While Michael poured some of the Scotch into a glass, Darryl tossed his towel toward their dresser. It fell off, carrying a hairbrush and some other stuff with it. “Sorry,” he said, “my three-point shot was always weak.” He bent down and picked a few things up off the carpet, but the last item he weighed thoughtfully in his hand.
When Michael handed him the glass, Darryl offered him the item he'd just retrieved-a walrus-tooth necklace that unspooled into Michael's palm like a snake.
“When you get back to the world,” Darryl said, “I guess you could always mail it back to his widow. She'd probably like to have it.”
December 16, 8:20 p.m.
Once Michael had left the infirmary-and Eleanor was sorry to see him go-the doctor ushered her into the bathroom, showed her how the hot shower worked, and left her everything else she'd need. There was a slender cylinder, for example, soft to the touch, that emitted a paste for scrubbing the teeth-the taste reminded her of lime-and a brush, too, with very fine, clear bristles. Eleanor wondered for a moment what animal the bristles could possibly have come from.
“You need anything else, I'm right next door,” the doctor said.
And then Eleanor was alone-alone in a lavatory that resembled nothing she'd ever seen, with fresh apparel to put on, for the first time in over 150 years, and with no idea what would happen to her next. Or to Sinclair, wherever he might be. Was he still reconnoitering? Or hunting? Had he been caught, too far from the church, in the midst of the storm, and was he stranded in the alien landscape?
Or had he come back, only to find the bolt on the door thrown back and the room empty? He would know that someone must have intruded on her. She felt a sharp pang, the pang she knew she'd have felt if their positions had been reversed… if she'd had reason to believe that Sinclair had been taken from her, God knew where. Ever since the day he had been brought back from the battlefield, and she had seen his name on the roster of the newly admitted, they had been united in a way that she could never have explained to anyone.
How could anyone else have ever understood?
She had found him in one of the larger fever wards. Stained muslin curtains hung from sagging rods, and since few of the doctors, or even the orderlies, cared to risk the chance of contagion, there was no one to ask about exactly where he had been billeted. Ignoring the piteous cries for water or help, from men dying of thirst or lost in some terrible fever dream, she had stumbled through the ward, looking everywhere… until she spied a fair-haired head lying on a straw bolster on the floor.
“Sinclair!” she'd exclaimed, running to his side.
He looked up at her, but said nothing-and then he had smiled. But it was a dreamy smile, a smile that told her he did not believe she was really there. It was the smile of a man consciously enjoying what he knew to be a reverie.
“Sinclair, it's me,” she said, falling to her knees beside his flimsy pallet and taking hold of his limp hand. “I'm here. Truly.”
The smile faltered, as if her touch was eroding, rather than reinforcing, his fragile dream.
She pressed her cheek to the back of his hand. “I'm here, and you're alive, and that's all that matters.”
He withdrew the hand-peeved-at this further intrusion.
Tears welled up in her eyes, but she searched the ward until she found a pitcher of stagnant water-the only water available at all- and returned to mop his brow and face. There were flakes of blood in his moustache, and she wiped those away, too.
The soldier lying on the floor behind her, a Highlander judging from what was left of his uniform, clutched at the hem of her skirt and begged for a drop of the water. She turned and poured some of the water over his cracked lips. He was an older man, somewhere past thirty, with broken teeth and skin the color of chalk. He would not, she knew, be long for this world.
“Thank'ee, Missus,” he murmured. “But mind you, steer clear of him.” He meant Sinclair. “He's a bad ‘un.” He turned his pallid face away, suddenly overcome by a barking cough.
Delirium, she thought, before turning back to Sinclair. But it was as if, in those few seconds, his mind had cleared somewhat; he was looking at her now with comprehension. “My God,” escaped his lips. “It is you.”
Her tears burst forth, and she bent to embrace him. She could feel his skin and bones through the thin nightshirt he had been issued, and wondered how quickly she could fetch some hot porridge from the kitchens. Or find him a proper bed.
He was weak and frail but able to speak a few words at a time, and Eleanor filled in the rest. She didn't want to exhaust him-and she knew that she had duties to fulfill-but he seemed to be gaining strength from her very presence and she dreaded leaving him, even for a few hours. When, finally, she had to do so, promising to return at her first opportunity, he followed her with his eyes until she was obscured by the muslin curtains billowing like shrouds.
Even as she looked at herself now in the spotless lavatory mirror, she could perfectly remember the look on his face, and see it as clearly as her own. She turned the shower handles as the doctor had shown her-and after piling the last of her clothes atop a wicker hamper, stepped gingerly into the hot spray. The water poured from a circular device, and seemed to pulsate as it rained down on her. A bar of soap-green, of all things-lay in a shallow niche on the tiled wall. And just as the paste she had used on her teeth had a taste of citrus, the soap had a fragrance, of evergreen trees. Did everything in this strange new world bear a foreign flavor or aroma? Eleanor let the hot torrent fall over her arms, then her shoulders. Unsure how long the miraculous cascade might last, she put her face up to the spray. Everything was so alien, and so unexpected, it was as if she had landed in the Crimea all over again.
The water felt like a thousand tiny raindrops drumming on her eyelids, coursing down her neck and breasts. Slowly, she inched forward, until the water was rushing over the crown of her head, draping her long brown hair down either side of her face. It was one of the most delicious sensations she had ever experienced, and she stood there for many minutes, leaning forward with her palms flat against the white tiles, steeping, she thought, like tea leaves, as the water made a shallow pool around her feet. For the first time in ages, her skin felt warm, all over, and she wondered, if she stood there long enough and the water did not run out, if its heat could finally penetrate as far as her heart and assuage the unremitting ache that had been her companion for so long.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
December 17, Midnight
The bell in the steeple was ringing when Sinclair finally returned to the church, but it was only the wind banging the clapper. Still, the sound had helped him and the dogs to find their way through the storm. He staggered in, the dead seal draped around his shoulders, and the dogs, released from their harness, yapping wildly around his feet. In an instant he saw that the rectory door was ajar. Throwing the seal upon the altar, he crossed to the open door and looked inside.
The fire was dead in the grate, and Eleanor was gone.
He stood there, his arms extended to either side of the doorframe, breathing hard. It was possible, though unlikely, that she had found some way to unfasten the lock and escape. But where?
And why?
“Eleanor!” He shouted her name again and again, setting off a reciprocal chorus among the dogs roaming the aisles. He thundered up the stairs to the belfry and peered into the cyclone of snow and ice, but he could barely see the warehouses and sheds below. Even if he ventured out into the storm on foot, the blizzard was so intense he would not be able to orient himself or move in any consistent direction. If Eleanor had gone into it, he would never be able to find her… or his own way back.
There was nothing to do, he knew, but wait. He must bide his time until the storm abated. Though he hated to concede it, it was conceivable that she had done something rash and unforgivable… that she had chosen, of her own free will, not to go on. He was well aware of her despair, being no stranger to it himself… but in his heart he could not accept that she had done that. He scoured their humble quarters for a telltale sign of farewell, or a message of any kind, torn from letters in the hymnals perhaps. But there was nothing, and he knew that Eleanor, no matter how possessed by grief she might have been, would not have left him that way. She would not have left him
