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‘Stay there,’ I told him and turned back to the lake in time to see Luc heaving an ominously still little body onto the grass. Which boy was which? I couldn’t tell.

At least I had been trained for this. ‘Let me.’ I pushed Luc aside and cleared the airway, then began chest compressions, horribly conscious of how small the body under my thrusting hands was. ‘Watch me,’ I ordered. ‘It looks brutal, but it has to be. You must take over when I get tired, unless he starts to breathe first.’

I could feel myself flagging, the words of Staying Alive, that I was using to keep time, were coming out in gasps. And then, under my hands, I felt a change. I stopped, turned him on his side and he gave a huge, rasping breath, then, like his brother, threw up a flood of lake water.

‘Thank God.’ Luc stood up, turned towards the carriages and stopped dead. ‘No.’

The driver and Mrs Yates were sprawled on the grass, one of the nursemaids, kneeling by them. The other was standing by the door, blood on her hands and apron. Luc pushed her aside and I heard him say, ‘Mama!’

Chapter Sixteen

The driver of our carriage had cut the traces to free the team from the crashed coach and sent them galloping over the bridge towards the house. ‘That’ll bring someone out,’ he said when he reached me.

‘Help me get the boys into our carriage,’ I told him. We lifted them in, wrapped them both up in rugs, and I sent him off with them and one of the nursemaids. ‘Make sure someone stays with them the whole time,’ I told them. ‘Tell them to keep the boys awake.’

He seemed reliable, so I just had to trust him. I turned back to the wrecked coach, dreading what I was going to find.

The driver was sitting up clutching his head and groaning. Mrs Yates had her eyes open and was, quite coherently, demanding to know whether the boys were safe. I checked quickly that neither of them were bleeding visibly and that both could move all their limbs: then I looked inside.

Lady Radcliffe was unconscious, breathing – and bleeding. ‘It is a head wound,’ I said to Luc. ‘They always bleed worst. Get me one of the trunks down and find some clean linen. The boys are fine, I have sent them back to the house. Help is coming.’

He was white, but steady. We had the head wound bandaged, but I was very worried about the possibility of a neck injury. I explained to Luc what we had to do to immobilise her so she could be lifted out and, thankfully, when people began to stream out of the house to our aid they brought makeshift stretchers, more bandages and there were enough strong young footmen and grooms to get her out of the vehicle, strapped flat on a board.

‘We have sent for the doctor,’ Felbrigg the butler said as we reached the front door. ‘The boys are in the drawing room and recovering, I believe. They are making up a bed in the small salon for her ladyship.’

I rarely see Luc at a loss, but I could tell he did not know which way to turn now. I gave his arm a brisk shake. ‘Go and check on the boys: they are conscious and will be frightened. I will sit with your mother.’ He gave a sharp nod and strode into the drawing room as I made for the salon. ‘Have anyone else with injuries made comfortable in the blue sitting room and send one of the maids to make sure they are all right,’ I told Felbrigg, then straightened my spine and walked up to Lady Radcliffe’s couch as though I was confident that I knew what I was doing.

We had twisted one of the carriage rugs into a support for her head to keep her spine still, and that had stayed in place. I ran my hands over her legs and arms and could feel no breaks, so I tickled her palms and was rewarded by a slight movement of both hands.

‘Help me take off her shoes,’ I told Pettit, her abigail, who came running in. ‘We have to keep her body absolutely still.’

I explained about the risk of spinal injury and together we managed to get off the half-boots. I tried running my fingernail down the soles of her feet but there was no reaction. We looked at each other and I saw the same fear in Pettit’s eyes. ‘Be quiet about this,’ I told her. ‘I don’t want to worry anyone unnecessarily.’ But how, in the absence of scans, was I going to be able to tell if there was a spinal fracture, even if she could move her legs?

At which point Luc came in. ‘They are both conscious,’ he told me as he knelt beside the couch and took his mother’s hand. ‘Do you hear that, Mama? Both boys are all right, the water broke their fall.’

He met my gaze and I murmured, ‘She is still unconscious. I cannot find breaks in any of her limbs, but I am still concerned in case she has hurt her spine. When the doctor comes, do not let him bleed anyone.’

He nodded, still watching his mother’s face. ‘I remember what you told me about that.’

* * *

From then on the day blurred into the evening and then the night. The doctor came, checked everyone for broken limbs and found only that Nanny Yates’s left wrist was fractured. The two nursemaids and the driver were bruised and shocked but otherwise unharmed. They were all packed off to warm beds with staff allocated to attend them.

The boys seemed all right, although tearful and very subdued. They wanted their Grandmama as well as their Papa and fretted when she couldn’t come.

Thankfully, although inclined to poker-up at Luc’s refusal to have anyone bled, the doctor agreed about the danger of spinal injuries. Eventually we managed to get Lady Radcliffe undressed and into a nightgown and he examined her back and neck.

‘It is all aligned as it should be and I can see no swelling, nor can I feel any unnatural movement,’ he told Luc, when he was finally readmitted to the sickroom. ‘The blow to the head was severe, but the bone is not broken or pushed in. I cannot deny that I would be much happier if her ladyship was conscious.’

He left us with a list of instructions which I glanced through and decided could be largely ignored. Then I set about rallying my troops. The boys were carried in and told that their grandmother was sleeping, which reassured them enough for me to pack them off with Luc to put them to bed, with one of the older and more sensible maids to sit up and watch them.

Pettit told me that she would stay with Lady Radcliffe for the first part of the night so that Luc and I could get some rest. I had little hope of him sleeping, but he saw the sense in at least lying down for a while. Then, when we finally fell into bed together he turned to me and we made love with a kind of life-affirming desperation and, thankfully, he fell asleep as though drugged immediately afterwards.

* * *

A week passed in a haze of anxiety, sickroom routine and the constant struggle to manage the twins. Luc wrote to James, I wrote to Adrien, and they both arrived in the afternoon of the third day.

Lady Radcliffe was still unconscious, although we could now get some reaction from touching her feet, which was a relief, because I felt more confident about moving her regularly to prevent bed sores.


Tags: Louise Allen Science Fiction