Lost Among the Living(96)

The world became disjointed, as if I were watching it from afar through broken glass. I no longer knew the timeline of my life. Men spoke to me—men I didn’t know, one after the other in a long line. Men in suits and uniforms and policemen’s caps, men with mustaches and beards. There was a doctor, telling me that the bullet had gone high, angled upward into Alex’s shoulder, and had missed his vital organs, but he had bled so much the situation was still grave. You must be strong, Mrs. Manders, for his sake. I thought, I am already strong. I was strong yesterday, and the day before that. But I did not know whether I spoke aloud.

Moments—or hours, or days—later, there were faces of policemen, asking me questions. What, exactly, did you see? Where is Robert Forsyth? Did he strike Mrs. Forsyth before or after he fired the gun at your husband? Are you sure? Are you certain the knife pierced his leg? What exactly did he say? Let us go through it again, Mrs. Manders. Are you quite certain? I answered them with a voice that seemed to come from someone else’s throat, the words forced and difficult, as if they had been swallowed inside me and would not come up again. The thought of Frances moved through my scattered mind, and I remembered that it was very important I not speak of her, that I not tell what her father had done to her, though I could not quite remember why.

I had memories of moving like a ghost through the corridors of the hospital, finding my way from the men’s ward to the women’s ward. Of Dottie lying in a hospital bed, bandages swathed around her head, her eyes sunk into dark pools of skin. Concussion, they had said. I sat by her bedside when I could tear myself from Alex’s, though I did not hold her hand. The first time she opened her eyes, she stared at me blearily without speaking, and we sat in silence, looking at each other like strangers.

“Where is he?” she asked me finally, her voice a rasp.

I searched my memory. “Gone,” I replied.

“Escaped?”

No. Wherever Robert Forsyth was, he had not escaped. “It was Princer,” I said.

Her face relaxed, and she looked away. “Good girl,” she said, and I knew she was not speaking of me.

I did not tell the police about Princer. I told them that Robert Forsyth had shot my husband, pistol-whipped his wife, and assaulted me. When I had stuck a knife in his leg, he had run through the doors to the terrace and vanished into the woods. I saw the rest of it every time I closed my eyes—the leaves, the thing coming from the woods, Frances raising one pale hand, the sound of the thing coming through the French doors behind me—but I didn’t speak it aloud. I sat by Alex’s bedside and watched the waxy pallor of his face and tried not to remember any of it at all.

I sat across from David Wilde, who was coaxing me to eat a bowl of soup. He was dressed in a suit of navy wool, with a gray necktie that set off the strands of silver in his hair. He held a cup of tea in his good hand. He, too, spoke to me, and as the soup revived me, I began to comprehend his meaning.

“Newspapers?” I said.

“I have fended them off,” Mr. Wilde replied. “No reporter will be bothering either you or Mrs. Forsyth. They’re still running stories, of course—what happened at Wych Elm House is prominent news. I’m hoping that with no statement from the family, the interest will eventually die down.” He set his teacup in its saucer and pushed my untouched cup across the table toward me with unmistakable meaning. “I have also seen to the servants’ wages and arranged to have the house cleaned. It should not be distressing for you and Mrs. Forsyth to return to Wych Elm House.”

With the tea, the fog cleared from my brain and it started to work again. “What about Martin?” I asked him.

“He is under a doctor’s care in London,” Mr. Wilde replied. “I have spoken to both him and Mrs. Forsyth—Mrs. Cora Forsyth, that is. He is not well enough to travel here. He goes under surgery in two days. I have kept the reporters away from them as well.”

I thought you might have murdered Frances, I nearly said aloud. What a fool I had been. “Mr. Wilde, I am so sorry,” I said.

He thought I was apologizing for the trouble he’d gone to. “It’s my job, Mrs. Manders,” he said in his calm, competent voice. “The family is going through an exceptionally difficult time.” He spoke more gently. “How is he?”

“They tell me he’ll live.”

“Then you must get back to him.”

I returned to the hospital room to find Alex awake in his bed. A nurse had propped a pillow behind him and given him a sip of water. I stood in the doorway for a moment, feeling a wild beat of disappointment because a nurse had been here instead of me. And then I was at his bedside, taking his hand in my shaking one and most certainly not crying.

“Come here,” he said after a moment, and I leaned onto the bed, my arms around his neck, as he put his arm around me and let me sob quietly.

“Sorry about that,” he said, his voice choking a little. “He took me by surprise. Stupid of me.”

“I hate you,” I said into his neck.

“Yes, I know.” He rubbed my shoulder and my upper arm through my cardigan, his grip weak but determined. “How long have I been out?”

“Four days.”

Alex swore softly.

“I’m sorry. Does this hurt?” I asked, trying not to grip him quite so tightly.

“Stay where you are, if you please. I have you exactly where I want you.”