Chapter 32 –

Meg took the forty other students back to the school while Elizabeth took Erik's eleven students to her house. Emily was nestled in Elizabeth's arms and she held Andrews hand with her free one. They arrived at the house after the doctor had arrived and Elizabeth got the children sitting down in a sitting room while she hurried to Erik's bedroom. The doctor was inside and the two teachers stood outside the door.

"I think the doctor would prefer to work alone…" Mr. Colvin began. Elizabeth's gaze cut him off.

"I don't really care what the doctor would prefer right now." She opened the door.

The doctor looked to her but did not ask her to leave. She could not tell what the man was doing but she stood there watching the slow rise and fall of Erik's chest hoping he would be alright.

"Will he be okay doctor?" Elizabeth finally got up the courage to ask. She tried to steady her breathing as best she could. Erik looked helpless and she knew that when he woke up, he would be upset over the mask being gone, in fact, she knew he'd be furious.

"If he wakes up, he should be alright." The doctor replied cautiously.

"What if he doesn't wake up?" She almost didn't want to hear the answer, but she also knew she'd need to prepare for the worst.

"He is in what is called a coma Miss Bennet, he is non-responsive to anything that we may do to him, if he comes out of it in the next day or so there should be no permanent damage, but if he remains in it for longer than that, even if his breathing stays regular, he will eventually become over dehydrated and…" He didn't want to say the word, so Elizabeth just nodded, she knew what he meant.

"Is there any way to get him out of the coma?" She asked weakly.

"He must do that himself." The doctor replied, he put a hand on her shoulder to try and comfort her. She didn't move.

"Miss Bennet?" Called a voice from behind the door. "The children don't want to wait any longer, are they allowed inside?" Elizabeth couldn't even tell which of her teachers were talking, she just nodded and the doctor went to open the door. She didn't want the students to see him like this, but they would not leave until they did.

They all walked into the room slowly, the looks on their faces reminded Elizabeth of how improper this was, she was going to get in a lot of trouble from the parents later. She almost laughed at the fact that she was thinking about what the parents would think.

"Miss Bennet?" It was Caroline; Elizabeth came out of her thoughts and looked to the children. "Will he be alright? Nothing will happen to him right?" The girl was trying to hold herself together, but she was worried and strained from the whole ordeal, and she probably had been holding the rest of the group together since it happened.

"Yes, Miss Bennet he is breathing so he will be alright. Won't he?" This was Frederick his face was tear streaked.

"I hope so," It was all she could say, if she were to get their hopes up, and then heaven forbid something happened she would never forgive herself.

"What about his mask?" Emily asked. "He never takes that off."

"It broke remember, we found it in two pieces at the river." Andrew Billings replied.

"Oh, right." Emily said barely over a whisper. "We should make him a new one, or maybe it would be easier to fix the one he already has."

"Could we Miss Bennet?" Jimmy asked hopefully.

"Alright, I'll give it to you, but do not make it worse, and he probably would not like it to be decorated." They nodded. "We should let him rest though, you head down to the sitting room again and I will be down in a minute to take you back to the school." They wanted to stay and sit with him, but Elizabeth knew that just seeing him was hurting them and she wouldn't make this harder.

When everyone, even the doctor left the room she sat down next to him and put her hand on top of his. "Erik. You need to be alright, we all need you here. I would give up anything to see you open your eyes." She kissed him lightly on his unmasked face then ran her finger down the marred skin. She swept his hair from his face then headed downstairs just as some sort of commotion began.

When she arrived in the front room she not only found her family back at the house, but they were accompanied by a group of parents, the first thing Elizabeth heard was Andrew sobbing to his mother and father at the front door.

"I was playing around the river with Mr. Erik, we were looking at something called fools gold and I fell in, then…"

"What?" The Vicomte boomed and nearly everyone else in the room went silent. "I told you Christine, that man would never change, he tried to kill our son, I should have trusted myself earlier, Andrew never should have been allowed here. He looked around the room but did not spot the man he was looking for, he did however see Elizabeth. "Where is he?" He demanded of Elizabeth. He didn't hear the protests of everyone around him. "Tell me now or I will tear this house apart. You're protection will not save him, I will find him and kill him!"

Elizabeth slapped him as hard as she could across his face the sound caused everyone to go silent. "Erik saved your son's life. He jumped in after Andrew when the bank of the river collapsed. Erik is upstairs fighting for his life and this is how you repay him for saving your son? Get out of my house!" She screamed at him, all her composure as gone, she could have easily ruined her career in one specific statement but she did not care.

"Raoul, we are leaving." This was Christine, she took her husbands arm with as much force as a woman of her size and build could, and forced him out of the home. Andrew gave Elizabeth a hug and hurried after him.

