The House at Tyneford (38 page)

“There’s two of’em,” shouted Burt.

And in the darkness I saw that he was right. Two silhouettes huddled on the deck, one beside the tiller and another sprawled over the main sheet. Burt’s voice triggered something in the fishermen, and suddenly they were all wading into the sea, those who could swim slicing through the waves and rushing the small boat.

“Engine must ’ave packed in. Been sailin’ fer hours, no doubt,” said Burt, frowning.

I ran into the shallows and stared as two, then three, then four men caught up with the boat and hauled themselves on board and steered her onto the beach. Her hull ground across the pebbles as she beached, mast bent and unsteady. Kit sat at the helm, his greatcoat black with water and his hair plastered to his face, but he smiled at me. I breathed for the first time in five days. As Burt helped him climb out of the boat, I looked for Mr. Rivers. He lolled on the deck, fingers gripping the mainsail line, knuckles white. His face was grey, and there was a dark stain beneath his arm and a tear in his oilskins. I hauled myself onto the deck and scrambled over to him. I knelt beside him and slid my arm around his shoulders. As I brushed his cheek, I felt his skin, cool and damp.

“Go to the house. Tell Wrexham to call a doctor,” I shouted. The fishermen gazed at me, frozen with shock. “Now!”

There was a scramble and I glimpsed Art sprint toward the shore.

“Brandy,” I called.

A bottle of something was thrust up to me, and I pressed it to Mr. Rivers’ colourless lips. He sipped feebly and opened one eye.

“Hullo, you,” he said. “This is pleasant.”

“Kit,” I called, “what happened? Is he hurt?”

Kit sat on the beach, waves washing around him, too tired to move.

“Just tired. So tired. And a little piece of shrapnel.”

I lifted Mr. Rivers’ arm and examined the stain on his coat. I couldn’t tell if the blood was his. The entire deck was reddened with bloodstains, and bullet holes pockmarked the sides. All the stanchions along the port side had been wrenched out of their mountings and dangled like loose teeth on snatches of skin. I closed my eyes as I pictured the desperate men swimming alongside, clawing the
Lugger
in their frenzy to climb aboard. The jib was in tatters, torn into strips for bandages, which now lay in seeping heaps, leaking reddish rivers across the deck. The only part of the boat that appeared intact was the necklace of witch-stones, draped around the bow, but in the darkness even they appeared tinged with blood.

“Lift him out and take him up to the house,” I said. “And Burt, take Kit into your cottage and give him some hot food and dry clothes. Put him to bed by the fire.”

Two stout fishermen with muscles as strong and lithe as eels slid their arms underneath Mr. Rivers and, as though he weighed no more than a glittering fish, hoisted him up and passed him reverently down to another pair of waiting hands. I splashed beside them through the rushing waves to the shore.

“Carry him to the house, smooth as you can,” I directed, catching hold of Mr. Rivers’ hand and clasping it as the fishermen bore him across the beach to the cliff path. With the blackout in force it was now darker than the depths of the Tilly Whim caves. The moon and stars were veiled by cloud, but our eyes adjusted to the murk and we hastened along the chalk track, surefooted as the hares that streaked across the verges. The doors to the house had been thrown open, and I could hear Mr. Wrexham and Mrs. Ellsworth chattering anxiously. A feeble yellow torch beam wavered before the porch.

“Mr. Wrexham! Over here,” I called.

The butler hurried toward us, shining the beam at Mr. Rivers. Seeing his master’s grey face, Mr. Wrexham snorted in alarm, like a horse spooked by the wind, and I found myself speaking to him firmly.

“Mr. Wrexham. Mr. Rivers needs to be taken upstairs and put in a warm bed.”

The old butler continued to stare at his master and remained motionless, his lips parted in dismay.

“Wrexham,” I snapped.

The butler stiffened. He awoke from his stupor and began organising the fishermen and servants, herding them into the house.

“A hot-water bottle, Mrs. Ellsworth, right away. And upstairs to the master’s bedroom, please. No, don’t worry about your shoes,” he added as the fishermen paused in the hallway to discard their sand-encrusted hobnail boots. “A posset, Art. Run down to the bungalow and ask the Miss Bartons to make up a posset. Bring it back here, soon as you can.”

