Claire Page 28

  In Cambridge they met with some frustrating delay due to a public conveyance having lost a wheel on Chesterton Road just where it skirted the river, causing an ale cart to overturn as well. The ensuing commotion of clearing the roadway— not to mention rescuing a half-dozen barrels of good English stout— brought traffic to a standstill for the better part of an hour. At last the vehicles were pulled aside, and the traveling coach bound for Banningwood departed Cambridge in the waning light of an October afternoon.

  Two hours later they turned up the rocky lane toward home, toward Banningwood, at first dusk. The oak leaves shone golden in the warm light before darkness; Claire had put down the carriage window to watch for her first sight of her husband’s family estate.

  Then she heard a sudden shout from John-coachman, just as one of the horses shrieked in fright. Almost in the same instant, the traveling coach jerked and abruptly thrust forward. They began to hurtle along the lane with the most frightening and amazing speed; the golden leaves outside the carriage window blurred so that she could no longer stand to look at them.

  Claire clutched the leather seat beneath her nervously as John-coachman called loudly to the horses, but the carriage only seemed to hurtle faster along the rough road. There was another shout— she thought perhaps it was Varian— from far away, and then all other sound was overwhelmed in the thunder of large carriage wheels pummeling over the uneven lane as she and Consuela bounced around inside. Consuela screamed hysterically, shouting her ave marias in a frantic Portuguese, as they struck a rock or somesuch in the lane, careening crazily onto two wheels.

  Somehow John-coachman managed to keep the carriage upright; in that second Claire felt the hard weight of Rajat’s jadestone in her reticule around her wrist, and for an instant she laid her hand over it, wondering—

  Then came an abrupt motionless as if she were suspended between heaven and earth; for a horrifying moment there was no sound at all, and then a splintering crash. She screamed as the carriage tumbled over once, twice, down the steep incline of the embankment beside the lane, throwing into confusion the pillows and quilts and baskets and boxes of the carriage, in a wild, terrifying, anchorless void.

  Abruptly something heavy descended onto her, crushing her. Her scream, a scream of pain and panic, a furious anger at nature, a fierce refusal of the grass to bend in the wind, was silenced by a sharp, white agony in her side.

  Then the world spun off into a suffocating black emptiness.

  Varian Drew saw the fox, a flash of red and white, dart across the narrow lane in the same instant he heard John-coachman’s cry. His own horse reared back in panic; with a fierce shout and an unyielding hand on the reins, he commanded his horse after the careening coach. In horror, he saw the sleek black coach rise up on two wheels as John-coachman flew off the box and out of site, just as one of the horses fell, bringing the team to a screaming halt in a tangle of splintered wood and broken horseflesh. The coach teetered for a moment before it crashed onto its side and rolled crazily, skidding and bumping down the hill, dragging the injured team with it.

  Drew was off his horse onto the ground almost before the carriage had thundered to a halt at the bottom of the embankment in a splintering cacophony of chaos and shrieking horses. Somehow, with nothing more than a broken wheel-spoke here and a half-severed strap there, he climbed down onto the wreckage and wrenched free the door to stare down inside into the darkness below.

  “Claire?” he croaked, his voice hardly human, and there was no answer, nothing except a deathly silence. “My God! Claire!”

  With hardly more than a word to his footmen, calling out, “Bring a rope and some blankets!” and then adding, “And see to John-coachman and Rajat!” Drew was down inside, into the litter and jumble of the carriage, into a mess of blood and bone and bruised flesh.

  Claire was beneath a heavy and silent Consuela; the sight of Claire’s body, her blue eyes closed, still, silent, immobile, her face chalk-white, with her hair tumbled down around her in a childish and innocent profusion, called forth a shuddering oath. He lifted Consuela’s head; she had been thrown head first against the carriage door, and when he saw the odd angle of her head and the thin trickle of blood out of her slack mouth he knew that the kindly old woman was dead. With a giant effort he somehow managed to lift her body aside, off that precious form beneath, and knelt there, cramped, trembling.

