Hello people and now that I kinda have reviews I'll update
Enjoy people but don't blame me if it scares you in any way
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Disclaimer:- I don't own Beyblades or the characters but I do own my ocs and this story
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Chapter 2
"We shall leave tomorrow," Mr Baltimore said. "I've never felt so outraged in my life fighting in the streets! What do they imagine visitors must think of them?"
"I doubt if they care Papa," Adele said, "I doubt if we shall find horses either," She had her cuffs turned up and was sponging Loretta's forehead with scented vinegar while Ester held the basin and towel.
"I'm dying here," Loretta said, "Why did you make me go out today? I should have still been in bed."
"You're still in bed or at least on a couch, there is nothing in the world wrong with you. If you don't sit up at once and drink your broth I shall lose all patience with you. Now sit up!"
The great blue velvety eyes opened in shock, the lashes thick as fringes of dark gold silk but lacked such intelligence in them. Adele put the vinegar sponge into the basin without much care whether it splashed Loretta and Ester or not then grasped her cousin by the shoulders, "Sit up! Drink your broth or I shall do something violent. I've been nursing you for two hours at least and I'm sick of it. Ester make her drink it."
"You hurt me," Loretta was whimpering, tears rolled down the porcelain face. Ester drew the golden head against her shoulder, smoothed the peach satin cheek and gave Adele a look from her jet mother of pear eyes that was impossible to interpret. Anger? Irony? Adele had a small inclination to try and went with long impatient strides to the window. The apartment was empty now in the late afternoon as it had been at 3 o'clock that morning. The fighting had ended long ago, at least of any organised kind and even the occasional musket fire and screams of me hunted down was no more than an occasional horror in the distance.
It had taken them 3 hours and more to make their way home and another quarter of an hour to persuade the old servant to come down from Madame de Martinique's apartment and let them in. Madame's garcon was gone and so were their own Aserythian servants, the old lady was locked in her room dead to the world and its terrors with a dose of laudanum. Only the old servant Margareet was still shuffling about the house like a ghost. She had promised them a meal but except for the cup of chicken broth for Loretta it was still only a promise.
"Does the villain expect me to change my shirt buttons? What am I paying him for? Gallivanting off like an apprentice sneaking to the fair. I should have brought proper servants and expecting to find decent ones in some country like this. I remember with your mother-"
"Papa it was you-" Adele began but it was futile to remind her father of facts at times of difficulty. There was a man running along the street or rather limping that running, his shirt stained with blood and seemed to not have a coat or hat. He stumbled but saved himself by leaning against the doorway then looked back as if he was making sure that there weren't any pursuers and then up towards the window where Adele stood leaning over the balcony. It was their 'messenger' of the morning and of the Assembly chamber, he made to lift his arm to her but his face was like wax and all blood and colour had gone from it. It seemed that he called something out then took a half a dozen more stumbling half steps before collapsing under her balcony. In the distance she could swear that there was shouting and the barking of hounds.
"I must go downstairs," she cried, "Papa help me there's someone, the Count's messenger, and he's below wounded." She was already out of the room and taking the marble stairs three at a time.
"Adele you'll break your neck if you don't be careful." she did trip over her skirts and fell the last six steps; luckily she held her hands out to break the fall.
"I told you!"
She took no notice of him and wrenched back the bolts that old Margareet had pushed back when she let them in. The man lay on the step unconscious. She picked him up by the shoulders and began to drag him inside. She could hear the hunt now as clear as if it was inside the apartment. Running feet, sabots, and nailed boots.
"Papa! Take his legs. Quickly!"
"What the devil? Mr Baltimore did lift the man's legs and they were inside as Adele closed the door. Seeing the bloodstains on one stone step and nothing to cover them. Shocking to her father Adele bent down and using her skirt wiped them as best as she cold. There was dust in the corner of the doorway and she picked it up and scattered over what was left of the mark. With the doors shut, bolted and the crashing of feet within 10 yards, five outside the door Adele relaxed a little.
"Adele!"
"Be quiet Papa." she whispered.
A dozen, twenty, thirty hunters clattering and shouting by checking 10 yards further on the entrance to a stable courtyard hammering on timber gates. "Open up! In the name of the Section! Open up!"
Listening, holding her breath if they turned back then there was more shouting as if someone had opened a wicket door protesting to the intrusion then there was a female scream from a window somewhere. "This way! Down here, he must have gone down here! Follow me!" The sounds were dying away. On the black ad white checker marble floor laid the man unconscious with blood spreading slowly over his leg.
"Upstairs Papa. We must bind his leg and then find a doctor. He's bleeding to death."
Mr Baltimore was bending down to examine him. "Good heaven's child it the man who was here earlier."
