Part 13 (1/2)
”It is not broken bones,” the doctor said as calmly as he was able. ”It is the nerves which give feeling.”
”Then can't he walk without feeling?” Bernd demanded. ”He can learn! I've known men with dead legs who managed to walk!” His face was growing dark with pain and anger at his own helplessness. He could not bear to believe what was being said. ”It will take time, but we shall accomplish it!”
”No.” Hester spoke for the first time.
He glared at her. ”Thank you for your opinion, Miss Latterly, but at this time it is not appropriate. I will not give up hope for my son!” His voice broke, and he took refuge in anger. ”Your place is to nurse him. You are not a doctor! You will please not venture medical opinions which are beyond your knowledge.”
Dagmar winced as if she had been hit.
The doctor opened his mouth and then did not know what to say.
”It is not a medical opinion,” Hester said gravely. ”I have watched many men come to terms with the fact that an injury will not heal. Once they have accepted the truth, it is not a kindness to hold out a hope which cannot be realized. It is, in fact, making them carry your burden as well as their own.”
”How dare you!” he said. ”Your impertinence is intolerable! I shall-”
”It is not impertinence, Bernd,” Dagmar interrupted him, touching his hand with hers even as she clung to him. ”She is trying to help us to do what is best for Robert. If he will not walk again, it is kinder for us not to pretend that somehow he will.”
He moved away, taking his arm from her grasp. In rejecting her he was also rejecting what she had said.
”Are you prepared to give up so easily? Well, I shall never give up! He is my son...I cannot give up!” He turned away to hide the emotion twisting his features.
Dagmar turned to Hester, her face bruised with pain.
”I'm sorry,” she whispered, trying to control herself. ”He doesn't mean it. I know you are saying what is best for Robert. We must face the truth, if that is what it is. Will you help me to tell him, please?”
”Of course.” Hester nearly offered to do it for her, if she wished, then realized that if she did, afterwards Dagmar would feel as if she had let her son down out of her own weakness. It was necessary for Dagmar, whether it was for Robert or for her own peace of mind, to tell him herself.
Together they moved towards the door, and the doctor turned to follow them.
Bernd swung around as though to speak, then changed his mind. He knew his own emotions would only make it harder.
Upstairs, Dagmar knocked at Robert's door, and when she heard his voice, pushed the door open and went in, Hester behind her.
Robert was sitting up as usual, but his face was very white.
Dagmar stopped.
Hester ached to say it for her. She choked back the impulse, her throat tight.
Robert stared at Dagmar. For a moment there was hope in his eyes, then only fear.
”I'm sorry, my darling,” Dagmar began, her words husky with tears. ”It will not get better. We must plan what we can do as it is.”
Robert opened his mouth, then clenched his hands and gazed at her in silence. For a moment it was beyond him to speak.
Dagmar took a step forward, then changed her mind.
Hester knew that nothing she could say would help. For the moment the pain was all-consuming. It would have to change, almost certainly be in part replaced by anger, at least for a while, then perhaps despair, self-pity, and finally acceptance, before the beginning of adjustment.
Dagmar moved forward again and sat down on the edge of the bed. She took Robert's hand in hers and held it. He tightened his grip, as if all his mind and his will were in that one part of him. His eyes stared straight ahead, seeing nothing.
Hester stepped back and pulled the door closed.
It was the middle of the next morning when Hester saw Bernd again. She was sitting in the green morning room in front of the fire writing letters, one or two of her own, but mostly to a.s.sist Dagmar in conveying apologies and explanations to friends, when Bernd came in.
”Good morning, Miss Latterly,” he said stiffly. ”I believe I owe you an apology for my words yesterday. They were not intended as any personal discourtesy. I am most...grateful...for the care you have shown my son.”
She smiled, putting down her pen. ”I did not doubt that, sir. Your distress is natural. Anyone would have felt as you did. Please do not consider it necessary to think of it again.”
”My wife tells me I was...rude...”
”I have forgotten it.”
”Thank you. I...I hope you will remain to look after Robert? He is going to need a great deal of a.s.sistance. Of course, in time we shall obtain an appropriate manservant, but until then...”
”He will learn to do far more than you think now,” she a.s.sured him. ”He is disabled; he is not ill. The greatest help would be a comfortable chair with wheels so that he can move around...”
Bernd winced. ”He will hate it! People will be...sorry for him. He will feel-” He stopped, unable to continue.
”He will feel some degree of independence,” she finished for him. ”The alternative is to remain in bed. There is no need for that. He is not an invalid. He has his hands, his brain and his senses.”
”He will be a cripple!” He spoke of it in the future, as if to acknowledge it in the present made it more of a fact and he still could not bear that.
”He cannot use his legs,” she said carefully. ”You must help him to make all the use he can of everything else. And people may begin by being sorry for him, but they will only remain so if he is sorry for himself.”
He stared at her. He looked exhausted; there were dark smudges around his eyes and his skin had a thin, papery quality.
”I would like to think you are correct, Miss Latterly,” he said after a moment or two. ”But you speak so easily. I know you have seen a great many young men disabled by war and injuries perhaps far worse than Robert's. But you see only the first terrible shock, then you move on to another patient. You do not see the slow years that follow afterwards, the disappointed hopes, the imprisonment that closes in, that ruins the...the pleasures, the achievements of life.”
”I haven't nursed only soldiers, Baron Ollenheim,” she said gently. ”But please don't ever allow Robert to know that you believe life is so blighted for him, or you will crush him completely. You may even make your fears come true by your belief in them.”
He stared at her, doubt, anger, amazement, and then comprehension pa.s.sing across his face.
”Who are you writing to?” He glanced at the paper and pen in front of her. ”My wife said you had agreed to a.s.sist her with some of the letters which have become necessary. Perhaps you would be good enough to thank Miss Stanhope and say that she will no longer be needed. Do you think it would be appropriate to offer her some recompense for her kindness? I understand she is of very restricted means.”
”No, I do not think it would be appropriate,” she said sharply. ”Furthermore, I think it would be a serious mistake to tell her she is no longer needed. Someone must encourage Robert to go out, to learn new pastimes.”
”Go out?” He was startled, and two spots of color stained his pale cheeks. ”I hardly think he will wish to go out, Miss Latterly. That is a most insensitive remark.”
”He is disabled, Baron Ollenheim, not disfigured,” she pointed out. ”He has nothing whatever of which to be ashamed-”
”Of course not.” He was thoroughly angry now, perhaps because shame was precisely what he had felt that any member of his family should be less than whole, less than manly, and now dependent upon the help of others.
”I think it would be wise to encourage him to have Miss Stanhope visit,” Hester repeated steadily. ”She is already aware of his situation, and it would be easier for him than trusting someone new, at least to begin with.”
He thought for several moments before replying. He looked appallingly tired.
”I do not want to be unfair to the girl,” he said finally. ”She has sufficient misfortune already, by her appearance and by what my wife tells me of her circ.u.mstances. We can offer her no permanent post. Robert will need a trained manservant, and naturally, in time, if he resumes his old friends.h.i.+ps, those who are willing to make adjustments to his new state...” His face pinched as he spoke. ”Then she would find herself excluded. We must not take advantage of either her generosity or her vulnerable position.”