"Oh ... green ... big ..." I rubbed my aching head.
"Tell me about them," said Stirling. "Sit here." I sat down on the side of his bed. Grandmother stole out of the room.
I was exhausted, and I could barely speak, let alone entertain him. "You don"t have to," Stirling said then.
"I know what," I said. "I found a place for the picnic. There"s a little stream-a rocky stream-that runs between two hills. The valley is shaded, and there"s a meadow of wildflowers. All different colors-like a picture. You would like it, for certain. It is not too far from the city either."
"It sounds pretty," Stirling said. "When I am well, we can go there, with Maria. As soon as I am well."
"Yes. You would like that place."
"Tell me some more about it."
I told him about the valley, how the flowers were taller than he was and how there were b.u.t.terflies glittering everywhere, how green the gra.s.s was, and how blue the sky. Perhaps I elaborated it slightly. "I can really imagine it," said Stirling when I had finished telling him. And then he said suddenly, "I missed you, Leo. Don"t go to the hills again."
"But what if I was to find the herb?" I said.
"I don"t think you will find it. Anyway, I"m almost sure that I will get well without it. Perhaps I have the illness only mildly. I don"t feel so bad today."
"Maybe it is so."
"I think it is. Father Dunstan said it was difficult to tell, anyway, even whether it was silent fever or not."
Later that evening, Stirling suddenly lost his sight.
He did not shout or cry out; he just remarked, "I can"t see," almost calmly, and we went to his side. But a couple of hours after, when it grew quite silent in the room, he called out in fright, "Grandmother!"
"I am here," she said. She had not left him.
"Leo?" he asked.
"I"m here too," I told him.
He held out his hands to us. "I couldn"t hear you. I thought you"d left me."
"No," Grandmother said as we took his hands, one each. "We will not leave you." The one I took was his right one, the bandaged one, and I could feel the heat radiating from its still-raw palm.
His hand grasped mine tightly, as if the bond between them was the only thing that anch.o.r.ed him to this earth. His fingers were hot and dry, and I could feel the quick pulse in his wrist beating against mine, so tightly were they pressed together, until it seemed that the veins beat as one and it was my heartbeat that was keeping him alive.
Later, when he slipped into a fretful sleep, Grandmother said, "Why do you not get some rest, Leo? It"s well past midnight, and you must get up early for school tomorrow."
"I won"t be able to sleep," I told her.
"Leo, you must. This illness may draw out for months. You will have to sleep in that time."
"You need it more than me; you have been working harder. Go and get a few hours" rest; I will stay here with Stirling."
"Leo, go on. I can rest during the day tomorrow."
My previous sleepless night was beginning to catch up with me; my eyes were dry and p.r.i.c.kly and my head ached sharply. I started to separate my hand from Stirling"s, which was still clenched around it tightly. But I was suddenly so afraid that if I did, he would slip away forever, as if the cord that held him in life would be severed and his heartbeat would slow into silence, that I could not do it. It was silly, but I sometimes imagined things so vividly that I made myself believe them. So I stayed where I was.
And then I must have fallen asleep, because I dreamed.
"Come and talk to me, Field," said Raymond.
"Very good, sir," said the butler, crossing the room to stand beside the old man"s chair.
"Come and sit here." Raymond gestured to the armchair opposite him, and Field sat down. "I"m frightfully tired, and I can"t think why. I"m getting old. I"ll be dead soon."
"You shouldn"t keep saying that, sir; it is bad luck."
"Bad luck?" said Raymond. "I"ve never heard that before."
"In my country-" The butler stopped then and glanced away. "In Australia, where I spent so many years, they have a saying ..."
When he looked back, the old man was regarding him with a faint smile. "What is it?" said the butler.
"I never understand you, Field. You"re mysterious, aren"t you?"
"I would hardly say mysterious, sir."
"You dropped your guard for a minute. You are always on your guard. I don"t think I know you at all."
"Perhaps you don"t."
There was a silence. Then the butler shook his head. "I am sorry if I appear distracted. I was thinking about-" He paused. He was thinking about the message from Talitha that had appeared the day before. But he did not mention that. "I was thinking of other things," he said. "Shall I leave you in peace for a while, sir?"
He got up to leave. "Stay with me," Raymond said suddenly. "Won"t you stay and talk to me and keep me company?"
The butler turned back to him, surprised. "Of course, sir, if you wish me to." He sat down again and leaned back in the chair, gazing out over the darkening lake.
"Field?" said Raymond after a while. "Will you tell me about what you did before you came here? You never have."
"Never?" said the butler. "Surely I must have told you."
"All I know is that you were in the army. If that"s true." Raymond watched the butler steadily. "And I wouldn"t mind too much if it was not," he continued. "I"m not so fixated on the army anymore, Field, you know."
"I had noticed."
"Can"t you tell me something about yourself?" Raymond went on. "For instance, how did you come to be in England? You are not English by birth."
The butler hesitated, then shook his head. "No. Not English."
"Why did you decide to come to this country?" Raymond persisted, certain that Field would deflect his questions as usual. "And why did you decide to apply for the job here? You have not always been a butler. Tell me about yourself, Field; I could do with some entertainment."
The butler laughed, showing his teeth in the way that he always did. He never smiled at all, and in fact his laugh was more sinister than his darkest frown, because it made him look, to Raymond, just for a second each time he saw it, like a skull. "I"ll tell you," he said then. "It would do no harm to tell you."
Raymond had not expected that. The butler was still gazing out the window, watching the shadow of the tank lengthen on the gra.s.s. "I have not always been a butler, true," he said. "I was a very famous man in my country. Highest but one in the secret service. And I did not decide decide to come to this country. I am only here because things went wrong." He turned to Raymond, who was watching him in startled silence. "I could tell you how I came to be in England. It would pa.s.s the time to tell you that story. But one thing, sir?" to come to this country. I am only here because things went wrong." He turned to Raymond, who was watching him in startled silence. "I could tell you how I came to be in England. It would pa.s.s the time to tell you that story. But one thing, sir?"
