September 17th 1892: Erik
Meg had barely uttered her question when we heard a second noise behind us. I had thought the one before to be loud, but it had been nothing compared to this one. It was so loud that Meg covered her ears with her hands. I felt the urge to do the same, but it was impossible. I had to comfort the horse, which was in panic. Its ears pressed flat against its head, which it held much too high, it only knew one way to react to the seeming threat: running away.
It was good that I was wearing leather gloves, or the animal might have succeeded in pulling the reins out of my hands. Yet instead of pulling against it, thus causing the horse more pain, I used a combination of releasing and pulling I had learned many years ago. The soothing quality of my voice had quite a good effect as well. Still it took a few minutes of racing down the road till I managed to make the horse stop.
The poor animal was trembling from head to hooves, and there were large dark patches of sweat on its normally white body. I was trembling, too, from the effort as well as from shock, and Meg… It was only now that I noticed she had flung her arms around my body and was holding me tight. When she realised that the danger was over, she disentangled herself from me. Under normal circumstances she might have blushed, but now her face was pale and shining with sweat.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled, straightening her skirts. "I just… had to hold onto something. I was so scared I could be thrown off the coach."
"It's all right," I assured her, giving her a thin smile, which was all I was capable of at the moment. "I was scared, too. But now we've got to find out what has happened."
Fortunately the street was broad enough for me to make the coach turn around. Persuading the horse to go back to the place it had just fled from turned out to be a much more difficult task. No matter how comforting my words were, the only direction into which it moved was backwards. Of course I had a whip, but I'd have never used it on a frightened animal.
Finally Meg and I left the coach, and I asked a man who was just coming down the street to hold the horse for a while. In exchange for a few coins he was more than willing to do so. As we hurried to the place where we had heard the noise, I noticed that there were far more people in the street now than there had been before. The reason soon became clear to me, as I made my way through the crowd and saw the full extend of what had happened.
The de Chagnys' coach, which had been behind us all the time, was lying on the ground, on its right side. As far as I could see, both wheels on that side were not on their usual place. They were lying a few yards away. Slowly I let my gaze wander over the wooden frame. A lot of it was broken, but replacing it wouldn't be too hard, I thought automatically. One or two days in the hands of a talented carpenter, then the coach would run smoothly again.
Yet I wasn't foolish enough to seriously believe that I was examining the coach closely because I was interested in it. I just wanted to avoid looking at the two others involved in the accident. After one or two minutes, however, I could no longer postpone it. Slowly I looked over at the place whete the horse usually was.
It was not as bad as it could have been. To my enormous relief the animal was not lying on the ground. Apparently two men had freed the mare from her reins. One of them still held a large pocket knife in his hand, while the other one tried to comfort the completely distressed horse. She was unnaturally calm, probably from the shock. Fortunately nothing seemed to be broken. There were a few scratches on her sides, where the pole had hit her, but apart from that there were no visible injuries.
I approached the men quickly.
"This is my coach," I informed them. "Did you see what happened?"
"Of course," the man holding the horse said readily, hardly looking up from stroking the mare's neck. "Gilles here…" He pointed at the man with the knife. "… and I were just coming down the street when two coaches passed us. Suddenly – I know how strange this must sound, but you've got to believe me – both wheels on the right side of the second coach fell off. They just fell off, almost at the same time and without any reason. I mean, the coach didn't run over a big stone or something like that. It swayed, then crashed to the ground. We ran over and tried to help at once. The horse had fallen, too, and couldn't free itself, so we did it. We had to cut the reins, though. I hope you don't mind, Monsieur."
"Of course I don't mind," I assured him. There were far more important things than reins on my mind at the moment. "And what happened to the coachman?" I asked quickly.
Both men shrugged.
"We only saw that he was thrown out of the coach when it fell to the ground," the man with the knife replied. "There were a few people caring for him, so we thought it better to look after the horse…" He smiled apologetically. "The man's over there," he added, gesturing vaguely as a spot next to the coach, where indeed five or six people were standing in a circle.
I knew I had to go there, too, but I also had to make sure the mare would be cared for.
"I can't take the horse home in her present state," I explained. "She looks much too exhausted. Do either of you know a place where she could stay for the night?"
The man called Gilles nodded.
"There's a blacksmith just around the corner," he answered. "He has a little stable, and as far as I know, there should be room for one more horse."
"Then take her there," I said. Hastily I thrust my hand into the pocket of my jacket and pulled out a few bank notes. "This should be enough for the blacksmith," I added. "And this…" I gave them another one. "…is for you. You've been very helpful. Thank you, Messieurs."
"You're welcome," the men said, leading the horse away slowly. At least it wasn't lame.
I watched them for a few moments, then I went over to the other people. It was here that I saw Meg again. She was kneeling next to the coachman, who lay on the ground. His face was as white as milk, yet he wasn't unconscious. His eyes were open, and I could hear him try to talk to Meg in a faint whisper. Quickly I knelt down on his other side. Now I could understand him.
"…don't know… what happened… just fell… fell… how… why…?"
"Don't try to speak now," I advised him. "It'll only make you more tired."
Meg, who only seemed to have noticed me now, looked up with gratitude in her eyes. The people surrounding us merely gawked at us, and apparently she appreciated the support of someone who'd actually do something.
"Does a doctor live nearby?" I asked the crowd. A young man nodded. "Then get him here," I ordered. "Tell him I'll pay for all his expenses." The man nodded again and left.
"Can't you do anything?" Meg asked pleadingly. "He looks so terrible…" She wasn't wrong about that. The man's clothes were torn and dirty, and there was a disturbing amount of blood, especially around his head, which couldn't be a good sign.
"Well, I do have some knowledge of how to take care of injuries," I started cautiously. "I myself only go to the doctor's when it can't be avoided. But this is serious. If I do something wrong, this man could regret it for the rest of his life."
So we waited. The doctor, an elderly, balding man, arrived after ten extremely long minutes. Fortunately he had already been told what had happened, so we didn't have to do it. He began to examine the coachman's body closely, prodding it at various places, bending the arms and legs and peering into his eyes. Meg and I watched the scene with baited breath.
Finally the doctor straightened up again.
"He was lucky," he said, coming to his feet. "There are no broken bones. As far as I can see, his thick travelling cloak cushioned the fall. The arm he landed on is heavily bruised, though. So is his back. The blood mostly comes from a cut at the back of his head, but I've bandaged it."
I threw him a sceptical glance. All that didn't sound like my interpretation of the word ´lucky´.
"It could have been much worse," he told me. "If he had landed under the coach… Let's try not to think about it. He should lie in bed for a few days… maybe a week… till his head feels better. It'll take weeks for the bruises to fade away completely, but apart from that, he'll be fine." With these final words, the doctor took the money from me and walked away.
Fifteen minutes later everything was settled. A few men had agreed to drag the coach to the side of the street, so that no one would accidentally run over it on the dark. They had also carried the coachman to the other coach and placed him on the bench. Now we could finally continued our journey.
This time we rode in silence, though, with the occasional groans of the coachman as only interruption. I was driving as quickly as possible without causing the man more pain. I didn't feel safe here anymore. All I wanted was reach the Tavoire estate and go home again.