"I know Papa but he'll still bleed to death if we don't do something right now. Give me your shirt." Before he could object she had pulled his shirt front out of his breeches top and ripped a long strip from it. "We must bind him above the wound, if we can find it."
There was a ragged hole a few inches above the knee one the inside of the left thigh. The blood was pumping heavily from it, dark crimson in the shadowy light of the hall. She made a tourniquet, twisting the linen strip into a cord and tied it as tight round the leg above the wound. It needed to be tighter still but already the bleeding had lessened. They lifted him again by the shoulders and knees carrying him up the stairs. Mr Baltimore was cursing all up every step.
"My breeches will be ruined as well you can't get bloodstains out of buck skin, it's impossible. What the devil has this man done to get himself shot? I knew that he was fool the first time i met him. Don't push me Adele; I can't climb backwards as fast as you can go forwards. I shall drop the fellow if you don't be careful."
They carried him into the apartment into Adele's room.
"Ester!" Adele called, "Someone has been hurt, and you must run down to the floor below and get the old woman there to go with you for a doctor. At once as fast as you can or he'll die."
The bleeding had become bad again with their trying to carry him up the stairs. It ran swiftly from the wound like a stream. Adele had to lean against the bed post for a second to prevent herself from fainting. "Give me a spoon Papa. I must press something-"
"A spoon?" cried Mr Baltimore as though he had never heard of one. "Look at your sheets! Poor devil, I'd say that he's done for by the looks of him. I knew that we shouldn't have stayed in Ishe, it is sheer madness."
She couldn't answer him as she was searching for anything on her dressing table there would serve to twist the tourniquet tight enough. A comb, the handle of a hairbrush? Behind her Ester was by the bed quiet and silent as a shadow, touching the man's leg with her long fingers whispering.
"I thought I told you to get help."
The girl took no notice of her as he had bent down and was putting her ear close to the man's chest then lying against his heart. From next door her mistress called, "Ester where are you, what is going on?" Eater loosened the man's belt and from her apron pockets took out a small knife and began to slice the cloth of the breeches above and below the tourniquet. She pulled the last of it gently free and the blood gushed and then stopped. She had her thumb pressed deep into the man's naked groin.
"You see this place Madame?" She said, "Put your thumb where mine is and I shall so something for him otherwise he will die." She spoke so confidently that Adele did as she bid without thinking it was strange to obey. She had to shut her eyes against what was below her, not the naked sex but the blood. She had not thought that so much blood could come from a wound and leave the man alive. Nor had she though that it would make her feel faint, she began to count under her breath to control the nausea. 1, 2, 3, she had reached 49 before Ester came back with a cloth bundle; she opened it on the bed beside the man's leg. Something that looked like a large hollow nut, stoppered with a bundle of leaves, other leaves rolled up like fat green cigars and tied round with fibres. A glass tube of powder and beneath the stoppered nut was a green coiled snake with a flat viper head. The shock of seeing it was so sudden and intense that Adele slackened the pressure of her thumb resulting in the blood spurting out warming her wrist. She dared not to look at the reptile as she was ashamed of herself and wanted to be sick then was irrationally furious with the girl.
"That thing!"
"The deuce, a snake!" Mr Baltimore said.
The viper if it was a viper lifted its head, Ester who had gripped Adele's finger and thumb pressed them down again then taking the snake by its throat laid it on the dying man's bloody shirt. "If Monsieur would fetch some milk in a little dish?"
It was a case of arguing or obeying and Adele felt too sick to argue, "Fetch her some milk," she whispered, "Please Papa. While you're downstairs tell the old lady to fetch a doctor and hurry!"
"No white doctor," Ester cried, "He'll tell other people then you'll all be taken away."
Adele almost lifted her thumb again in astonishment. The girl's finger held hers in place gently but with strength. "I know how to heal him," the girl said, "Our kind of medicine. This is nothing but please the milk. Sarosi must have a drink." She had unstoppered the nut and was scooping paste into the palm of her and. The bright red paste then so crumbled a leaf which turned the mixture to a dull purple. A thin smoke seemed to be rising from it and the girl moved the large soft pellet she had make from hand o hand as if it had become very hot. She laid it down on the sheet then took her knife to cut away the tourniquet and patted the man's cheek twice softly the hard. Even in his unconscious state he opened his mouth grunting. She pushed the rolled up tourniquet into his mouth like a gag which his teeth clenched on it and quickly she buried the knife into to the wound cutting and probing and slicing the flesh. He seemed to arch his back in pain opening his blue eyes and would have screamed if it wasn't for the twisted linen. Something rolled out of the wound and lay between the man's legs in a mess of blood. The little black musket ball, quickly Ester took her lump of paste and pressed it deep into the hole.
