Chapter 20

Chapter

Twenty

Nigel

N igel was standing in the cold poky room once again. The stone walls were icy at this time of year, and the poor accommodation made it nigh on impossible to bring any warmth to the room at all. The whole atmosphere was grey, with the white light of the early morning stark against those grey stones and the dark floorboards.

"Move, Beille," the elder man said behind him. "Lord knows, we do not have long."

Nigel didn't need reminding. He could feel it in the air. She was fighting death, tackling with it hard, but losing the battle.

He stepped forward with his medical bag in his hand and moved toward the bed at the side of the room. The elder doctor, his mentor, Doctor Valentino Richards, stepped into the room and around Beille. He walked straight to the bed and to the tall woman who stood beside it, with a scented posy of roses pressed to her nose.

"Do something, Doctor. I beg of you," the woman pleaded with Doctor Richards, her hands shaking around the posy.

"We shall do what we can." Doctor Richards offered a sorry sort of smile then leaned back, jerking his head at Nigel, urging him to get going.

Nigel stepped up to the other side of the bed. Wordlessly, he placed down his medical bag and sat on a stool, reaching for the young woman's hand as it laid on top of the sheet. He reached for her wrist. She was cold to the touch, much colder than normal, and her hand didn't turn up to reach for his as it had so often done before.

The young woman angled her head around. The dark hair fell past her cheek, her eyes were firmly closed, yet her chin turned toward him. It was as if she was acknowledging his presence, even in her depths of despair.

"Miss Emily Walters?" he whispered her name, trying to rouse her, but she didn't move again. She just inhaled deeply.

Nigel had been coming to see Emily for at least three months now. It had started off as a pain in her chest, something a little uncomfortable, and it had slowly gotten worse and worse. Most days, Nigel had come with Doctor Richards. When Doctor Richards would go to see her family in the kitchen and update them on her condition, Nigel would be left alone with her to talk.

She was sweet in nature, soft and quiet, but when they were alone, she had a smile that she only ever showed him. it had been all too easy to fall in love with Emily, like stepping off a cliff and plunging toward the waters. She had offered her own hints of caring for him too, such as when he checked her pulse, she would turn her hand and briefly grasp his fingers. They'd come closer and closer, and now he called on her most days. Though her family only believed it was his medical care that led him to make the visits.

"How long has she been like this for?" Nigel asked her mother, feeling an ache in his chest, as he stared at Emily.

She had always been quite pale in the time that he had known her, but today she was deathly white, as pale as the snow and frost that peppered the ground outside of this cottage.

"All night." Mrs. Walter's voice hitched. "I thought she was sleeping, resting, then this morning, I could not rouse her. Try…she doesn't wake…it's as if her spirit has…ha-has…fled." She stammered through her tears.

"There now." Doctor Richards placed a hand on her shoulder. "Calm yourself, Mrs. Walters. She is still with us. We can fight for a little longer yet."

Nigel nodded in agreement. He was not going to give up so easily on Emily. He'd worked for months, trying to care for whatever condition had taken hold of her lungs. Now he knew how kind she was, how sweet in nature, how much she deserved a full life, he would not turn his back on her. He would stay by her side for as long as it took to make her feel better.

"Mrs. Walters, could you prepare some hot water for us please?" Doctor Richards asked.

"Of course." Mrs. Walters walked out of the room, her tears quickly falling down her cheeks. She pressed her posy closer to her nose as she left the room.

The moment the door was closed, Doctor Richards leaned down, pressing his ear close to Emily's chest.

"She's wheezing," he whispered.

Nigel stood up and copied the other doctor's movements, recognizing he was right. It was as if there was some impediment to her breath. Each time she breathed in and out, her chest wheezed.

"This is not good news, Beille. Not good at all." The doctor's jowls shook as he stood straight. "We need to help her breathe."

"Steam?" Nigel suggested.

"Yes, yes. We'll fill the room with it. God, how are we going to do this in this bitter cold!?"

Nigel leaped toward the window, closing it tight. Evidently the mother had opened it in the hope that fresh air would help, but it was only increasing the iciness in the room. He tossed some logs onto the small fire grate in the corner of the room next, setting them alight and building the flames high.

