The English Descendants

2

"Usually you for me, but yes."

"Since we were children."

Edith nods, "Yes, for that many years. Now hold still. I have to change your bandages. And it will hurt." She retrieves water from the bathroom and a towel to place under his side. She is careful, her author's mind picturing every move the nurse had made while cleaning and wrapping the wound. It didn't seem complicated, but the hardest part, Edith knows, will be seeing the gaping hole in his side. She steels herself. After all, just yesterday she bashed in a woman's skull with a shovel. She can bandage a wound without being ill.

He tries not to flinch, not to wince, as she moves him and pulls the bandages from around his torso, but it is nearly impossible. But she is, at least, moderately skilled in her movements and he thinks she would make a very good doctor's assistant. Or even a doctor, herself, should she decide to challenge the medical world and take up the scalpel. He lets his mind wander into imaginations of Edith in medical school, confronting old professors and demanding to sit her examinations when they try to tell her it is not a woman's place. It delights him and he smiles through his pain.

Edith notices, "What are you thinking about? I doubt many men grin so when they are being treated for a stab wound. Or are you grimacing and merely trying to hide it with something more pleasant?"

"I'm dreaming of your future career in medicine."

"I have a future career in medicine?"

"Given your care now, I consider it a distinct possibility." She is amused, but she does not reply, continuing with her work. "I still want to talk about what happened yesterday."

"I don't. You figured out many pieces of their puzzle, but there is more to the Sharpe's than you know. And that is not something I wish to speak of."

"May I ask one thing?"

"I give no guarantee of an answer."

"How did you find out about his other wives?"

"Enola showed me."

"Enola?"

"The woman before me. Her ghost. She was still there, ready to warn me and to show me what she could. I hope they find her body. She deserves a good burial. They all do. But she showed me where to find things, and she pointed out their secrets. So I feel more greatly indebted to her."

"Were there other ghosts in the house?"

"Lady Sharpe. But she was less than helpful. Just dead in the bathtub with a cleaver in her head."

"Oh. That's terrible."

"That it is. Imagine my shock at seeing such a thing."

"I shouldn't have let you go, Edith."

She clucks her tongue, "Alan, Alan, Alan... When have you ever been able to tell me what to do? I fell for Thomas. He had his charms... and I think he did love me. If not then, he did by the end. And it is over now. America awaits. Allerdale Hall can rot in the clay."

"I'm not fetching you his heart."

She is puzzled for a moment, and then her face brightens and she laughs, "You remember!"

"Yes- how could I not? You were so excited when you told me Mary pressed Percy's heart in a book. And then when you told Eunice and Mother you wanted to die a widow..."

"No, you don't have to bring me Thomas' heart. I don't want to be that much like Mary Shelley." She shakes her head and giggles, "I can't believe you remember that little comment. It was just an aside to shut them up."