an attack on Fort Detroit. Sarah was sitting in a basket chair under a maple tree, her feet on a stool, when Philip came with the news that the fort had been captured.
“And that’s not all,” he said, sitting down on the grass and resting his arm on an updrawn knee. “The United States forces withdrew from Fort Dearborn, too, and were attacked and wiped out by Indians.”
She shut her eyes quickly as though to blot out the fearsome picture that sprang to mind. Hundreds of Indians were fighting under the British flag, eager to settle old scores and to protect their Canadian hunting grounds from an acquisitive enemy. Where was Bryne in all this turmoil? He was never out of her thoughts.
“The barracks over at Newark are being used as a field hospital,” Philip continued, “but the less seriously injured and the convalescent will be shipped here to the garrison, where the accommodation is far from adequate. How badly this city needs a hospital! My services have been recruited, and I am organizing
emergency measures.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Sarah asked eagerly. “There are stacks of clean linen in the house. I could make yards of bandages.”
“That would be most useful. Stocks are going to need constant replenishing as time goes on.” There was a pause. “Why don’t you invite some of the local ladies to join in the work with you?”
Sarah swung her feet to the ground. “You know nobody calls here,” she said in a quiet tone, rising from her chair to take a few slow steps across the grass.
Philip followed, and turned her about to face him. “Then you must do something about it. You are well again, and should not be alone so much. You are English-born, and none can doubt your patriotism. If your loyalties had lain elsewhere you would have left with Bryne. Send out some invitations. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”
Her face lit up. “You cheer me. It would do Lucy good, too, to have company in the house. She needs to be diverted and entertained.”
“It’s you I’m thinking about most of all,” he said. “You’re tied night and day to the care of children. It would have been different if you had been expecting one of your own.”
“Thank goodness there’s been no chance of that!” she retorted with feeling. Not because she had not hoped in the past for babies of her own one day, but because she could only consider the bearing of a child that had been conceived in mutual love and adoration. She and Bryne were worlds apart on that score.
“Why was there no chance?” Philip questioned in his clipped, incisive tones. Her sudden withdrawn and defensive look gave him his answer, confirming what he had suspected. “Do you realize that you can have your marriage of convenience annulled?”
Annulled! The word rang through her head like a proclamation of freedom before common sense returned. Her responsibilities were too heavy a burden to be shaken off so lightly. Since marriage she had gained a share in the guardianship of Lucy, the charge of Bryne’s house and the servants in it; also, in some strange way, there was a bond between herself and Bryne that would take more than an annulment to break. She had the extraordinary conviction that somehow he would find a way to talk her into marrying him all over again.
“That is out of the question,” she stated firmly.
“Is it?” Philip’s voice was expressionless. “Think again. You’ve committed your whole life to a man that you don’t love. Why not take the chance to escape while there’s still time?”
“Escape?” she echoed on a note of dry amusement. “To judge from my past experiences I think I’d simply end up collecting a few more children on the way. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a kind of Pied Piper.”
But her little joke brought no smile to his face, making her feel guilty at having appeared flippant when he was trying to sort out a serious and complicated state of affairs for her.
“Any other children could be your own.” Philip’s voice softened on a rare note of tenderness that startled her. “Remember you’re no longer alone as you were before. I’m here.”
Her whole face, holding an expression mingled of a curious pity, loss, and affection, showed him that it was all too late. Had he stayed on board the Griffin at Quebec it could have been very different, but his naturally cautious temperament had prevented him from throwing—just for once in his life—his hat over the windmill. Bitterly he regretted his lack of initiative. Now he had lost her, this woman who had burst into his life during a dinner at the captain’s table, whose haunting loveliness had made it impossible for him to forget her.
Gently she put her hand in his. “I have never felt alone since we met again, Philip. But I’m married to Bryne, and I must never allow myself to forget that.”
He kept a tight hold of her hand as they fell into step and walked slowly along the path. He glanced at her continually, seeing that although she was already talking of a tea party for the ladies whom she intended to invite, her emotions were still painfully near the surface. It had not been easy for her to reject him, but that was small comfort, and his own anguish was difficult to bear.
When they came to the orchard they found Lucy floating lethargically to and fro on the swing. “Have you time to go walking hand in hand with Sarah, Dr. Manning?” she asked pointedly.
“Do not begrudge me a little leisure time,” he replied in a friendly manner, crossing over to give the swing seat a push for her. “There’ll be none when the casualties pour in, as they must do when the war gets more deeply under way. I’m expecting to be busy night and day.”
“You’ll be in need of nurses when that happens,” Sarah said, leaning back against a tree, and linking her hands in front of her. “I’ll be ready to help you.”
