Song of the Spirits (81 page)

Elaine could take it no longer; she strode quickly into the study and pulled a chair up to Timothy, moving her fingers hesitantly over his hand.

“Tim…”

He removed his hand from hers and began to unbutton his jacket.

“May I?” he asked politely.

Elaine stood up to help him, but he rebuffed her gruffly.

“Leave it. I have hands enough.”

Disheartened, she moved back and made several attempts at conversation while he fumbled awkwardly with one after another of the many buttons, eventually managing to cool himself off a little.

“Caleb Biller is a nice fellow…”

Timothy pulled himself together and nodded. “Yeah, but both of his girls are too much for him.” He smiled with difficulty. “I’m sorry, Lainie. I didn’t mean to be abrupt with you. But I’m not doing very well.”

Elaine stroked his shoulder gently before quickly opening the buttons of his vest. She thanked heaven for her light summer dress—formal menswear at these temperatures looked like pure torture. Though the other men had removed their jackets after lunch, Timothy would have needed help to do so, and he would rather have died than ask for that.

“It was a long day. And the people were awful,” she said quietly. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Maybe you could… you could ride to the O’Briens’ and ask Roly to come a little earlier? I…” He tried once more to shift his position but fought hopelessly against the deep cushions.

“Maybe I can help you?” Elaine asked, blushing. She didn’t want to give Timothy the impression that she wanted to undress him and
take him to bed, but perhaps he would let her help him out of that damned chair. “I can’t lift you, of course, but…”

Timothy smiled, and for the first time that day she saw something like joy, even triumph, in his eyes.

“Oh, you don’t need to lift me. I can almost do that on my own. Only standing up from this thing is difficult. Worst of all, I don’t see any possibility of making it to my room.”

Moving the wheelchair proved to be the most difficult part. It became easier, however, once they had left the salon and its voluminous rugs. Timothy had lived on the upper story before, where his parents had their bedrooms too, but when he had returned home after the accident, he had moved into what had formerly been the servants’ quarters between the kitchen and stables. Nellie had already shed many tears over it, but Timothy was not put off by the fact that it sometimes smelled a little of hay. Elaine pushed him into his small salon, where he generally received her when she visited.

“Can you help me onto the sofa?” he asked her in a distracted voice.

Elaine nodded. “What should I do?” she inquired, freeing him from the hated flannel blanket.

“You have your splints on!” she said, astonished. Upon seeing the steel framework around Timothy’s legs for the first time, she suddenly understood the reason for his weight training. “Aren’t they uncomfortable?”

Timothy smiled through his pain. “I wanted to keep an avenue of escape open. Unfortunately, I didn’t count on my mother.” He pointed to his crutches leaning against the wall of his room.

Elaine felt a surge of hot rage toward Nellie Lambert. Even if Timothy could only have taken one or two steps, it would have meant the world to him to greet the guests standing up.

“If you could just hand them to me, please.” Timothy squeezed the crutches under his arms and attempted to lift himself out of the chair, but the right crutch slipped out from under him and he reached for Elaine’s arm to catch himself. Elaine put her arm around him, supporting him until he made it to his feet. And then, for the first
time in a year, he stood next to her. When Timothy realized this, he was so startled that he dropped his other crutch. As Elaine held him, he, too, wrapped his arms around her.

“Tim, you can stand! It’s a miracle.” Elaine looked at him, beaming. She did not have a chance to worry that a man was holding her. It was simply nice to have Timothy upright beside her and to see his smile brighten as it had that day at the race so long ago.

Feeling Elaine in his arms, Timothy couldn’t help himself. He lowered his face to hers and kissed her—first, softly on the forehead and then, having gathered his courage, on the mouth. And then the real miracle occurred. Elaine opened her lips to his. Calmly and naturally, she let him kiss her and even timidly returned the kiss.

“That was wonderful,” Timothy said happily, “Lainie.”

