The Madness Of Love | The Secret History

IX

Just so you know, Francis and Lilith aren't in a relationship, they're just very close and have something like a 'friends with benefits' thing going on.
Also I'm skipping the part where Richard is freezing at Leo's. This part is going to start when he hits his head, comes back to the workshop and meets Henry.

I pushed the workshop door open with my shoulder and began to search for the light switch when suddenly I saw something by the window that made me reel with shock.

Two figures in long black coats were standing motionless across the room by the window. The taller figure had hands clasped behind the back and the smaller one was smoking a cigarette.

The lights came on with a crackle. The two shadowy figures, now solid and visible, turned around. It was Henry and Lilith. Lilith seemed on the verge of making some joking remark, but when she saw me her eyes got wide and her mouth fell open into a small, round o.

I stood staring at them across the room for a moment or two. "Henry?" I said at last, my voice scarcely more than a whisper."Lilith?"
She let the cigarette fall from her fingers and they both took a step towards me. It were really them - damp, red cheeks, snow on their coats.

"Good God, Richie" she said. "What's happened to you?"

I didn't reply. If I wouldn't have hit my head, I'd have been more surprised to see them together and not arguing. I stood where I was, staring, unbalanced. Things had got too bright. I reached for the door frame, and the next thing I knew I was falling, and Henry had jumped forward to catch me.

He eased me into the floor and took off his coat and spread it over me like a blanket. "Where did you come from?" I asked. "I left Italy early." He was brushing the hair back from my forehead, trying to get a look at my cut. I turned my head to Lilith with a questioning look. "I got in an argument with Francis's mother." she said. Henry bent over to look at my head again.

I remember being in Henry's car, and lights and people bending over me, and having to sit up when I didn't want to, and I also remember someone trying to take my blood and me complaining about it. But the first thing I remember with any clarity was sitting up and finding myself in a dim, white room, lying in a hospital bed with an IV in my arm.

Henry was sitting in a chair by my bed and reading. Lilith was lying on a little sofa in my room with closed eyes. Henry heard me stir and put down his book. "Your cut wasn't serious" he said. "It was very clean and shallow. They gave you a few stitches." "Am I in the infirmary?"
"You're in Montpelier. We brought you to the hospital. Would you like something to read?"
"No thank you. What time is it?" "One in the morning." Henry answered. "Is she sleeping?" I asked him. "No. I don't think so." he said plainly.

"I thought you were in Rome." It still was a mystery to me why was he here. There was no mystery with Lilith, her short statement that she got in an argument with Francis's mother was enough.

"I came back two weeks ago." said Henry. "If you want to go back to sleep I'll call the nurse to give you a shot." "No, thanks. Why haven't I seen you before now?"
"We didn't know where you lived. This afternoon I asked around at the offices. By the way, what's the name of the town where your parents live?" "Plano. Why?" I thought you might want me to call them." he said. "Don't bother." I said, sinking back into my bed. The IV was like ice in my veins. "Tell me about Rome."

"All right." he said, and he began to talk very quietly about the lily pools and the fountains in the nymphaeum outside of Villa Giulia, about the Villa Borghese and the Colosseum, the view from the Palatine Hill, and how beautiful the Baths of Caracalla must have been in Roman times, with the marbles and the libraries and the big circular calidarium, and probably a lot of other things that I don't remember because I fell asleep. But just right before falling asleep I saw how Henry, never interrupting his talk, put his coat over Lilith, seemingly to make her more comfortable.

I was in the hospital for four nights. Both Lilith and Henry stayed with me almost the whole time, bringing me sodas when I asked for them, and a razor and a toothbrush, and Henry even brought a pair of his own pajamas.

Lilith also brought me pencils and paper, for which I had a little use but which I suppose she'd have been lost without. They both brought me many books, half of which were in languages I couldn't read and the other half of which might as well have been.

One night, when Lilith was out getting coffee, I asked Henry to bring me a magazine; he looked rather startled, and when he came back it was a trade journal (Pharmacology Update) he had found in the lounge.

We talked hardly at all. Even though Lilith asked me how I felt about 5 times a day, we never really talked about anything else.

Most of the time they were reading, both with such concentration that astonished me. During all that time I was in the hospital I never saw them say a word to each other.

Henry paid me even less attention then Lilith did. But they both stayed up with me on the bad nights, when I had hard time breathing and my lungs hurt; and once, when the nurse on duty was three hours late with my medicine, Henry followed her expressionless into the hall and there delivered, in his monotone, such a tense reprimand that the nurse was somewhat mollified; and afterwards she was much gentler in her handling of me, and once even called me 'hon'.

The emergency room doctor told me that Lilith and especially Henry have saved my life. This was a dramatic and gratifying thing to hear, but secretly I thought it was an exaggeration. In subsequent years, however, I've come to feel that he might have been right.

I told them what the doctor had said. They were displeased. Lilith scoffed and Henry, frowning, made some curt remark. I was so embarrassed and I never mentioned it again, though I think that they did save me.

But I am getting sentimental. Sometimes, when I think about these things, I do.