On the other side of the room, Doctor Richards poured out a fresh vial of some concoction. Nigel halted what he was doing and watched the doctor warily.

"What is that you are giving her? Doctor?" he urged impatiently.

Richards tipped the liquid past her lips and lifted her neck in such a way that it forced her to swallow.

"A tincture. Turpentine. Hopefully it will calm the inflammation of the lungs."

Nigel stiffened, with his hands so close to the flames that it took a minute for him to realize he was in danger of them getting burned. It was an experimental cure for inflammation, and he wasn't convinced about it, yet Richards was the more experienced doctor. He had to do what Richards told him to.

"You do realize what we're facing here, do you not?" Richards asked, slowly stepping up from the bed.

"No. What?" Nigel crossed the room, moving to the other side of the bed. "We thought it was a lung infection. A slow one. You even suggested it could have been the coal dust from the mines nearby."

"I know what I said." Richards sighed and thrust a hand across his balding head. "I now fear we have missed some other signs."

"What? What signs?" Nigel asked impatiently.

Doctor Richards stepped back and gestured to a stack of handkerchiefs that had been placed on the table just beside the bed.

"I presume Mrs. Walters held these to her daughter's lips overnight when she coughed. Look, Beille. Look closely."

Unable to see properly, Nigel circled the bed. He moved to the handkerchiefs and saw there was something dark and speckled on the white clothes. He picked through the handkerchiefs, moving as carefully as he could. Some were dark spots, almost black, but others were brighter, enabling him to see much clearer exactly what it was.

"It's blood," he muttered, looking sharply at Richards. "Oh God. God's wounds, do not tell me you think it is ? —"

"What other conclusion can be formed after that?" Richards waved a hand at the handkerchief. "Look at it, Beille. Can it be mistaken?"

"But…" Nigel looked at Emily. "Consumption usually acts quickly. Within a few weeks."

"For whatever reason, the infection has been slower for Miss Emily. It has been harder to spot I think. All her other symptoms, are they not similar?"

"Lung infections and consumption are remarkably similar. But what about…" Nigel paused and looked at Emily's hand. Her finger was moving, as if she was trying to rouse. He reached for her hand and turned it over, pressing his finger to the pulse point to take it.

"Well? How is her pulse?" Richards asked at his shoulder.

"Fast, considering how still her body is. It's too fast." Nigel gulped around a sudden lump in his throat. He stared at Emily, beginning to fear for the first time that it was possible she wouldn't wake up at all. "Oh God. Richards, you could be right."

"Are there any swellings? Anything at all?"

Nigel bent down. He'd noticed a shadow on Emily's collarbone the day before when he had visited, yet thought nothing of it. Now, as he bent forward, he peered at the point where the bed sheets finished. A glimmer of her collarbone was on show. The skin was puckered pink and a small, ridged swelling had settled near the top of her sternum. He pointed it out to Richards who cursed once more.

"What can we do?" Nigel asked.

"You know as well as I that there is no cure for consumption."

"But…" Nigel turned back to face the doctor. "That cannot be it. We cannot give up now!"

"I'm not suggesting we do." Richards shook his head. "Let us start with more steam. I'll build up the room. You go and ask Mrs. Walters to bring up as many pots of water as she can. We shall fill this room in the hope of flushing it out of Miss Emily's system."

The idea of ‘flushing it out' seemed mad to Nigel, but what else could he do? As Richards had said, there was no known cure! There was nothing he could do.

He hastened from the room and darted down the stairs, pleading with Mrs. Walters to bring up more water. Emily's younger sisters hurried to help her, and as Nigel watched them work, he ached more and more. There were many similarities between Emily and her sisters. They reminded him so much of her that the thought of poor Emily laying so still on that bed was too much to bear.

He wasn't sure how long he was down there for, hurrying to the task with the steaming water, but soon enough, Richards appeared behind him in the stairwell.

"Doctor Richards?" Mrs. Walters noticed him first and turned to face him. "What is it? What has happened? Has she awoken?"