He kissed her once more before she reached for his crutches. Then he showed her that he could make the two steps to the sofa without overexerting himself.

“My record is eleven,” he boasted, smiling, before sinking onto the sofa with a sigh. “But from one end of the church to the other, it’s twenty-eight. Roly tried it out for me. So I need to train a little more.”

“Me too,” Elaine whispered. “Kissing, I mean. And as far as I’m concerned, we could start on that right away.”

T
imothy was so determined to push himself that he was nearly bursting by the time Roly O’Brien came to work the next day.

“We’ll start by doing the usual exercises today,” he explained to the astonished boy, who had been expecting a relaxing morning. The night before, Timothy had looked content but profoundly exhausted, and Roly believed that he should take it easy that day.

“And then,” Timothy said, “you’ll pick up Fellow from Lainie at noon.”

“Your… er… horse, Mr. Lambert?” Roly sounded uncertain. He wasn’t comfortable with horses, having never had anything to do with any animal bigger than a goat or a hen.

“That’s right. My horse. It might be hard for Lainie to part with it, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Walking is taking too long for me, Roly. Starting today, we ride.”

“But—”

“No buts, Roly! Fellow won’t hurt you. He’s a good chap. And I absolutely have to find some way of getting out of here. I want to have Lainie to myself for once, to do something with her. I want to be alone with her.” Timothy sat up impatiently. He could hardly wait for Roly to help him out of bed.

“Maybe you should try driving the coach first?” Roly suggested nervously.

Timothy shook his head. “So that I can ask her to push me around in my wheelchair afterward? No. No arguments. I want to meet the lady for a ride like a gentleman. I don’t want to have to wait anymore for her to visit me, or for my mother to let her through.”

Roly rolled his eyes, resigned. Of course he thought Elaine was attractive, but he could hardly comprehend the effort Timothy was expending on her. What was more, his boss could simply receive visits and pampering from one of the girls from Madame Clarisse’s establishment. Such thoughts had recently begun to cross into Roly’s daydreams, but it would probably be years before he scraped together enough change. It would probably be more economical for him to try courting Mary Flaherty next door a bit.

Elaine shook her head when Roly retrieved Fellow from her.

“This is crazy. Tim can’t even sit without something to lean on,” she objected.

Roly shrugged. “I just do what he says, Miss Keefer,” he said, defending his actions. “If he wants to ride, he gets to ride.”

Elaine would have liked to go back with the boy to oversee Timothy’s dangerous attempt at riding. But she could only too well imagine Timothy’s reaction. So she stayed where she was, and began fretting once again.

And not without reason. Timothy’s first attempt to get himself in the saddle nearly took a catastrophic turn. Climbing the improvised ramp that Roly had built for him out of boards and straw bales was difficult enough in itself. But when Timothy tried to support himself on the saddle, the irritated horse took a few steps to the side and Timothy fell forward around Fellow’s throat and cried out with pain. He had not put so much weight on his freshly healed hip before, and his suddenly overtaxed muscles and tendons protested fiercely.

“Shall I help you down, Mr. Lambert?” Roly was almost as fearful of approaching the horse as he was of his charge falling and breaking a bone again.

“No… I… Just give me a few minutes.” Timothy made every effort to settle himself in the saddle, but it was hopeless. He finally gave into Roly’s insistence that he get down and did not even fight
it when Roly made him lie down and relax. He nevertheless sat up a short while later and reached for pen and paper.

When Roly returned from the stables, where, despite his fears, he had divested Fellow of his saddle and bridle, Timothy held a sketch out to him.

“Here, take that to Ernie Gast. You know him, the saddler. Ask him if he can make a saddle like this. And as quickly as possible. Oh yes, and Jay Hankins should take a look to see if he can forge some box stirrups like these.”

Roly looked the drawing over skeptically. “That looks funny, Mr. Lambert. I’ve never seen a saddle like that.”