This time the man did scream chocked on the gag and lost consciousness again. The girl was cutting strips from the sheet making bandages, pressing, twisting, binding and tying them together. All the time her hands were moving, the little green snake seemed to follow them with its eyes. Mr Baltimore returned with a wine glass of milk, the girl took it clicked her tongue at the sight of the glass though demanded a dish. She hesitated and ripped away the man's shirt exposing his toned hard stomach. She poured a little of milk into his navel and instantly the snake moved towards it. Its forked tongue flicking while the triangular head and jaws dipped into the white liquid, the cup of flesh.
The girl whispered and the snake lifted its head then turned it way and that. "Loa loa rada come, Sarosi heal flesh, heal your friend, help the gros bon ange strengthen him. You shall have much milk if he lives. Don't give him to the Grand Boais; don't let him go down the path." She went on whispering but in another language which no one could understand but her. Her tone pleading coaxing, talking to the little serpent.
"Lift your hand," she said to Adele. The snake moved hesitated then slid down into the man's groin; it seemed to nibble at his sex, the forked tongue swift as lightning.
"You're mad!" Mr Baltimore cried in horror as he made to scratch at the viper but the girl prevented him.
"He's telling if he is truly a friend," she said as Adele drew her father away.
Behind them Loretta's voice sounded demanding, "What are you doing? Why do you not come when I call?"
"You know what I'm doing," Ester said, "I'm with Sarosi."
Loretta met Adele's eyes trying to look as if she didn't know what the girl meant, "It's all wicked foolishness." she said her voice low and uncertain.
"Come and look matelotte." Loretta went slowly but obediently.
"Come Madame Adele, come monsieur, Sarosi is healing," They stood behind the kneeling oriental girl as the snake coiled itself on the bandage around the wound. It stretched out its head and throat exactly where the wound was. Blood had begun to stain the line and they could see the pale yellow of the viper's throat pulsing slowly in the same rhythm as the man's heartbeat.
"He must be admired," Ester said, "He's a king of serpents, conquers death. Stroke him matelotte, touch him Madame, monsieur gently,"
Loretta put out a finger and stroked the flat diamond head as her whole body shivered as if she was chilled to the bone.
"Madame Adele show him that you're his friend, touch him."
"I'll do no such thing."
"Please," Loretta said, "Please Adele, I beg you do what she says and you uncle you must." Her voice urgent so unlike its usual languid petulance or honeyed caressing that Adele did as she asked. Cold scaliness she found herself shivering.
"Uncle please."
"You've gone mad. I would not touch that thing for all the money in the word. It should be killed and that girl should be-"
The snake looked at him, it was not possible but it seemed to grow larger until it resembled the man's thigh as his whole body covered him. Mr Baltimore's hand went out his fingers shaking as he touched the armoured throat before stamping out of the room.
"I know what I would do with her," he said, "and with that thing." he made a strange noise before rushing to his room. Adele found him sitting on his bed with the basin between his knees and his face green.
"That damned chocolate you gave me, wretched sickly stuff. I never could stomach them and all that blood. I don't know what that witch is up to but she seems to have stopped the bleeding. We need to get a proper doctor."
"That snake-" Adele said, she wanted to be sick herself.
"Snake, what snake? What are you talking about?"
She stared at him and felt the sickness rising up then had to find a basin herself. After a few minuets she felt better but was drained of strength, slowly she dragged herself back to Loretta and Ester beside the wounded man. They had covered him with bedclothes and he lay unconscious as his face still wax pale but no longer with the look of death about it. The nose curved and powerful and the mouth clamped shut as if to keep life in.
"The snake-?" Adele said and found she was whispering, Loretta looked at her astonished, was it real? Pretend? Ester simply looked at her then away. She began sponging the man's forehead saying, "He'll get better. Ten twelve day he can walk a little. Don't send for anyone to heal him as they will tell the police and you'll be put in prison."
"We must wash away all the blood," Adele said trying to take control of the situation and herself, "Why so you say that about the police? What can you possibly know about it?" It was so obviously true that she felt a worse fool than before. I was impossible to take the bloodied sheet from under the man at the present. There was a snake she told herself. There was! The snake seemed to look up at her from the bottom of the china basin on the washstand as she leaned over it. A green snake, it had been there it had! Then the certainty was gone in s new spasm of retching and there was room for nothing in her mind but the blood. That dark red flood from inside his thigh, the man who had knelt down in the road and looked towards them his face gone smashed away the blood pouring like a red scarf. Then the woman with the axe, she had thought of nothing that shocked her. She had dreamt of battles since she was a child of heroic actions and of what life would be like it she was a man and now she was worse that a kitchen maid worse that Loretta. I'll not be sick, she commanded herself, I will not! Then had to rush to spew up what felt like her heart.
