Page 53 of The Hazardous Measure of Love
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.
Adrien spent all his time with the boys while James took over command of the household. Luc and I shuttled between quick visits to the twins and long periods sitting by his mother, taking to her, dripping water between her lips. I knew that if we could not rouse her very soon, dehydration would be fatal. I think Luc knew it too, but we did not speak of it, even in the intimacy of his bedchamber after yet another desperate bout of lovemaking.
And then, on the fifth day after the accident Luc, who was sitting holding her hand and reading theThe Morning Postout loud to her, dropped the newspaper. ‘She squeezed my hand! Mama, open your eyes.’
I thought she had slipped away again, but then her lids fluttered and those beautiful sea-green eyes, so like Luc’s, were looking at me, vague and bemused.
‘Quickly, prop her up.’ I seized the water glass and held it to her lips. ‘Drink, please drink.’
She did, then her eyes closed again.
I looked at Luc. ‘That may be the turning point. If we can just watch her like a hawk, get fluids into her at every opportunity –’
The door opened and Adrien came in. ‘I may be wrong, but I think Matthew is throwing a fever,’ he said.
I pushed Luc towards the door. ‘Go and check, I will watch her.’
When they had gone I sat down, suddenly dizzy. Relief and now new anxiety, I supposed. I rang the bell and, when Pettit came, told her the good news and she understood what was needed immediately.
‘I will go and tell Cook to make barley water,’ she said, bustling out.
