Song of the Spirits (68 page)

“He was awake?” Elaine asked excitedly. “Was he the one knocking?”

Roly shook his head. “No, that was me. He couldn’t move; he was buried up to here.” The boy indicated the middle of his chest. “I tried to pull him out, but it didn’t work, and he told me to stop; it only hurt him. Everything was hurting him. But he wasn’t afraid at all. He said they’d dig us out for sure. He told me I just had to find the air shaft, by following the movement of the air, and hit against the wall with a rock. Right below the shaft. So that’s what I did.”

“And he was conscious the whole time?” Elaine clung to this hope. Timothy could not have suffered any serious internal injuries if he had spoken with the boy all day and half the night.

Mrs. Carey placed a cup of tea and a plate of sandwiches on the table in front of the boy. Roly drank thirstily while simultaneously trying to shove the food in his mouth, causing him erupt in a fit of coughing.

“Eat slowly, child,” Matt grumbled. “Nothing else is going to fall on you today, and if my nose doesn’t deceive me, the ladies are warming up some soup for you.”

Elaine waited impatiently for the boy to swallow.

“Roly, how was Mr. Lambert?” she asked impatiently. She would have liked to shake the boy.

“He went in and out the rest of the time. He was awake for a while at first, but then he wasn’t doing as well. He moaned and talked about how dark it was, and I was crying too. But then I heard them digging somewhere in the tunnel, and I thought they were getting us out, so I screamed and drummed on the walls, but Mr. Lambert wasn’t really aware of what was going on at that point. They really need to give him something to drink!” That only just seemed to occur to Roly, and he looked almost guiltily at his teacup. “He kept talking about how thirsty he was.”

Roly’s words did nothing to soothe Elaine’s uneasy heart. She heard loud voices and crying coming from the office next door. Matt noticed it too and looked concerned.

“His heart was still beating strongly,” he said in an effort to comfort Elaine.

She couldn’t stand it anymore. Determined, she went to the door and let herself in. Let Dr. Leroy toss her out—at least she would see whether Timothy was still alive.

But the doctor and his wife were too busy just then to even notice Elaine. Berta was seeing to Nellie Lambert, who was crying pitifully, while Dr. Leroy tried to calm Marvin Lambert.

“That was just like Timothy! Nothing but nonsense in his head. I always tell him that those boys aren’t worth sticking your neck out for. But he was always trying to save them. At the risk of his own life! Couldn’t he have led the rescue operations from out here? That
foreman, that Matt Gawain, he was smarter. He didn’t go storming into some adventure without thinking only to come back a cripple.”

“Matt Gawain has been in the mine for hours,” Dr. Leroy said, seeking to appease him. “And your son could not have known there would be further explosions. Other people would say he was a hero.”

“Some hero!” Marvin mocked. “He probably wanted to dig the buried men out himself. We can see where that got him.” He sounded bitter, but Elaine could smell the whiskey fumes. Perhaps the old man was trying to make himself feel better, albeit in his own vicious fashion.

Elaine followed the elder Lambert’s gaze to Timothy’s slender frame on the bed. Thank God he was still unconscious so that he was spared his parents’ reactions. His face looked gray, as did his hair. Although someone had done a quick job of washing the coal dust from his hair, a layer of greasy dirt was still lodged in his pores and the laugh lines that were so characteristic of him. To her relief, Elaine saw that his chest rose and sank evenly. So he was alive. And now that someone had spread a blanket over him, he didn’t look quite so disjointed and shattered.

Marvin Lambert held his tongue for a moment as his wife launched into a new fit of hysterics.

“And now he’ll be lame for the rest of his life. My son, a cripple!” As Nellie Lambert sobbed, Berta Leroy looked as though she had reached the limits of her patience.

Nellie collapsed over Timothy’s bed, and he groaned in his sleep.

“You’re hurting him,” Elaine said, feeling a violent urge to tear the hysterical woman away from her son. Instead, she pulled herself together and gently drew Nellie Lambert away before Berta could intervene more firmly. Nellie fled into her husband’s arms.

Elaine gave Dr. Leroy a pleading look. “So what’s wrong with him, really?” she asked quietly.

“Complex fracture of the legs,” Berta answered quickly. She seemed to want to prevent her husband from giving a more precise diagnosis that would send yet another person into hysterics. “And a broken hip. It caught a few of his ribs too.”

“Is he paralyzed?” Elaine asked. The word “cripple” was seared into her brain. She had stepped closer to Timothy’s bed and wanted to touch him, to run her hand over his forehead, or to wipe the dirt from his cheek. But she did not dare.

Dr. Leroy shook his head. “He’s not paralyzed. He would have had to break his spine for that, and it looks like he managed to avoid that. Though you have to ask yourself whether that was a blessing. If a person is lame, at least he no longer feels pain. But in this condition…”

“But broken bones heal, don’t they?” Elaine objected. “My brother broke his arm once, and that healed in no time. And my other brother fell out of a tree and broke his foot. He was in bed for a while, but then…”

“Simple fractures can heal without complications,” Dr. Leroy broke in. “But these are comminuted fractures. “We can splint them, of course, but I don’t even know where to start. We’ll have a specialist come up from Christchurch. They’ll undoubtedly heal one way or another.”

“And he’ll be able to walk again?” Elaine asked hopefully. “Not right away of course, but in a few weeks or months?”

Leroy sighed. “Child, be satisfied if he can sit in a wheelchair in a few months. This broken hip bone—”

“Now stop all the doom and gloom, Christopher!” Berta Leroy was at her wit’s end. Her husband was a good doctor but a chronic pessimist. And even if he was usually right, there was no reason to scare Timothy’s friends and family. This red-haired girl, who was somehow connected to Madame Clarisse but apparently not a whore, already looked like the slightest breeze would knock her over. When her husband had mentioned the wheelchair, all the color had drained from the girl’s face.