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The old servant Margareet found a doctor for them the next day. Their own servants had come back at 6 o'clock in the morning drunk, the valet in someone else's coat and a gold watch fell out of the coat cuff as he staggered into the apartment at Mr Baltimore's furious summons. He and the maid were dismissed immediately so they had no servants beside Ester.
"It doesn't matter," Mr Baltimore cried, "Good riddance to 'em damned thieving villains. I'll have you arrested!" He shouted after them from Adele's window. "I'll have you hanged!"
The valet turned and shook his fist a d fell over, the maid picked him up and they staggered away down the street towards the river. "Villains!" yelled Mr Baltimore in case they had no already discovered is opinion of them.
"Hush Papa you'll wake him."
But the man was already awake tossing in fever and muttering sentences that were intelligible in themselves and yet had no meaning for Adele or her father. Colonel Aracand? Who was he and the men waiting at Compiegne. Why was it too late? Curse the cowards and then 'No you devils No! No! He stared fully awake and stared at them as if he didn't know who they were or where he was.
"You're safe," Adele told him, we've sent for a doctor for you, you're safe here."
He still lay in her bed because there was o other and she slept in the ante room on the mattress provided by Margareet. His beard had grown bright red and his skin already slightly tanned with the sun and weather was darker with the gun smoke, dried blood and dust from whatever fighting he had been in.
"We must wash you before the doctor comes." Adele said. Who would object to their caring fro a wounded man? Although by miracle the man had not died from Ester's treatment. They sent Margareet to set someone even before their servants came back to be dismissed. "We must have you clean at least." Adele said, "even if we cant shave you."
It gave her a feeling of strength to prepare to wash him. She knew that he hated it and would have prevented her if he could. It was like taking a small and charitable revenge on him for her own fearsome sickness and horrors yesterday.
"Ester will do it," Mr Baltimore said, "Ester! Ester!"
"She may hold the basin and towels and tell her to bring clean sheets. There should be some in the cupboard at the end of the corridor, I saw them there."
She had to lift him bodily for Ester to put the clean sheet, blanket and towels under him. Although he was a tall and strong made man, Adele didn't have problems carrying him as if all the blood he lost made half of his weight. She laid him down again and between them stripped him naked ignoring his shivering protests. After a moment or two he said nothing looking at them with eyes at once dulled and feverish as if he no longer cared what they did.
He had a fine body, broad and deep chest, wide shoulders, narrow waist and long horseman's lean and hard muscled legs. Everytime she touched the cold sponge the ridges of muscles could be seen on his stomach. His arms were slightly tanned to the elbow and his legs from ankle to knee and there was a deep v-shaped area on his chest where his shirt colour must usually lie open. The rest of his body was white as paper from the loss of blood.
"You've sent for your own people's doctor? Ester said, she didn't look at Adele as she said it. Like the cook in the kitchen handling meat she lifted the man's sex sponging under it, "He is strong," she said, "but he'll die, I've told you."
For a moment Adele felt so angry she was astonished at herself, "Of course he must have a real doctor, he'll die otherwise." The bandage the girl had put on last night was bloodstained but not extensively. He had begun to bleed again with their handling, Adele thought it was wiser to leave him alone but cleanliness if essential, it was the worst thing in hospitals that they were always filthy. She put her hand to lift the wounded leg to clean it but Ester grabbed her wrist.
"No Madame no."
"How dare you!"
Ester looked at her without insolence, defiance, fear or any discoverable emotion, she just simply looked.
"Cover him up." Adele said, "We must keep him warm," she felt herself shaking. "Your mistress spoils you but that doesn't mean that you can be insolent to me."
"Yes Madame".
The girl was quiet, so submissive so-there was no word for it but courteous-so in her slavery-that Adele felt bitterly ashamed, and then more angry as though somehow the girl had triumphed over her, made her an utter fool in her own eyes. She began to say something anything that would restore and establish their proper relationship. The girl still looked at her as if she knew what Adele was thinking.
"I can image beating her," Adele thought, horror at her own feelings and anger towards the girl's calmness. "I can understand why they beat their slaves." she had to shut her eyes.
When she opened them again the moment was gone and common sense had come back. Daylight and cleanliness and a sick man and a servant who happened to have black hair and midnight eyes.
"Fetch him some broth and I shall feed him," the girl went obedient ad meek, leaving her in command of herself as well as her patient. She only had to glance down where the covers hid his leg to remember the woman and the axe. Had that woman dreamed of heroics as a child?
Adele laid her forehead against the cold surface of the bedside table clenching her teeth. When the doctor come, she was determined that she would stay and watch everything.
He came soon after 9 o'clock when the sick man was asleep again, his fever seeming to have nearly gone and he could breathe easier. Or so Adele thought, the doctor was horrified at his appearance and at what Adele told him had already been done.