  With his own pulse thundering, Varian laid his hand on that slender neck, along that delicate white skin that he had bruised once in a drunken lust, in the hollow of her neck where had had found such sweetness and deliciousness the night he had given her their child.

  “Claire!” His brown fingers rested gently beneath her ear, feeling for some faint throbbing of life, for some second chance, for some intimation of awakening, for some promise of recovery. And there was nothing; there was nothing, she was still and cold already; she was dead— shaking his head— just as Consuela. Unseeing— frowning— Dear God—

  Dear God. Claire is dead.

  He licked his dry lips, his hand shaking, pressing a little harder along that soft skin; blinking suddenly. Claire is dead.

  There was— no, no, no. God in Heaven, no; was there to be no last moment? Was he to be robbed of those blue eyes, that dimpled smile one last time? Dear God— One— A single moment! “Claire— ” A last second of consciousness, just one — He had to tell her— He could not bear to imagine her gone, that he had not told her— He blinked again, at some impotent blurring of his vision; his hand was wet, and at first he thought it was her blood, and then he realized that it was his own tears. “No— Claire— ” he heard vaguely, through a mist, that agonized, disbelieving voice that he did not recognize, which was his own.

  There was someone up above; a voice, one of his servants, called down, “Yer Lordship!”

  He swallowed, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Yes!”

  “‘Ere’s Yer Lordship’s rope, an’ we’ve tied it to a plank, ‘ere, an’ we’re ready, all roight an’ toight, t’ let it down t’ ye!”

  “Yes, go on!” he said, and pushed away the litter that was around her; he got his hand under her neck, and pulled her carefully, tenderly upright, and then managed to free her legs and untangle her full skirts, and scooped her up in his arms like a child and clung to her for a moment. “Claire— my darling Claire— hold on, my darling— Cannot bear— I— cannot live — ”

  Shouting; someone called out a stop, and the plank and the crude lift that they had fashioned settled beside him, a little crookedly, in the rubble. He laid her on it and put a pillow under her head, and covered her up quickly with a blanket, and then called out that he was ready, and guided the precious burden up, and saw hands catch it. His own heart pounding, Drew somehow scrambled outside into the dusk and jumped down off the carriage quickly, to where they had laid her on the ground.

  Rajat was unhurt; he was kneeling beside his mistress silently, his eyes closed, and felt his master’s hand on his shoulder as he dropped down beside him. “Consuela,” came Drew’s quiet voice, “is dead.”

  “Yes,” nodded Rajat. “And John-coachman. There is calamity on every side.”

  “I want to carry her to Banningwood; it’s but a mile or so down the lane. Can you stay here and see to this mess?”

  The brown face was almost indiscernible in the darkness, but Varian Drew saw the white turban move in dissent. “I will go with her,” he said quietly. “We will go together. You have another servant whom you can leave here?”

  Drew stared at him for a moment and then nodded his head. “Yes. Very well. We’ll carry her between us.”

  Rajat’s brown, untouchable hand rested suddenly on his arm. “I have something to give her,” said the Indian quietly, “first.” He withdrew a small pouch from inside his brown shirt and opened it. “You will recall the asp,” he said, as if in explanation, “and the poisons of the river after you fought Balaghat. It is good that we travel quickly,” he added, and withdrew a stiff,
dried leaf from a pouch, and broke it in half and opened her bloodless lips and placed it in her mouth.

  The strong jaw clenched; “She is dead already, Rajat,” he said on a soundless breath, and then closed his eyes for a moment. He rose, quickly, and called to his servants, and told them what to do, and then he and Rajat, unspeaking, stricken, raised the board and its treasure between them and set off north down the lane toward Banningwood.

  The great house was lit from floor to gable as they approached down the long drive, flanked with oak trees and holly hedges and paved with white rock. They saw the door open at the sound of their passage in the gravel, and then there was Stiles, who had come up yesterday, staring at them coming down the drive, and suddenly he was outside, running toward them, all of his usual composure gone.

  “My lord!”

  “There’s been an accident down the road, Stiles,” came the Earl’s carefully controlled voice. “Her Ladyship has been hurt; we must have the doctor. John-coachman and Consuela are dead.”