Berta gripped Elaine’s shoulders energetically. “Take a deep breath, dear. You won’t be helping your friend any if you go fainting on us too. Like he said, a specialist is on his way from Christchurch. Until he gets here, there’s nothing we can say with certainty.”

Elaine halfway regained control of herself. Of course, she was being absurd. She should be happy that Timothy was still alive. If
only she did not have that image from the horse race constantly before her eyes: Timothy as a radiant victor, smiling as he leaped from his horse, climbing the winner’s podium fleet of foot, and embracing Fellow before swinging back into the saddle. She could not imagine the same man in a wheelchair, condemned to inactivity. Perhaps the doctor was right, and he would find it worse than death.

But she would think about all that later. First she needed to ask Berta Leroy what she could do for Timothy, if there was anything that might keep her occupied.

Berta, however, had moved on to Nellie Lambert. “Now, madam, would you get ahold of yourself,” she hissed at Timothy’s sobbing mother. “There are a lot of women outside who lost their husbands and sons today. And, what’s more, they don’t even know how they’re going to scrape together the money to bury them. You, on the other hand, have your son back. You should be thanking God instead of crying your eyes out senselessly. Where is that pastor anyway? Madam, go see if you can find someone outside who will drive you home. We’re going to wash and feed this boy, and then put him to bed while he’s still unconscious. He’s got enough pain ahead of him. Christopher?”

His wife was pleased to see that he was already sorting his splints and bandages. She then turned back to Elaine.

“Feeling better, dear? Good. Then go look for Mrs. Carey. We need someone else here who knows how to do the work.” Berta turned to Timothy’s bed and moved to air the sheets.

Elaine followed her. “I can help.”

Berta Leroy shook her head. “No, not you. The last thing you need tonight is to be changing the dressings on your sweetheart’s legs and yanking on them. Then you really will faint on me.”

“He’s not my sweetheart,” Elaine whispered.

Berta laughed. “No, of course not, dear; you’re as cold as a dog’s nose! Completely indifferent. You’ve just stuck around by chance because you know Tim Lambert in passing, right? Tell it to someone a little more gullible. But before that, bridle that little horse of yours. Madame Clarisse’s carriage is still here, right? Find someone to take the seats out. We need to be able to fit a stretcher in there.”

“You want to send the man home tonight, Berta?” Dr. Leroy asked reluctantly. “In his condition?”

Berta Leroy shrugged. “His condition is hardly going to change in the next few weeks. Besides, he’ll wake up tomorrow, and then he’ll be able to feel every pothole. This way, we spare him that torture.”

Elaine began to see who in the Leroys’ practice was really in charge.

“But the family—”

Berta, interrupting her husband, turned to Elaine.

“What are you waiting for, girl? Off you go to the stables.”

Elaine ran outside. Deep down, she knew that Dr. Leroy was right. If she brought Timothy to the Lamberts’ house, his father would assail him with accusations, and his mother would hardly be able to look after him in her distressed state. She now understood why Timothy spent every evening in the pub. It must have been hell to have his parents cast helplessly upon him.

Banshee and Fellow whinnied as Elaine entered the stables. Several miners had collapsed in the straw, exhausted after the rescue operations. She had not noticed the men before, or she would never have gone to sleep there so fearlessly. She had to shake a few of them awake, as she would never manage to prepare Madame Clarisse’s carriage to transport Timothy on her own. She chose two of the older, more easygoing fellows she knew in passing from the pub. Although the men were not especially enthusiastic, they acknowledged the urgency and fetched their tools.

Unfortunately, they left dirty fingerprints all over Madame Clarisse’s red velvet upholstery. Elaine would have to clean it afterward. She sighed. Would the day ever end?

When Elaine pulled up in front of the office building with the modified carriage, the Leroys were still quarreling. Berta seemed to want to treat Timothy at their medical facility, which had a small two-bed hospital. The doctor, however, was of the opinion that a nurse hired
by the Lamberts could do just as much for Timothy at home. And Timothy was going to require months of care.

Berta shook her head at such male lack of understanding. “The nurse would be able to wash him and change his bandages, but what else? You’ve seen what the Lamberts are like. If you send him into that, you’ll have a serious case of depression on your hands. And do you think any of his friends would brave that place to visit him? Matt Gawain maybe, every three weeks in his Sunday suit. There’s always something happening at our place, though. His chums can pop in, all of the town’s respectable ladies will send their daughters by, and Madame Clarisse’s girls come by unchaperoned, anyway.” Berta smiled when she saw Elaine standing in the doorway. “Especially that one,” she added, “who doesn’t think much of him.”

Elaine blushed.

Dr. Leroy gave up. “All right, fine. In our hospital then. Do we have two men to carry the stretcher? And we’ll need at least four people to maneuver him onto it.”

Timothy’s body, including his chest, was wrapped in bulky bandages. His arms, however, looked unharmed. That gave Elaine hope. She turned pale again, though, when the Leroys and their assistants raised him from the bed, and he groaned loudly.

“I’ve lined the carriage with blankets,” she said.

Berta nodded and followed the stretcher-bearers to the carriage. “Very nice, you think ahead. I’ll ride with you and try to keep him soothed. Who does that second horse belong to?”

Elaine had tied Fellow to the back of the carriage.

She pointed to Timothy. “His. The Lamberts forgot about him. But he couldn’t just stay behind here.”

Berta grinned. “You really are a saint. Caring for a man nothing ties you to and even looking out for his nag. It’s exemplary! Maybe the pastor should give a sermon about that sometime.”