I trailed after them, following them up the broad staircase and into Mr. Rivers’ own room. I lingered for a second on the threshold before entering; I had not been inside since I was a housemaid. Thick red curtains had been drawn and it reeked of leather and unfamiliar spices. Even on a June evening it was cold, and Mr. Wrexham bent to strike a match to the kindling in the grate, before hastening to look for the doctor. Mrs. Ellsworth bustled in and hurried the fishermen out onto the landing.

“Thank you all very kindly. Now please go to the kitchen and wait there. There’s a teakettle on the hob.”

There was a shuffle of feet and then a clatter as four pairs of hobnail boots descended the wooden stairs. Mr. Rivers lay on the bed, skin as white as the linen sheets. Mrs. Ellsworth hurried over and started to unpeel his sodden oilskins.

“You go and wait outside for the doctor, Miss Landau.”

I shook my head and crossed to the bed. “No. It’ll hurt him less if both of us do it.”

She clicked her tongue in annoyance, but allowed me to help. With her sewing scissors, she sliced through his wet sweater and shirt. In the light of the bedroom, I could see that the blood beneath his arm belonged to Mr. Rivers, seeping from a gash between his ribs. It looked red and inflamed around the edges.

“Will you fetch a dressing from my room, miss?” asked Mrs. Ellsworth.

I looked at her, reluctant to leave.

“Please. I want to get him into his pyjamas. He’d not like you here,” she concluded, her voice gentle.

I nodded and slipped out of the room, running down the stairs to the housekeeper’s room. When I returned a few minutes later with a dressing, Mr. Rivers was tucked under the covers, and a handsome fire roared in the grate. I pulled up a chair beside the bed and reached for his hand, grateful to discover that he was warmer than before. I felt a squeeze around my fingers.

“Elise,” he whispered.

“Yes, Mr. Rivers.” I leaned in close. “Please don’t talk. You’re quite safe now. And Kit’s safe too.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes. Kit’s safe. I brought him back to you.”

I bent over the bed and kissed him.

“Thank you.”

I felt him seize my fingers beneath the blanket, squeezing so hard that my bones creaked. Then he released my hand and closed his eyes. I walked to the door, eager to hurry down to Burt’s cottage and see Kit. My hand resting on the handle, I glanced back at Mr. Rivers. His chest rose with shallow gasps and his fingers gripped the eiderdown. I couldn’t leave him—not like this, his face tight with pain. I couldn’t leave him with only the servants to care for him. I shut the door and settled into an easy chair, drawing a woollen blanket around my shoulders. Kit would understand.

“Mrs. Ellsworth,” I said, “I need to stay here with Mr. Rivers. Please will you go down to Burt’s cottage and check on Mr. Kit? Make sure that he’s resting. Tell him that I love him, but I must stay with his father.”

“Yes, miss,” she said.

As the door clicked shut, Mr. Rivers opened his eyes and glared at me.

“Go. Go to Kit.”

“No. He’s perfectly all right. Mrs. Ellsworth will take excellent care of him, and so will Burt.”

He sighed, brow creasing. “Shouldn’t be here. Leave,” he added, with less resolve than before.

I ignored him and wriggled in my seat, feeling drowsy in the warmth of the fire. From downstairs I heard the distant thud and hurry of the household, but it felt far away, like listening to sounds underwater. Mr. Rivers and I were cocooned in the sickroom, sequestered from the rest of the house. The last time I had been ill, he and Kit had fussed over me like a couple of worried aunts, but the person I had craved was Anna. At home in Vienna she fed me honey water and hummed the overture of
La Traviata.
Unlike most mothers, Anna couldn’t sing to me when I was ill. Her operatic voice was simply too powerful even when she sang pianissimo, but humming
La Traviata
, the opera about the dying beauty, gave the sickroom an aura of glamour. Margot complained that we were both morbid, but she was quite wrong. Imagining myself to be a wide-eyed beauty dying of consumption was my only solace when lying in bed feeling feverish and dreadful. I was not sure how much this game would comfort Mr. Rivers, but I took his hand and hummed.