David took control of the situation and gestured for his wife to help his sister. Jane took Elizabeth to a different room and sat down with her. Elizabeth finally let herself cry properly. She finally got out everything she was feeling to her sister in law.

David hurried and got all the parents and students sent back to the school. Daniel took Amelia to go play a game with her in order for them to stay out of the way.

"What's going on Daniel, what happened?"

"I don't know, but we will know soon enough. For now though, Father and Elizabeth need us out of the way. Why don't we go play that card game Erik taught you?" Amelia followed obediently.

David found the two women sitting in a different study. Elizabeth was crying and Jane began to tell him what had happened. As soon as he heard the story, David hurried up to see Erik, the doctor was back in the room, but he was getting ready to leave.

"Doctor, I will pay you a hundred pounds if you stay here and do everything you can for this man."

"There is not much else I can do. It is up to him now. I'll tell you what I told Miss Bennet, if he wakes up soon he will be fine, but if he goes too long without water or food he will die."

"There is nothing else you can do?" David was reaching.

"No." He replied sadly.

"Thank you for all your help. I will have your payment sent to your office tomorrow." David replied. He went over to the bed and prayed for Elizabeth's sake that he would be alright.

"Daniel, we shouldn't be doing this, you said so yourself, Father and Aunt Elizabeth need us to stay out of the way." Amelia followed her brother cautiously.

"Yes, but that was two hours ago, I want to know what's going on, everyone was so upset, did you see Caroline?" He shot back at his sister.

"Of course I saw Caroline, I saw everyone, and I saw Elizabeth slap that man, so this is obviously a big problem and we should stay out of it and do what we were told. Maybe it is something that children should not be involved in."

"I am fifteen years old Amelia, I am practically grown up, and there are five year olds who know what is going on, so I think we should be allowed to know these things as well." They turned a corner just as Elizabeth was leaving the bedroom that had been Erik's the night before. He tried to push Amelia back but Elizabeth saw them.

Her eyes were red and blotchy from crying but she put on a faint smile for the two. "We know something's wrong Elizabeth, you don't have to pretend." Daniel said. Elizabeth didn't reply, so he pried harder. "What happened, why was everyone so upset?"

"There was an accident at the river today." She barely whispered it.

"Is everyone alright?" Amelia asked alarmed. Daniel elbowed her and shook his head.

"It's alright Daniel." She spoke a little louder than before. "No Amelia, Erik jumped in after Andrew when he fell in the water and now Erik is hurt."

"Will he be okay?" Daniel asked.

"No one really knows, the doctor said he might be alright."

"But what if he isn't?" Amelia asked carelessly.

"Amelia, think before you ask questions." Daniel scolded her. "We've just been really worried, no one has told us what is going on and we decided to find out."

"Daniel did not me, I told him not to." Amelia replied quickly so that she would not get in trouble.

"You're not in trouble Amelia. You two should go to bed, you've had a long day. You'll need your rest for whatever you plan to do tomorrow."

"You need sleep too. You've had much more to worry about today than we did."

"I think I'll stay up in Erik's room. I was just going to get some tea to drink. But thank you anyway."

"Can we stay up with you?" Amelia asked.

"No, the two of you need to get to sleep. I will be fine alone." She headed down to the kitchens.

Daniel didn't move from where he stood and Amelia turned to him annoyed. "Can't you see she wants to be alone, we will just get in the way." She stated.

"She wants to be alone, but she should be with people who love her. Right now she needs us more than ever. Even if we don't say anything, I think that us being there will be better for her."

"But we aren't allowed to go in there, no one wants us to see what happened."

"Even the little ones saw him, we are older than most of the children anyway."

"She's going to get angry with us." Amelia warned.

"We'll be fine, lets just go inside and sit down, when Elizabeth comes back she'll have no choice but to let us stay." He opened the door, but before he motioned for Amelia to follow he stopped. "He's not wearing the mask."

"Then he must be really hurt, he'd never take that off."

"Maybe you shouldn't look Amelia." Daniel had guessed what was under the mask, but what he had assumed was from an accident looked to be a birth defect.

"I think that if you are allowed to look so can I." She pushed passed him and stumbled into the room. She looked at his face but she wasn't bothered by it as much as Daniel assumed it was. "That's what he hides?" She asked innocently. "It isn't that bad, remember last month when mother made us go see Mrs. Parson's new baby, it was much uglier than that and everyone said it was beautiful."

Elizabeth had appeared in the doorway and laughed lightly. "If only he could hear you say that." The two turned to her looking guilty. "You're not going to go to bed are you?" They shook their heads. "Then sit down, the kitchen staff gave me much more tea than I need." They sat down at a small table and drank their tea in silence.