continued: there's a touch of gore-ishness in this one. Just a bit.
Chapter Eleven
They flew along the road at a fair speed. The car wasn't going as fast as when they had started out but it still was going at a pretty good lick. The landscape flew past them as they bumped along and they laughed at the pure joy of being unrestrained and away from the dubious effort of acting proper.
George turned around a few times to look at O'Malley. At first he had his eyes closed and a look of dread on his face but eventually he joined in the laughter. The chauffeur was not used to having fun while he was in a car that belonged to the Grantham estate, but he was young enough to get in on it.
Sybbie had such a look of joy while they flew along that George had stopped nagging her to drive a little more carefully. She had teased him about being an old man and being too overly cautious. He let himself go in a sense when he realized he didn't have this kind of joy in his life. Everything was so proper and rehearsed. He was expected to behave the gentleman. At school. At home. No matter where he went, he could not recall ever having laughed so hard. He told himself again how happy he was that Sybbie was there visiting this Christmas. It would definitely alleviate some of the boredom that he feared would cast a pall on his visit home. It wasn't that he didn't love his family, but it seemed they had forgotten how to have fun.
Sybbie teased him about his new interest in pretty young ladies and he knew he blushed but he teased her right back about the young man she had taken a fancy to recently in Boston. George had threatened to go over to America himself just to have a chat with the man. Sybbie had laughed at him.
The bond they had shared by spending their youngest years in the same nursery had cemented their lifelong friendship but Sybbie living so far away now that their friendship was paused for a time. George was grateful that no matter how much time passed, they always slipped right back into being kindred spirits. It wasn't hard with his cousin. He adored her and her sense of humour and her ability to live life so vivaciously. He knew that sometimes he was jealous of her. Her relationship with her surviving parent was so much better than his. She could do whatever she wanted in her life but his future was laid out before him. He would have to live through her and this little trip was one of the times he would remember forever.
As he laughed at Sybbie's impression of Barrow fretting over a late dinner he found himself thinking of his father. He wished he could have known him. He always wished it. His hand went to the gold cufflinks that Molesley had fretted about letting him wear that morning. The valet had warned him not to lose them. He had sworn to protect them with his life. He twisted one in his sleeve and as he looked up he caught a glimpse of pink through the trees as they approached a left turn in the road.
He called out for Sybbie to slow down, he thought there was someone on the road ahead and she turned her head to ask him to repeat what he had said.
They turned the corner and Sybbie turned her head back to the road. She screamed as she realized the two young girls on the road were in the middle and a collision was inevitable. She reefed hard on the steering wheel and tried with all her might to pull the car to the right to avoid them.
George saw the girls and recognized them even though everything that happened was so fast there was nothing he could do. It was the Bates girls. He saw Lena try to pull her sister out of the way but the solid thunk as the car struck the younger girl rang in his ears for only a millisecond.
He closed his eyes as the car flew into the thicket of trees and everything went black.
Unaware of how much time had passed, he eventually struggled to open his eyes. There was so much pain emanating from his body that he didn't know what hurt the most. He blinked open his eyes and only saw red. His fingers went up to rub his eyes and they felt a warm stickiness.
He blinked again and though everything was blurry, he could tell there was blood on his hands. He couldn't tell where it was coming from but he did feel it running down his face. It blurred his one eye and it wasn't long before he could not see from it as it swelled shut. He reached his hand up to his head and felt the tear in the flesh and the warm liquid flowing out of it. He knew that couldn't be good. He struggled for a few more seconds to get his bearings and he looked over to Sybbie. She was slumped over the steering wheel not moving. He called to her. No response.
He undid his lap belt with his hands trembling and pain shot through his back when he tried to move. He slid over to Sybbie trying not to cry out in pain. He felt her neck for a pulse. Her heart was still beating. He undid her belt as well and tried to pull her out of the car. He managed to get her halfway across the front seat before he heard the crying from the road. Or screaming. He couldn't tell for sure. He was trying very hard to regain his senses but he was having trouble, his vision was blurry out of his good eye. He left Sybbie laying in the front seat and climbed out the shattered window after attempting to open the door. The impact with the tree had jammed the door shut on the passenger side.
He fell to his knees as he climbed out, his head was ringing. His nerves told him then every single place that he had been hurt and he took a second to catch his breath. There was definitely crying coming from the road. He got up and stumbled towards it.
He saw her arm before anything else. It was mangled below the elbow and a ridiculous amount of blood was pouring from it. Beside the younger girl was her sister. She was kneeling, trying to wake her sister up, and George could tell she was in shock. She was crying uncontrollably.
"Lena! Are you okay? Are you hurt?" His voice sounded strange to himself from inside his damaged head.