  “Your Lordship!” came Stiles breathless voice, and then a moment of communication with the liquid black eyes behind Lord Banning in the dark, and the butler nodded, and went hurriedly back up the drive.

  They took her inside straight up the stairs, and set down the board in the room on her bed; with gentle hands Varian Drew lifted his wife, that white, lifeless form, onto the coverlet, and Rajat took away the board; they got off her shoes, and her cloak, and he loosened her pelisse, and made certain there were no broken bones, and finally, in an agony of hesitation, he once again laid his hand against that soft neck—

  I did not want to know the truth—

  He pressed his brown fingers into the flesh beneath her skin, taking her hand tightly in his; one moment— one second chance— he bent close to feel her breath, however faint.

  It was not faint; she gasped in a great breath as he drew away in surprise, his hand still clutching hers, as her small, slender hand tightened suddenly over his.

  “Claire? Claire— ”

  After a single moan of agony, in a single, flesh-rending, bone-shattering scream of pain, Claire came back to consciousness, and Rajat appeared instantly out of the shadows.

  “It is the child,” he said calmly. “She will lose the child.”

  “Christ— No! I— ”

  “Here is the maid; I have told her to bring water and clean cloths. There is nothing else to be done. It will be good to speak to her and comfort her, for she can hear you,” he said, the turban bowing once, and then he sent away the maid and closed the door.

  With a questioning glance at his servant, Varian Drew held his wife. Her body arched itself into a rictus of pain, and he gathered her, helplessly, into his arms and whispered, “My darling Claire; I love you— I would gladly bear all this for you, and more, and I cannot, but I will stay with you— Oh, God, I am so— helpless— ” For she was writhing in his arms, her hands clutching his arm, and then her belly, and then clenching beside her; the blue eyes were closed, frowning, her face contorted. “Rajat!”

  “Drew?” He was there instantly.

  “Isn’t there— Can’t we do anything?”

  He shook his head. “I have given her all that I can,” he said. “I am not powerful; I am but a man. We must wait, and the prophecy will be fulfilled.”

  “What are you talking about?” Drew said fiercely.

  “The woman bears a basket which is empty, and the husband slays the tiger, but without blood flowing from it,” said Rajat.

  “God in Heaven, there’s blood enough here,” said Varian Drew, swallowing hard, laying his wife on the bed as a sudden dark wetness spread across the coverlet beneath her. “Where’s the doctor? And what the hell are you talking about?”

  “Balaghat,” said Rajat simply. “Your doctor can do no more than I have already done, Drew.”

  “Balaghat?” he said, suddenly intense, those blue eyes rising from his wife’s restless, twisting body, as she tossed from side to side in a sort of half-conscious murmuring of pain, to the brown face across from him.

  “He has given you four scars; they are the lines of your sons,” said Rajat. The face of Varian Drew across from him went suddenly white. “The fifth claw left no scar; there was no blood. The son is the child she carries now, who is destined not to live, as I have seen, that her basket shall be empty; it is the Kwei Mei, the sign of the unpropitious marriage: action will be evil, and in no wise advantageous. It is all that I can tell you.”

  “You are a superstitious bastard,” said Varian Drew through clenched teeth, knowing nothing to do except cling to her hand, that hand that would not let his go, and somehow impart some of his strength to her through this.

  “No; there are many signs,” said Rajat calmly as she began to moan aloud again, her eyes flying wide open; he fumbled in the reticule around her wrist and brought forth the lump of jade and opened her clenched hand and put it in it. “You do not recall that I told you the night before you fought Balaghat of the tiger on whose tail you would tread, who would not bite you?”

  The blue eyes left his wife’s face for a moment to stare at his servant, his jaw tight, and then returned to the still form on the bed. “Yes, I recall it,” he said quietly.

  “She has fought Balaghat, just as you, and it is now that she wins or loses,” said the servant after a brief hesitation, and then he disappeared again.

  “Varian?” It was almost inaudible; it was a terrified whisper, the calling-out of a child caught in a nightmare, half-asleep, half-awake, aware and yet powerless.