Nigel slowly turned to face the doctor. He knew that expression. He'd seen it before, the grave face, the firm line of his thin lips pressed together.

"No. It cannot be," Nigel whispered, terrified to hear the words.

When Richards hung his head, yet didn't say the room, the air in the room shifted completely. Emily's two sisters started to cry, great wailing sobs that Nigel was tempted to take part in. Mrs. Walters flung herself from the kitchen, demanding to see her daughter at once.

Nigel numbly followed, his body running cold. On the stairs, Richards took his elbow, lowering his voice and whispering in his ear.

"Beille, listen," his voice softened. "I know that there is some sort of closeness between you and the girl. The mother…" He shook his head.

"I know." Nigel nodded. He stiffened, stunned that Richards had even recognized there was an affection there at all. In his own way, Richards was trying to warn him that Mrs. Walters had not noticed. Now was not the time for her to know if it. She had to be left to her own grief. "Nothing will be said."

"Good man." Richards clapped his shoulder. "I am sorry."

Nigel stepped forward, letting the hand drop from his shoulder. He walked up the stairs, moving slowly, every part of the air now feeling cold and icy. As he stepped into the room, his head bending down under the frame, his eyes shot to the bed.

Emily's chest no longer rose and fell with her breath. She was completely still. Mrs. Walters' cries pierced the air. She flung her hands into the air then reached for her daughter, pulling her up from the pillows and grasping her daughter into her arms. She kissed Emily's head repeatedly, across her forehead and her cheeks.

"Oh, my poor girl. My poor darling girl."

Nigel stared, tears in his eyes that he was trying to stop from falling. All he kept thinking of was how this couldn't be happening. He'd pictured a life with Emily, of marrying her someday, and now what? He'd failed her, in so many ways.

The image changed before his eyes. Strangely, Emily was no longer the one in that bed being clutched to by her mother.

Lady Georgiana was kneeling on the bed, the one to cry instead as she reached for another, trying her best to rouse her. The young woman who could be roused with her eyes firmly closed was Miss Kathryn Fitzroy.

"This isn't possible." Nigel backed up.

Where the stone wall should have been, it abruptly dropped away. In its place, there was nothing but open air.

Nigel turned and ran into the space, desperate to get away from the image of Miss Fitzroy on the bed. She couldn't be there! She didn't belong in this frame. Miss Fitzroy was alive, full of life, always smiling and reaching for a jest. She couldn't be in that bed. He couldn't lose her as he had lost Emily already.

He kept running, before he collided with something hard. He ran straight into the yew tree, the very place where he had taken refuge from the rain the day of Emily's funeral.

He circled the tree, stumbling into the rain. His body was soaked in seconds, the great droplets tumbling down from his hair to his neck and seeping under his shirt. The rain came down so hard that he could soon feel it running off his fingertips and onto the ground.

Between the graves, the mourners were climbing the hill toward the open grave. He saw Mrs. Walters and Emily's sisters, then behind them, other faces. They were faces that did not belong there.

Lady Georgiana led the train of people, with the Duchess of Lestenmeer, Lady Nightburn and Lady Bingley following behind. There were also two people that Nigel presumed to be Kathryn's parents. Her cousin, Sebastian, that she had spoken much of followed too, his head bowed. At the back was Arabella, the Duchess of Gordon, at least, it was the imagined face that Nigel gave to the woman. She walked carrying white lilies in her hands, the funeral flower. Over her shoulder was a medicine bag, as if there was still something she could do for the person that was following them in the coffin.

"No." Nigel walked through the puddles. It started slowly, then his pace quickened as he ran toward them all. "No. No, not Kathryn! Not her! Kathryn!"

He reached for the coffin. He pushed into the men carrying it and it tumbled to the ground. He couldn't pay attention to the cries and the panic of him interfering. He just had to see her, had to prove that this was some nightmare, and that it wasn't some twisted truth. He reached for the lid and found it wasn't nailed down. He pushed the lid off where it clattered to the earth with a heavy thud.

Bending down, he found Kathryn was inside the coffin. She held a single white lily to her chest, her body very still and her eyes closed.

"Kathryn?" he whispered her name.

Those eyes opened.