Sometime later there was a knock at the door and the doctor entered. He smiled at Mr. Rivers over the top of his spectacles.

“Dashing about the country at your age. I don’t know.”

“You’d have gone yourself, John, if you’d had a boat.”

“Yes. I probably would. Come, let’s have a look at you.” The doctor turned to me. “Miss? Would you mind stepping outside while I examine the patient?”

“I’d prefer to stay.”

“Christopher?” asked the doctor.

“Yes, yes. She can stay.”

The doctor cast me an odd look, half curious and half concerned. I lingered by the fireplace, my back to the room to give the men privacy. I wanted to turn so as to see the doctor’s face while he examined him. I wanted to read in his expression what he saw, not wait for the platitudes, but I did not turn and I did not look. I closed my eyes and bit my lip and listened to the rustle of bedclothes, the unpeeling of bandages and then a sharp gasp from Mr. Rivers as the doctor explored his wound.

“It’s not deep, but it has a touch of infection. I expect you didn’t even feel it at first with all the adrenaline.”

“No. There was so much noise and so many men so badly hurt. I didn’t know I was hit. Not till we left Portsmouth.”

“Yes. Well. The infection would have set in after some hours. Why did you come back to Tyneford? Why not stay in Portsmouth?” asked the doctor, talking to distract him from the pain.

“Kit. He wanted to go back. Make another trip once we’d set the soldiers ashore. But the
Lugger
’s engine was broken. Needed a part. Bastard Germans bombed the parts depot in Portsmouth. Kit thought Burt could fix her.”

I spun around and stared at Mr. Rivers. “He can’t go back. He’s exhausted.”

Mr. Rivers smiled. “Of course not. Do you really think Burt would fix her engine, even if he could?”

I studied Mr. Rivers’ tired face, the friendly creases around his blue eyes, and tried to still my unease. “Yes. You’re right.”

I came and settled back into the chair beside the bed, reaching for his hand once again, but I was glad that I had sent Mrs. Ellsworth down to check on Kit. She wouldn’t allow any nonsense. Mr. Rivers relaxed and closed his eyes, and in a second he was asleep. The doctor stood behind me and, turning over Mr. Rivers’ wrist, took his pulse.

“Still a little fast. Fighting the infection. He’s not too feverish, which is good, but we must be careful with him.”

I nodded and looked back at the still figure in the bed.

“He’s easier with you here,” continued the doctor. “I’d prefer it if you stayed with him,” he added, giving me another odd look.

“Of course I’ll stay.”

“Christopher seems very fond of you.”

“And I am very fond of Mr. Rivers,” I replied, my voice cold. The doctor would never dare such impertinence if Mr. Rivers were awake. He chuckled and rummaged in his black leather bag.

“I’m going to put a poultice on the wound. He needs to rest and drink lots of fluids. Call me right away if there’s any change.”

“I’d be happier if you would remain in the house,” I said. “Mrs. Ellsworth will prepare a room for you.”

The doctor laughed, a hearty rumble that made his shoulders shake. “So, you started here as a housemaid? Good at giving orders now, aren’t you?”

I felt my cheeks colour. “I am sure that Mr. Rivers would be most grateful.”

The doctor continued to chuckle. “It’s all right, I’m content to stay at your request,
Miss Landau
.” He gave me a little bow. “I’ll find Wrexham. Wonder if he’s got any of that port open.”

As the doctor disappeared in search of the butler, I wrapped the coarse blanket around my shoulders and fidgeted, trying to get comfortable. Mr. Rivers still gripped my hand, and it was growing numb. I laid my head on the edge of the eiderdown and closed my eyes, ignoring the tingling in my fingers. Behind me, I heard the creak of the door open.

“Miss? Are you awake?” whispered Mrs. Ellsworth.

“Yes,” I said, sitting up, suddenly alert. “Is Kit all right?”

“Yes, yes. Sleeping like a baby. Tucked him in myself, like I did when he was a little ’un. You can rest easy now.”

“Thank you.”

I allowed her to slip a pillow behind my head and remove my shoes. She placed a bell by my hand.

“Just one little ring and I’ll be here in a moment.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Ellsworth.”

The next moment, I was asleep.