Arabella of Mars(87)
“I am very sorry for your brother’s condition,” Mr. Trombley said, “but it would be far worse if not for your brave cousin Mr. Ashby.”
“My cousin Simon Ashby?” Arabella gasped.
“Indeed, miss. It happened while we were fleeing from Woodthrush Woods. At one point I noticed that your brother and your cousin were not among us; I doubled back and found your cousin Mr. Ashby crouching quite solicitously over your brother, who had caught an arrow in the calf. He had lost a considerable amount of blood, and was unconscious.” Mr. Trombley closed his eyes and shook his head at the grisly memory. “I bound up the leg, but it was your cousin who carried your brother the rest of the way here. He was very brave and determined; your brother would surely never have survived otherwise.”
Arabella stroked Michael’s fevered brow, not quite able to credit this tale of Simon’s heroism, but unable to deny the joy she felt at Michael’s survival.
“Your brother was barely alive when we arrived at Corey House,” Mr. Trombley continued. “Fortunately Dr. Fellowes was here, and stitched up the wound, and we were all very hopeful. But then it began to fester, and the leg had to come off. He has not, sadly, regained consciousness since.”
Arabella gazed upon the absence beneath the coverlet where her brother’s right leg should have been. She felt nothing but a cold numbness. Horror, she supposed, would come later.
The captain’s strong brown hand rested upon her shoulder. She patted it absently, then stood. “Captain Singh, Mr. Trombley, Lord Corey … I appreciate your concern and expressions of support, but at the moment I desire to be left alone with my brother.”
Murmured condolences and sounds of departure followed, but Arabella simply stood and stared at her brother’s troubled face, holding his hot and twitching hand.
He seemed so young to her now. Though he was still her elder, and of course nearly a year older now than the last time she had seen him, by comparison with the officers and men with whom she had spent the last few months—very eventful months indeed—he seemed little more than a child.
Then, behind her, Arabella heard the sound of the door opening.
She turned and beheld her cousin Simon, standing with his hand on the doorknob and a rather abashed expression on his face.
*
Simon closed the door behind himself and cleared his throat. “Miss Ashby, I…”
“You nothing,” she interrupted in a harsh whisper. The others might be listening from the hall, but the fiction of privacy must be maintained. “You came here to kill him, and now it seems you have succeeded. You have won, and I and all my family have lost. So what now? Am I to beg for your generosity? I would not give you the pleasure.”
“Do not speak thus of your brother,” Simon replied with unctuous calm. “It is said that even the unconscious can hear words of encouragement, or otherwise, spoken at their bedsides.” He turned to Michael and, raising his voice as though speaking to a slightly deaf uncle, said, “We have every confidence that he will pull through.”
“You need not dissemble to me, sir,” she hissed. “Do you deny that the entire purpose of your journey to Mars was to murder my brother?”
He turned his eyes downward, away from her accusing gaze. She waited for a response.
“I cannot deny that I considered it,” he said at last, speaking to the floor. Then he raised his eyes to Arabella, his hands held out beseechingly. “Please understand, dear cousin, that when I left you in Oxford I was in a state of extreme confusion and despair. On the long voyage to Mars I confess that I entertained many different notions—of entreating your brother for funds, of demanding satisfaction for the thoughtless way his side of the family has treated mine, and, yes, of outright murder. But when I arrived here, and met him in person for the first time, I was so … so impressed by his unaffected charm that I found it impossible to either beg from him or kill him. And then came this … this horrific business with the queen’s egg.” He hesitated, took a breath, looked at his feet. “I … I must confess that I…” Another breath. “… I do not know whether it was indeed he who stole the egg.” He looked up, his eyes beseeching. “But having met him, I am certain that he is incapable of such a dastardly act, and indeed that he is more knowledgeable of, and sympathetic to, the Martians than any man I have ever met. When your brother was wounded—and I swear by all that is holy that it was the Martians who wounded him, not I—I risked all to save him, not only out of love for my cousin, but also out of knowledge that, with his greater knowledge of Martian culture, he might be able to negotiate a settlement. But, alas, he has spent most of the time since then in an unconscious state.”
He paused, as though awaiting Arabella’s forgiveness or at least understanding. She gave him neither, only a cold stare. Though his story seemed plausible, something in Simon’s manner and her personal experience with him suggested that she should withhold judgement.
“Alas indeed,” Arabella said, and regarded Simon’s face with careful consideration. His tale, with its self-centered motivations, might even be true. Even if it were not—if, perhaps, he had been discovered leaning over Michael, intending to finish the job the Martians had started, and had rescued him instead only because of the presence of a witness—it would be very difficult to disprove, especially now that every one in the house considered Simon a hero.