“I appreciate your offer, but you must be careful for a long while yet after that damage to your ribs. There must be no strain or heavy lifting.” He gave Lucy’s swing seat another thrust that sent her sailing up in the air, her muslin skirt rippling. “There are medical orderlies at the garrison, but they could be rushed off their feet if we have to deal with a whole shipload of wounded. Fortunately I’ve had offers of help from quite a number of matrons in York who have come forward.”
“Put my name down on that list too!” Lucy had twisted the ropes to bring herself to a jiggling, whipping halt. Sarah opened her mouth to protest, but Philip’s quick glance silenced her. He put his hands on the ropes to steady them, looking hard at Lucy.
“What do you imagine you would have to do?” he asked her. “Put flowers at the wounded men’s bedside? Hold their hands? Do you think it would be the same as looking after Sarah?”
“No!” Lucy thumped her clenched fists on her knees. “I know there’ll be blood and stench and vomit! I’ve heard people talk about what the battlefield was like when Wolfe stormed the heights of Abraham. I’m not a fool! I can wash the patients, change their dressings, and write their letters home. Yes! And hold their hands if they’re dying!”
Philip’s eyes did not leave her. “I think you could.”
Lucy jerked up from the swing seat and caught at Philip’s lapels. “Do you mean that? If you only knew how tired I am of being useless! Waiting on Sarah gave me something worthwhile to do, but since she’s been up and about again the days have been endless. I thought I should like a life of idleness when I was at school—but how wrong I was! I hate it!”
“Of course you do,” Philip agreed sympathetically. “If you’d like to walk back to my house with me, I’ll provide you with some reading matter that should give you plenty of practical information to prepare you for the kind of nursing that lies ahead.”
She did not hesitate. “Let’s go at once! Just give me time to put my bonnet on!”
Sarah watched her go flying from the orchard. “Are you sure you were wise to encourage her?” she questioned doubtfully.
“Unless that girl’s energies are channeled quickly into the right direction,” he commented shrewdly, “she’ll end up eloping with the first man who comes along, or committing some other foolishness. She’s at breaking-out point.”
Sarah nodded in full agreement. But had Lucy the stamina to face a crisis, or would she snap? She had panicked once before—or said she had, anxious perhaps to reject approval—and all her emotions were so violently immature, lacking any gentler shades.
It was as though Philip had read her thoughts. “Lucy needs to be a little tempered by life, that’s all. It’s my belief that she’ll turn into a very fine person when she has grown up a little more.” They strolled back together from the orchard, and at the gate he referred again to her marriage. “Reconsider very carefully, Sarah. I’ve seen the distress and even the tragedy that can result from marriages such as yours. I want only the best for you.”
Lucy came running from the house. “I’m ready, Dr. Manning!”
When Lucy returned home with the book she lay in the hammock and read it for the rest of the day. At dinner she was very quiet and ate little.
“Aren’t you well?” Sarah asked her at bedtime. The
girl had come from the kitchen with a glass of water.
Lucy nodded, pale-lipped. “A touch of nausea. Nothing more.” She indicated the book under her arm. “I’ve been reading about amputations, gangrene, the treatment of sores, and a host of other matters.”
“Don’t read any more tonight if it distresses you,” Sarah advised.
Lucy’s eyes flashed. She flounced back as if she feared that Sarah might take the volume from her, slopping the water out of the glass. “It’s the most interesting book I’ve ever read in my whole life! There’s so much that can be done to relieve suffering! So much to be learned! I’ll not weaken when those poor men are brought in from the battlefields. I’ll be able to help them. I’ll know more than any of those other women with their names down on Dr. Manning’s list of volunteers!”
*
Sarah sent out two dozen invitations to various ladies whom she knew to be prominent in the city’s social and charitable activities, but every one of them sent back a polite note of refusal. She suffered the disappointment without complaint, but Lucy was indignant.
“You know why, don’t you? It’s given them a chance to get back at you for marrying the man they all wanted for themselves—or their daughters, as the case may be!”
“You’re quite wrong,” Sarah replied rationally. “They can’t overlook the fact that I’m the wife of—an enemy of the King.”
Lucy gritted her teeth. “One day I’ll humble their pride! You’ll see! Bryne isn’t the only one to be brought down!”
It was not long before Philip told Sarah that there were several bands of women engaged in preparing stocks of bandages, slings, splints, and other medical aids for him. “They were quick to take up your idea in their own circles,” he said. “I regret having exposed you to the humiliation of being snubbed for no fault of your own.” His tone was angry.
He had found her in the study writing a letter to an old friend in England, and she made a reassuring little gesture as she put down the quill pen. “As long as the work is being done, that is all that matters.”
Fair Wind of Love Page 11