"You might have killed him!" he cried, Mr Baltimore nodded a sombre agreement. "Quackery to let a vile creature touch him! Touch such a wound with who know what devilments! Wyatt, Wyatt the bleeding bowl quickly boy." His apprentice wearing a dirty Holland coat with bloodstains on the sleeves and with fingernails that were dark as though they were in mourning for al the patients he had helped to kill. He unwrapped a white china bowl from a neckcloth then taking a worn red morocco case of scalpels from his sagging coat pocket.
The doctor had meanwhile woken their patient with a hearty jerk of his shoulder, "Well citizen? What have you been doing eh? Let us have a look," He pulled back the sheets and clicked his tongue at the sight of the bandage. "You're lucky gangrene has not set in yet." he said and before Adele could even guess what he meant to do let alone prevent him. He ripped of the bloodstained linen as if he was a child unwrapping a present. The wounded man screamed with pain and jerked his knees sending the doctor staggering. "Hold him down Wyatt, hold him, my by he's delirious and no wonder."
"What are you doing?" Adele protested, "You have hurt him terribly!" the blood was pumping out, "Are you mad?"
"That is doctor's business Madame. Stand away, please stand aside, we want to cure. You have near killed him and now I must make good the damage. Look how well he is bleeding already! Catch it in a bowl Wyatt it will save cutting him up. Draw two and then we can staunch him for today. I'll make the tourniquet."
Adele caught him by the shoulders and spun him around to face her. "Are you a doctor or a butcher? To draw two more bowls of blood from him? He was nearly dead yesterday from loss of blood. Stop it, now I tell you. He was almost recovered and now he's-"
"Adele, Adele, what are you saying what is the matter?"
"Leave me alone Papa this man is an imbecile." she began to shake the doctor in her fury. He was small and plump with eyes like solid grapes, grey and watery. His tricorn had fell off and his wig followed. Pushing him aside she shouted, "Ester! Ester! For mercy's sake come."
Ester merely stood in the doorway of her mistress's room looking impassively as Adele at the furious doctor ad at the apprentice holding the bowl full of blood. Adele pushed her thumb into the wounded man's inner thigh, where Ester had shown her yesterday. The bleeding slackened and almost stopped. One a slow crimson welling up of blood. "Ester!" Torn between anger and terror and wanting to shout at the girl to threaten her and knowing that it would achieve nothing but humiliation to herself.
"He'll die," she said. The doctor was calling her name and crying that never in his professional life had he been so insulted to have a patient so endangered. That he would report her to the police the Section, the Commune, crying, "Murderess! Murderess!" While keeping away from her as possible.
"Send him away Papa before I strike him." Adele said. "Ester I beg you, you were right , we should have obeyed you, please you cant let him die like this."
Ester vanished but acme back carrying her bundle.
"I shall not stay to watch this blasphemy!" the doctor shouted. "If that man dies-when that man dies-you shall answer for it, it's murder. I shall report this to the Section that murder is being done under this roof."
Shut the creature up." Adele cried, "Or I shall not answer for my temper. Monsieur you have one minuet to be out of this room or I'll strike you down."
Mr Baltimore led the doctor away and the door slammed. "Aserythian idiots don't know the meaning of doctor."
"Give me patience! It was you who insisted that he be called-I'm going to be sick again. A basin for pity's sake, give me anything Papa I need to keep my thumb in place."
They had redid the bandages and cover at last. He looked as ghastly as if he was wounded a second time which in fact he was. Ester went to put her bundle back and when she came back Adele said, "You're a good girl," Loretta was watching them, she said something in Creole.
"No," Ester said, "Once is enough Madame. You didn't listen to me, I don't want to do that again. He'll live or die." she looked at Adele out of he corners of her dark eyes as she said it. Adele knew, for her benefit and not Loretta's. Her cousin came into the room with her cat slow languor ad indifference.
"I don't care," she said, "But he is a fine large man to be allowed to die so soon. Lalitte, my cocotte please give him a little proper medicine? He would give some woman a lot of joy of he was well again. Maybe even you eh, ma chere?"
Ester smiled contemptuously." I've my loa." she said, "I've the Legba so I don't need that." The two fell into Creole then as if Adele and her father didn't exist until Loretta said to her cousin, "Leave us alone for a little while. She will make him well, wont you matelotte? You see I do call you matelotte, as you're my best and dearest friend. I'm not ashamed to tell everyone. Matelotte, matelotte, matelotte you shall sleep beside me tonight in the same room like at home." then turning back to Adele and her uncle, "Now go Adele, uncle. Ester says that there is something that she has to do but wont do it with you here."
They left them to whatever it was that needed doing and again Adele remembered the green snake and knew that she was dreaming. "I dreamt last night that there was a snake lying on his chest," she said to her father as they went to his bedroom.