She didn't reply, she only looked at her sister.
"Lena! Listen to me!" Her eyes shifted towards him, "You have to go get help!"
She seemed to understand him and she cried harder.
"Lena! You have to go now!" He tried to sound serious and urgent. He could tell by the amount of blood pouring out of Emma that she didn't have much time.
"Lena! NOW!"
She stood up and looked at him for a second, closed her eyes briefly and then took off running down the road. He lost site of her as she ran around the corner and looked back down to Emma.
He closed his eyes and tried to remember reading his Grandfather's medical journals. He used to spend time reading them when visiting his Grand-mama and now he tried desperately to remember reading anything that dealt with this.
Stop the bleeding.
The thought pounded in his head.
He looked at Emma again and saw that her upper arm didn't seem to be damaged. It was as though right at her elbow her arm had been twisted off. She hadn't been struck fully by the car it had only hit her arm. She was still unconscious, probably from the shock of the collision. He didn't see any damage on her head and her pretty little face just looked still and calm.
He looked around for something to tie around her arm to cease the blood flow but he couldn't find anything. The glimmer of the gold cufflink showing just below his jacket gave him an idea.
He cried out himself as the pain in his back peaked while he pulled off his overcoat and then his jacket. He pulled hard on the sleeve repeatedly and eventually felt the stitching start to give. The ripping sound in his ears made him smile strangely in victory.
He pulled the sleeve off of his arm and with deft fingers tied it around Emma's upper arm. He pulled it as tight as he could and the passage from the medical journal came to his mind. He knew what he was doing.
He could tell that there would be no saving the arm so he tied it as tight as he could. He sensed he wouldn't have to worry about keeping any blood flow to the lower arm. He noticed instantly that the blood had nearly stopped pouring out of her arm. He had bought her some time if nothing else.
His head was pounding and he noticed his own blood dripping off his chin onto his white shirt. There was no time to worry about himself as he tried to make his way back to the car but his vision was dimming.
He was within reach of the car and he looked in the back seat of the car to see O'Malley laying on his back. There was blood gurgling from his mouth. It made him sick to see it.
He turned around to vomit. The nausea that had been creeping up finally made itself important.
He was sick as he fell to his knees and then everything went black.
The next thing he remembered was hearing his Granny Cora calling his name. He tried to open his eye, the other one wouldn't respond but all he could see was the white of the ceiling as he travelled underneath it. It made him dizzy and everything went black again...
...And that was the story he told his Grandfather and Bates as they sat beside his bed now.
At least most of the story. He changed some minor details as he saw fit to mesh with the story that he was going with.
The emotion of reliving the events had an obvious effect on him and he ended the story with a sob. Remembering all the blood was traumatized him again. He tried to remain dignified in the presence of his Grandfather but the horror that he had seen was hard on his still-young psyche.
Unsure what to do, Robert left the room to find either his wife or Mary, or someone. Anyone.
Bates sat awkwardly for only a moment longer and thanked George for everything he had done. He had saved Emma's life and John expressed his gratitude again now that he knew the truth. And apologized for the tenth time since entering the room for his behaviour in the past.
George held his face in his hands and cried. Cried for everything.
As Bates left the room he saw immediately that Lady Mary was standing there. The look on her face was one of anger he hadn't seen often.
Her father was speaking with her about why the two men were in George's room.
"You have no right to upset him like this!" Mary was livid. "I told you to keep Bates away from him. We could have dealt with this when he was feeling better!"
When she saw Bates she started to tell him off too and he just stood there and accepted it.
Robert interrupted her and told her of the revelation that the two men had about George saving Emma's life at the scene of the accident. She was shocked too. George hadn't told her about that little detail.
"You expect him to act so mature, but he's still just a boy. I can't imagine what he has gone through these past days. He's clearly not ready to deal with the truth about the hardness of life. We should be gentle with him." Mary had backed down her attack on Bates and now spoke mostly to her father.
"I understand that Mary. But he caused this accident, and now he must deal with the repercussions. But I do apologize for upsetting him. We should have waited until you were here." Lord Grantham was sincerely apologetic. He had rushed into it with no thought of the intimate details.
Mary bit her tongue against the words she was about to say to her father. She had almost given away her son's secret. Instead, she just turned away from them and entered her son's room.
He was curled up on the bed in a foetal position and was crying. She sat down beside him and pulled him up to hold him tightly in her arms.
"No matter what anyone says, know that you're my hero darling. I'm so proud of you." She rubbed his back as he let out some clearly pent up emotions.
She hoped that would be enough. For now.
To be continued: Tomorrow is Christmas! Yay!...?