"What is it?"
"You will not pa.s.s this on."
It was not a question; Arthur Field knew that the old man would not pa.s.s anything on after that night. But Raymond shook his head. "Of course not, Field."
When I woke, slumped against Stirling"s bed, his hand had drifted away from mine and lay loose by his side, and he was breathing peacefully. I had been dreaming; at the moment I woke someone was about to tell me a story. I was forgetting it now. I got to my feet. All my muscles ached, and my whole head and face hurt with tiredness, and I could hardly keep my eyes open. I couldn"t continue like this for much longer.
I was irritated with myself for being so weak, scarcely able to endure two sleepless nights for the sake of my own brother. I could continue like this, I resolved, and I would.
There was a rap on the door when I had only just come back upstairs from the bathroom. Grandmother went to open it, shutting the bedroom door behind her so that Stirling would not wake. It was Maria; I could hear baby Anselm crying. I was still putting on my uniform, but I stepped nearer the closed door. From the low rise and fall of their voices, I made out a few of Maria"s words. "I don"t want to bother you when Stirling is so sick," she was saying, "but I could come and sit with Stirling if you need to get things done, or fetch your shopping for you." Then more low murmuring.
"You are very kind to offer," Grandmother was saying.
"It is nothing." She said it sincerely, not in the way that people ordinarily say it, when custom has made them forget its meaning. When Maria spoke, she meant what she said.
Grandmother came to the bedroom door not long after. "That was Maria," she said, in an undertone, so as not to wake Stirling. "She is a very nice girl, you know. Very nice indeed."
"She is."
"She was offering to help us. And she has had silent fever; would you have guessed? Lots of people recover from it, after all; it has done her no harm." I nodded.
"Some people would be afraid of bringing a baby near here," Grandmother continued. "But then, I suppose Maria is a sensible girl, and knows what is dangerous and what is not. She said that having silent fever yourself means that your children are born immune. She saw a trained doctor when she had it, and he told her so."
"This strain is not catching anyway," I said. "At least, I don"t think so. What did the newspaper say?"
The article about the soldier was still open on the table, and she scanned it again now. We had both read it several times already. It did not make much sense to either of us, but it was all we had to go by except for what Father Dunstan had told us.
"You had better hurry or you"ll be late for school," said Grandmother, looking up. "You have had no breakfast. And you ate nothing yesterday either."
"I"m not hungry."
"Go and get yourself something to eat."
I swallowed a dry piece of bread, cut a couple of slices for my lunch and grabbed an apple, and stuffed them into my jacket pocket. "I"ll see you this evening," I said. "Don"t worry if I"m late."
Once I shut the door, I wished that I had said goodbye to Stirling. But he would still be there when I got back.
I never walked to school alone, and noticing it made me worry. Every step reminded me that Stirling was ill, and by the time I reached the gates, I was almost too afraid to go in. You have to be strong to go to school. I wanted to turn back. But I didn"t.
"We saw you at the weekend, North," Seth Blackwood told me when I walked into the cla.s.sroom. Usually everyone treated me with cold indifference.
"I know. I spoke to you."
"I didn"t know you had a girlfriend," said Isaac.
"A girlfriend? Well ...," I began distractedly.
"d.a.m.n pretty girl too," Isaac announced to the rest of the platoon.
"She ...," I began again. But they were not listening, and I was too weary to explain.
About halfway through the morning, another whisper started. I had only just noticed it when Seth Blackwood called across to me again: "North, is it true your brother has silent fever?"
I swallowed and said, "Yes."
He swore quietly, more pity in his tone than anything else. "What are you doing in school?" someone else said. "You could pa.s.s it on."
"It"s slow-developing silent fever. That"s not catching."
"How do you know?"
I didn"t trouble to answer. Wherever I looked that day, someone had stopped working and turned to watch me. I wished that they would not, because it made me feel suffocated. I was so afraid for Stirling, so afraid that he would die, and always people were watching me. I was used to being invisible.
I got home late again that afternoon. I made myself push the door open quickly, or I would not have done it at all; I thought suddenly that Stirling was gone. But I saw at once that the bedroom door was open, and Maria was sitting beside the bed, talking to him. I hurried in, my heartbeat slowing again.
"Leo!" said Stirling, smiling and turning toward me, though he was not looking directly at me. "Where have you been?"
"The hills," I said. I had walked farther this time, but I had still not searched as far from the edge of the city as I would have liked. There was a long distance to go yet.
"I missed you," said Stirling. "I wish you would not go there."
"I have to. What if someone else found the Bloodflower, and it was somewhere I could have been looking myself? Near to the city. It"s possible."
"You are looking for the Bloodflower?" said Maria. She watched me in silence. "But do you not think that everywhere you search, someone else will have searched first?"
I sat down on the end of Stirling"s bed, kicking off my boots. "You look terrible," said Maria. I laughed shortly. "No." She smiled. "I mean terribly tired."
"Do I?" I stood up and looked in the mirror. It was true. "I will get used to this in time," I said. "I have walked a few miles today, that"s all."
"Stirling seems good, though," said Maria. " We both think he will get better by himself anyway."
"Yes," said Stirling. "You do not need to find that plant."
"Well, when you get well by yourself, I can sell it and buy us a house on the edge of the city, better than Sergeant Markey"s even." They laughed at that.
"Where is Grandmother?" I asked.
"She went down to take a shower," said Maria. "Which is good; she needs to do something other than sit here worrying."
"She could go to church this evening," I said.
"If you can persuade her to leave Stirling."