"That doctor!" she said while staring at the empty fireplace as though her dream was enacting itself there,
Her father sat on the bed and picked up one of his boots. "I told you, you shouldn't have brought this fellow in. That doctor creature will go to the police for sure. Why couldn't you have let him do his business like any ordinary girl?" The question was purely rhetorical and he said after a moment. "It's an extraordinary thing Adele, but the moment my sister Judith and her poor wretched husband and that spoilt girl with the dark haired creature of hers stepping out the coach . I knew that there was nothing but trouble. I said to myself-"
"Papa do you really he would go to the police?" she stood up pacing the room. It was too small for the length of her stride and nearly tripped over her father's outstretched feet. She stopped with her back to the curtains," Such a monstrous fool and to call us murders! I doubt any of his patients survived at all."
"For my fellow to call himself a valet!" Her father said, "Look at this boot! For heaven's sake child stop you're making me feel giddy looming over me like that. If you hadn't brought the fellow in the first place-"
"It did bring him in and if I hadn't he would be dead. Oh Papa think we must come up with a plan on what we should do."
"I tell you I should never had agreed to come here if I 'd known what it was like. I can scarcely bring myself to say it. I cant believe that I let you persuade me into bringing you here."
"Papa!"
"I thought of it as when I saw it with your mother when- when you were born only improved. No one told me that they would be killing each other in the streets and chasing their King out of his own home like a diseased rat. These damned estates of your cousin's! Why couldn't my brother in law see to his own family affairs himself instead of pretending to be dying and prancing around in his chateau in a dressing robe."
"Papa! You know that you wanted to come and you wanted me to come with you and now here we are."
"You wouldn't let me rest unless I promised to bring you along and instead of helping me you-"
"Oh Papa! What does it matter now who persuaded whom? We're here and that man is in there. If the police find him they'll want to take him away as-I don't know as what but they'll do it. Then he'll certainly die and they would want to arrest us as well. What shall we do? Ester said last night- I don't know how she could guess but she said that if we-"
"Your cousin spoils her until she's useless, she cant even make tea-"
"Papa put down the boot you're ruining it and listen to me. What are we going to do with him?" She begun striding up and down again kicking her father's other boot under the bed.
"You say its not like you though it would be! That woman with the axe! I shall not sleep again all my life without nightmares haunting me." she put her hands to her face against the window.
"We must hide him!" she said swinging around. "If-when the police come he must not be here. We can say- we can say that men-that some friends came and took him away, we don't know who they were or anything about them. We'll hide him upstairs, in one of the servant's rooms-no! There's an attic above those again! If we can-quick, quick Papa we can carry him up in the sheet each of us taking a corner, its the only way to save him." she felt almost as if a hand was pulling her towards the door, a voice was shouting to her, "It'll be too late! Too late in another moment!"
"Hide him for the police? Are you mad?"
"Papa do you want him to die? Do you want us to be arrested for sheltering him? They may come here at any moment, quick hurry, we've been wasting time."
"Where's my boot? What have you done with it?"
"What do your boots matter? Come with me now!" She dragged him up from the bed by the arm and brought him still protesting, "Quick Loretta, Ester we must hide him, and we must take him up into the attics and a mattress and blankets too-"
The man lay unconscious looking as if he was already dead. Loretta was looking into the mirror and playing with her hair while Ester was putting away her medicines. It was impossible to move the man up the stairs into the attic, his wound would open up again. Ester looked at Adele and looked away as if not wishing to let Adele read the mockery in her eyes.
"What else can we do?" Adele cried as she went to the window, opening it and leaned over the balcony. The street was busy with traffic again, people hurrying which was not like yesterday's singleness of purpose but as if they were frightened. A coach loaded with trunks, a cart, a man jumping down before the driver had pulled his horse to a stop. A short thickset man in a long blue coat and a tricolour sash a great red, white and blue cockade in his hat. Two ragged guardsmen with muskets and bayonets tumbling out behind him. The first man was already hammering at the street door shouting, "Open up! The Section, we're here from the Section, open up I say!"
"They're here!" Adele whispered, "For pity's sake what shall we do? Under the bed with him, Ester help me lift him quick Papa, Loretta, they're outside hurry take his feet gently. Loretta fetch your eiderdown, your pillows and lay down here," the two pushed the man under the bed as if he was a trunk, a roll pf carpet wrenching off the bloody sheets and bundling them after him. She had to run into Loretta's room herself and fetch armfuls of clothes and pillow spreading them out before pushing Loretta down and covering her. "Look ill, look as if you have fainted. Papa the door and answer it when they come. Listen to me, the man was taken away an hour ago immediately after the doctor left you understand? Two men came, he was not really badly hurt. They helped him to walk, two men in black. We know nothing about him. Leave all the talking to me. Loretta lie down! You always want to lie in bed now do it."