The saddle in the picture looked more like an armchair than a riding saddle, with a higher pommel and cantle, which would brace the rider and hold him fast in his seat. Yet it hardly had knee rolls. Tim would be able to dangle his legs, which would be supported by wide stirrups.

“I have,” Timothy said. “In Southern Europe saddles like that are practically the standard. They used similar models in the Middle Ages. Knights, I mean.”

Roly had never heard of knights before, but he nodded politely.

Timothy could hardly wait for Roly to come back the next day with Ernie’s response.

“Mr. Gast says he can build it, but that it ain’t a good idea. He says the thing will hold you like a vise, almost like a sidesaddle. If the horse ever stumbles, and you don’t get out, you’ll break your back.” He pointed to the saddle’s “backrest.”

Timothy sighed. “Fine. Inform him that, for one thing, Fellow won’t stumble, and, for another, every English lady rides in a sidesaddle. England’s most important families have yet to die out, so the risk can’t be all that great. As for breaking my back, two doctors have assured me that at least you don’t feel any pain if that happens. And these days, I’d almost find that worth the effort.”

Timothy’s hip hurt immensely, but he nevertheless had Roly bring him back to the stables that afternoon so he could repeat his attempt
to sit on Fellow. The horse remained calm this time and trotted obediently over to the ramp.

Though the special saddle didn’t work any miracles, Timothy’s determination eventually triumphed over his body’s pain and stiffness. Six weeks after his first attempt to get on his horse, he proudly directed Fellow out of the yard. Though he was still in pain—going faster than a walking pace was out of the question—he was upright and somewhat secure.

The feeling of crossing town high on his steed more than compensated for all the exertion. Though there were not many people out and about that afternoon, everyone who knew Timothy beamed at him and cheered him on. Mrs. Tanner and Mrs. Carey said some hasty prayers, and Berta Leroy scolded him for being “short on sense,” but her eyes were sparkling.

“Someone should probably go tell the princess that her knight is here,” she said. “’Cause he still can’t dismount.”

Timothy had to admit that was indeed the case. He could not wear his leg splints on the horse, so he needed Roly’s help to mount and dismount, and to attach and remove the splints.

The news of his adventure had traveled faster than Fellow could take him, and Elaine was already outside when Timothy turned his horse toward the pub.

She looked up at him, stunned. Though he could not bend down to kiss her, she took his hands and pressed up against his leg and good hip.

“You’re hopeless,” she chided. “Where do you get these ideas?”

Timothy laughed. “Don’t you remember? The day you can’t ride anymore is the day you die. May I invite my most sanguine and beautiful lady for a ride with me?”

Elaine put his hand to her cheek and then pressed a shy kiss into it.

“I’ll go fetch Banshee,” she said with a smile. “But you are not to try and seduce me if I go with you without a chaperone.”

Timothy looked at her with feigned shock. “You’re not taking a chaperone? Why, that’s indecent. Come, let’s ask Florence Weber. She’ll surely ride along.”

Elaine laughed lightheartedly. She didn’t bother to saddle Banshee, and instead simply swung from the mounting block in front of Madame Clarisse’s inn onto her horse’s bare back. The people on the street applauded good-naturedly.

Elaine waved to them as she directed Banshee down Main Street. A year ago, she would have been afraid of riding from the church to town with Timothy Lambert. Now, however, she enjoyed having Banshee walking tranquilly beside Fellow—and seeing Timothy look as radiant as he had been at the race. As they left town, she held her hand out to him and smiled. It was like in a fairy tale. A princess and her knight.

“I didn’t realize you had such a flair for the romantic,” she teased him. “Next time we’ll ride along the river and have a picnic.”

Timothy made a face. “I’m afraid I’d have to eat in the saddle,” he replied. Only then did Elaine realize what she had said, and she reddened.

“I’ll think of something,” she promised when she parted from him at the Lamberts’ house, “for next Sunday.”