Chapter Five: First Aid
Of course, Jenny still spent some time with her grandmother, despite the statues having stolen much of her affections. One afternoon she was inside having tea and biscuits with the Lady Lobelia, and George Hendrickson was alone in the garden.
As usual he muttered as he worked spading up the soil around some of the rosebushes. Thompkins found the endless stream of complaints slightly amusing, even when, as so often happened, they centred on Lady Lobelia's new garden accents. The statues were in the way, Hendrickson felt, and just made a nuisance to shovel around. Thompkins took no offence, guessing rightly that Hendrickson would have found something else to complain about if the four statues had not been there to serve the purpose.
Driving the spade half angrily into the dirt, he was far from being as careful as he should have been, and with one particularly forceful thrust, he struck the knee of one of the statues.
A chip of stone flew off, the pain so great that Thompkins wished he had a voice to scream; wished he could clench his teeth or take a deep breath or do anything as a reaction to the pain. It hurt worse than anything he had ever felt as a flesh and blood dwarf, he felt sure; whether because he had never before been struck hard on the kneecap or from some property of the stone, he had no way of knowing.
As the spade clanged on the stone and Hendrickson realized what he had done, he was silent for the first time in all his years of tending Lady Lobelia's gardens. Panting with the horror of having damaged one of her precious statues, he bent to see if perhaps the damage could be hidden by pulling a leafy branch to cover it.
What he saw struck terror in his heart; for a moment he stopped breathing. Then he jumped to his feet and ran for the house, wailing incoherently and flapping his hands in the air.
Lady Lobelia half started to her feet as he burst into the room where she and Jenny sat having tea. "Good heavens, Hendrickson; whatever is the matter?"
"The statue! The statue!"
"Well, what about the statue, then?"
"Which one?" Jenny demanded; no one paid attention to her.
"I chipped it — just a little, my lady; barely enough to show — and it's bleeding! The statue's bleeding!" He was nearly sobbing now in his fear, and Lady Lobelia snorted softly.
"For goodness' sake stop that noise. Of course the statue isn't bleeding; you probably got a bit of sap or red clay on it. Really, I don't expect this kind of hysteria from you, George."
"But, my lady, if you saw it…" Hendrickson insisted, slightly calmer but his hands still trembling.
"I don't have to see it to know bleeding statues are utter nonsense," Lady Lobelia insisted firmly. "I know what the matter is, Hendrickson; you've been drinking."
"No, my lady —"
"Now, don't deny it; we both know you're too fond of the bottle for your own good, and now see what a fool it's made of you. You go home and sleep it off, and when you come tomorrow I don't want any more talk of bleeding statues."
"Yes, my lady," he murmured, turning to go. "But I wasn't drinking," he muttered under his breath as he went. "An' I know what I saw, an' it wasn't any sap or clay. Huh! Unnatural, those statues are; woulda done better to leave 'em where she found 'em…"
oOo
In all their debate, neither Hendrickson nor Lady Lobelia had noticed when Jenny slipped from the room.
The gnomes were so real to her that the idea of one bleeding didn't seem frightening or even strange; her first thought was worry over one of her friends being hurt. So as Lady Lobelia attempted to reason with Hendrickson, Jenny had left them and run out into the garden, calling her friends' names and anxiously looking to see which one had been damaged.
"Oh, poor Thompkins!" she exclaimed on seeing his knee, a chip about the size of a tuppence missing and blood running down his leg.
Thompkins found that her sympathy strangely seemed to make the pain of his injury a little less, though he was himself slightly shaken by the idea that he could bleed even as a statue. Had he encountered such a thing himself, he could well believe he would have gone screaming and running as Hendrickson had. Dear, brave Daughter of Eve! he thought fondly as Jenny dropped to her hands and knees to search through the leaves for the piece of stone.
"You'll be fine, Thompkins," she cooed softly. Suddenly she pounced, emerging triumphant with the bit of stone in her hand. Several crumbs of dirt clung to it, and she regarded it and the trickle of blood thoughtfully for a moment. "I'll be right back," she promised, and ran to the spigot at the side of the house to wash the chip off. When she returned, she was carrying a small watering can half full of water; the rest appeared to have splashed onto her dress.
"This might sting," she warned, and sprinkled the water from the can over Thompkins' knee, washing the blood away. Before more could appear, she placed the chip where it belonged, turning it carefully until she found the position where it seemed to fit perfectly. Thompkins found the pain immediately lessened; bearable now, though still worse than he had ever felt as a flesh and blood dwarf.
Holding the chip in place with one hand, Jenny dug in her pocket with the other, producing a freshly folded handkerchief. Wrapping it once around Thompkins' knee, she tied it carefully in front. "There! Now I'll kiss it an' make it all better, like Mummy does when I scrape my knee." Bending, she planted a soft kiss on the bandage.
At first neither Thompkins nor Jenny noticed a change. But then Thompkins realized a strange sensation was spreading from the spot Jenny had kissed; almost as if he were returning to his living flesh, if such a thing hadn't been impossible.
Jenny watched in wide-eyed wonder and amazement as colour spread over Thompkins' leg, then rapidly engulfed his whole body.
Only Aslan could break the spell of the White Witch and bring life back to creatures she had turned to stone, but there was no reason he could not use the kiss of a little girl to do it if he so chose. And unlike the Witch, his power was not in the least diminished in the World of Men, or indeed in any world.
But Tompkins knew or thought of none of that, revelling only in the feeling of life spreading through his stone-cold limbs.
Next chapter coming next week!
I proofread all my stories at least once before posting, but if you see any mistakes I might have missed, please let me know! (Note that this story is formatted using British spellings.)
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