She could hear the sounds of the men on the stairs knocking and kicking the door. Her father's voice then a man shouting, "You're hiding a royalist assassin here. I know it, deliver him to me, I'm the Commissary Leonardo and I've an order from the Section to bring him to the Committee for questioning. You who are you? What is your name citizen?"
Her father shouting in answer or rather competition, "Dam sir you take your hands of me, tell those ruffians to stay outside, what the devil you mean by pushing in like a gang of cut throats. Take your hands off me I tell you before I knock you down."
"Papa Monsieur, citizen what is it you want?"
"We've come for the suspect Tala Valkov. I'm to bring him before the Committee of the Section. Stand aside, citizeness its useless to protest," A stout red faced man who looked as if he might be a butcher in private life.
"Protest?" Adele cried, "I do indeed protest monsieur. We're visitors, friends of Aserythe, of your revolution and we've been treated shamefully I say and I mean to protest to the Commune, to the Mayor." She was barring his way into the bedroom by simply standing in front of him. He stared up at her in astonishment, one fat and hairy hand raised to put her aside.
"Citizeness-"
"A wounded man one of the brave san-culottes who attacked the tyrant's palace yesterday came her to be succoured and he has been kidnapped monsieur. I fear he may be already dead, murdered. Heaven knows, is there no law in Aserythe?"
"What Madame? Citizeness? Kidnapped? The man-"
"Kidnapped! Abducted!" she struck and attitude that had great success in charades when she was playing with her friends back in Menos. "That poor brave man! Two villains armed with pistols took him an hour ago, my brave Papa risked his life to defend him but was struck down."
"Kidnapped?" the butcher shouted, "He was a royalist agent, where had he gone, who had taken him away? You monsieur citizen where has he gone? I demand to know, I don't believe you search the house!" Shouting contradiction at Mr Baltimore, at Adele, at his two helpers who had grounded their muskets and were staring about them as i they were expecting to begin. "I know he's here! Stand aside Madame I order you!"
He pushed by her into her bedroom where Ester was kneeling by the bed sponging Loretta's forehead with scented vinegar. Loretta was crying, genuine terror as tears rolled down her perfect skin. The butcher stopped shirt, taken back by the sight of a woman in bed where he had expected to find a wounded man or else by the sight of Ester or the feeling that he'd lost his prey.
He turned fiercely on Adele, "Where is he? What have you done with him?"
"What is he saying Adele? Damned their language, all jabbering that you cant understand. How dare he force his way into a lady's bedroom you scoundrel! These ruffians out, out, out of here! They stink like ferrets, out I say!" Mr Baltimore waved his arms in front of them and they retreated, clasping their muskets to their chests.
"Search the house!" the butcher roared, "Stand back monsieur we've a warrant from the Section if you interfere with us at your peril, search you imbeciles, that room there, in there and there! He cant be gone Doctor Lomonico said-"
Adele sat down in her dressing stool, not sure she could trust herself to stand upright much longer. Loretta still wept and only Ester seemed unconcerned. The two men with muskets searched Loretta's room and the small powder closet beyond it where Ester had her bed. They pushed their way into Mr Baltimore's room as he himself was threatening them with the ambassador, Mr Poopinmyer and even the King. The butcher stood over Loretta and stared down at her as if he wanted to tear back the bedclothes and indulge. She opened her drowned blue eyes to look at him and whimpered with fright. The butcher's left foot was actually pushed under the spilled corner of the eiderdown. It couldn't have been a hand's breadth from the hidden man. If the man moved groaned in his unconsciousness-he only had to cough from the dust under the bed.
'I have to say something to get him out of this room.' Adele thought but the butcher was riveted where he stood by Loretta. She was in a negligee of rose chiffon and satin, her shoulders, bust and throat were almost bare like cream moulded into a woman's shape. Adele could see the man swallowing, one fat thick hand moved as if it was possessed before he brought it under control.
"What is the matter Madame? Mademoiselle?"
"I'm frightened," Loretta whispered, "What's happening?"
"The men who took him away, they frightened my poor mistress into hysterics. Will they murder him monsieur?" Ester said.
The butcher swallowed again seeming to be returning slowly to reality after looking into Loretta's eyes. "There were really two men? Someone came-?"
"I just told you that," Adele cried, "Monsieur if you want to search the entire house. there are garrets, attic, no doubt there are cellars. Why not look on top of the roof!"
"Citizeness I order you to be quiet! You are trying to prevent this poor creature telling me the truth." He looked down at the kneeling girl as if he meant to lift her up and free her from slavery there and then. "What happened? Tell me the whole truth. Have no fear the Committee of the Section will protect you as it protects all patriots. You've been a slave have you not?"