  “Claire— ” He bent over her and kissed her cheek, his hands tightening over hers. “I am here, darling; try to relax, my dear. Everything will be fine,” he assured her with a confidence he did not feel, with a calm assumption of knowledge that he did not possess.

  She licked her dry lips; a painful swallow, a frown; “It hurts,” she said dully, and then cried out again and stiffened in pain. In a moment, she gasped out, “Tell . . . Rajat that the grass . . . bends,” and turned her head away, a little less frantically, as if she were becoming aware of herself, and as if with it returned control.

  And across the room in the shadows, Drew saw those black eyes, watching, the turban white in the darkness, out of the lamplight over the bed; he saw the servant bow his head as if he had heard, and then, grimly, he turned back to his wife.

  For a week after the accident, Claire lay still and quiet in her pretty bedchamber at Banningwood, silent as a ghost, like she had the afternoon of Claudia’s wedding. Cook sent up broth and tiny delectable morsels of chicken and braised lamb, hothouse strawberries and oranges, and she ate a few bites to keep from hurting Cook’s feelings, and then sent the tray away. She was lost, adrift; there was a great emptiness inside her for her child, and she had no one to weep with.

  Her only company was Rajat, who sat silently outside her doorway, and would come inside at the slightest whisper of his name. He talked to her for hours; he told her stories of India, of his grandmother’s home in Hong Kong, where he had lived with his mother until age sixteen, after his father had been killed when he was seven. He comforted her; he told her again the story of Balaghat’s defeat, and, hoping that it might ease her mind a little, he told her of the fifth scar that had not bled, and watched her turn her head away from him, just as Varian Drew had done.

  “Why did you not tell me?” came a whispered voice. “Why would you not tell me that night in Fowlmere?”

  “But, Doña, I did not know; I see the signs, but I cannot foretell the future. I walk along the road, and the post points this direction to Bangalore, and I follow it, knowing that it is the truth, but I do not know the city until I arrive there and see it. I did not know. I gave you the jadestone Ganesha; it was all I could do to keep you from calamity.”

  “From death, you mean?” she asked, her voice lifeless, her head turned away.

  “Yes,” he nodded.

  “But you knew of the scar, of the child who would not live; you did
not tell me of this,” she said, half-angrily.

  “Yes, I knew,” Rajat said without apparent discomfort. “And I also saw you fight against nature in Drew’s house in London, and I did not know if the prophecy would come about. There is always,” he reminded her, “chance. I did not wish to alarm you, with my— my superstitions, as Drew says.”

  “I have lost,” she said, after a moment. “I have fought against nature and lost. The grass bends before the wind, Rajat.”

  “We wait for the rains,” he said quietly, “and then we shall see,” and bowed to her and went outside again.

  But she was right, of course; she had lost. Varian had left almost the moment she awoke, and she had not seen him since. She did not know where he had gone, but she had lost her child, and now there was no longer any reason for him to allow her to stay. The agreement had been that she could come to Banningwood as the mother of his son.

  With a small tear on her lash she closed her eyes and faced away from the door, and went to sleep again. At night she slept fitfully, her sleep often disturbed by dreams of that terrible crash. Yet sleeping seemed to be all that she could manage; she slept all the time, and then she was tired when she awoke, as though someone had drugged her.

  It was late in the afternoon when she woke again; she opened her eyes onto the low sun of a tree-top-fringed autumn sky, visible through the long casement windows all along the west wall of her room. Claire lay there for a moment, staring out into the dusk, into the glow of the sun above the tree-line.

  There was a rustle behind her, and she turned her head to find her sister Claudia standing in the doorway.

  “Claire?”

  She stared at her older sister speechlessly, and somehow she raised herself onto her elbow, and then sat up, as Claudia came across the carpets and embraced Claire wordlessly in a long moment of comfort.

  “You’re better?” Claudia questioned, finally, drawing away, smoothing the dark hair away from Claire’s forehead.

  She nod briefly. “I am— I am better,” she said, and looked away. “I am glad you are here; I have needed you, Claudia,” she said. For the first time in her life, Claire was no longer the bulwark; she was no longer the needed one, but the weaker, the one who leaned.