"I'm still a slave," Ester said, she seemed able to make her eyes enormous at will and to fill her expression with pathos.
"A slave still? You're free!" the butcher said, "Have they not told you?" He swung his thick body towards Adele as if he held her responsible. "There's no more slavery, citizeness! How dare you keep this poor girl in ignorance of her rights? Stand up child, you don't kneel to anyone," He grasped his tricoloured sash and pushed the end of it towards her. "Here is your warranty of Freedom! If you're ill treated come to me the Commissary Leonardo and I shall protect you. Now tell me what happened."
"There were two men monsieur tow men in black with pistols, we were so frightened of them. They carried him away, he could scarcely walk. Is he dead?"
I hope so and you let him be taken away! That murderer! That spy!" he had turned himself round again standing tiptoe to thrust hi face as close as possible to Mr Baltimore's. "You shall answer for it, you shall answer to the Section, to the Commune. This is not the end of the business monsieur, it's only the beginning." he pointed a stubby finger at Adele. "And if you ill treat that innocent girl for telling us the truth you shall answer for it."
"But she told you what I said in the beginning," Adele cried, "How could we know that he was a royalist, How could we turn away a wounded man?"
Out of the corner of her eye she could see a hand pushed out from under the hanging eiderdown. The man in the sash had only to look down to see the and. Ester moved her crimson satin skirts and came with a slow suppleness to her feet like a graceful yellow snake uncoiling itself. "Oh monsieur," she said grasping the Commissary's hand towards her lips but allowing it to stay a good inch or two. The Commissary flushed even darker red and freed himself as if he was too anxious for actual contact between the two.
He shouted at Mr Baltimore, "I shall make a report of his Aristocrats! Foreigners! If you touch one hair on that girl's head, I warm you." turning towards Ester. "You are free as I'm free remember it citizeness. Be a good patriot, denounce our enemies no matter who they may be." giving her a look full of threatening and meaning towards Adele and her father. "Come citizens." his men followed, the door banged and the stale smell of unwashed rags, garlic and sweat hung in the room.
Ester went into her mistress' room and fetched some of her perfume, she seemed to not mind as her maid sprayed it about. Adele stayed sitting on the stool before she realised that they should fetch the man from under the bed or he would suffocate. Ester placed the bottle back into Loretta's room as her mistress complained, "That man! Argh how he smelt! Are they gone?"
"I've never been so angry in my life!" Mr Baltimore shouted, "To come bursting in on us!" He had to struggle for breath, "And to call us foreigners and insult me in my own house!"
"To them we're foreigners and this isn't our house," she felt so tired it was difficult to think.
"We're Talmish, damned them," Mr Baltimore said as he went to the window as if he meant to shout something after the men."
"Help us to draw him out from under the bed Papa. He cant breathe."
Ester was already there and between them they brought him out into the air. He looked dreadful, his mouth open, his breath rasping and the bleeding had begun again.
"Get up!" Adele said to Loretta.
"You wanted me to lie down."
"And now I want you to get up! Cant you see the man is dying but you have never seen past yourself ever."
Loretta gave a wail of wretchedness at being so attacked, Ester took hold of her hands gently raising her up from the bed. "Ma pauvre petite ma poupee come, Lalitte will put you to bed in your own room, she'll make you a tisame, come take no notice of her," She whispered then in Creole and putting her arm around Loretta's yielding waist and lifting her out of the bed like a great white and gold Persian kitten.
"I shall kill her," Adele said between her teeth, "I swear before heaven , lift his legs gently Papa."
"We shall leave here tomorrow," Mr Baltimore said, "Tonight I wont spend another hour in this ruffian town, not for pension the place smells like a tavern. Your cousin's damnable scent are bad enough but-"
"Gently Papa! Ester please come quick! He's bleeding again!"
Ester came slowly looking at Adele at Mr Baltimore not quite smiling but the hint of it was there in the small lips. " How can we leave here? she said impatiently, "He cant be moved for days." she went to the window so as not to look at what Ester was doing and stared down at the street.
Suddenly Ester's voice called her away, "Madame Adele! Hold him down I must hurt him Hold him tight."
She held his wrists and he jerked his whole body upwards in such burst of strength that she needed to bear down with all force to hold him. He lay limp shuddering and staring at her with incomprehensible eyes while Ester bandaged him.
"Will they-come back?" Adele whispered as she couldn't prevent herself saying.
"Not for a time," Ester said.
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lol people I really couldn't resist making a bit a joke but seriously if you (the reader) aren't at least fifteen don't read trust me it kind gets a little graphical if you know what I mean. Thanks.
read and review
bye
ikl wings