A Secret Ambition

XXXII

"I know you despise me; allow me to say, it is because you do not understand me."  Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

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XXXII.

Callan cried out in anguish, in panic, and in pain, as he held Lily's freezing, but still living, body in his arms. She was barely there, barely alive, and Callan felt her slipping away from him right before his eyes as he was powerless to do anything.

She was alive, but he had no power to keep her that way.

Callan rested her gently against his legs as he ripped his coat from his body, wrapping it around her just as the duke reached them, throwing himself to the ground beside his daughter.

Callan dared look up at him, and he saw an expression of terror that no person, no matter their station, ought to bear. And Callan knew that the duke's face mirrored his own.

"She's alive," Callan managed to say. How he had been able to produce coherent words, he would never know, as they were twisted and warped by panic.

Tears flooded the duke's eyes and spilled over down his cheeks as he cupped Lily's face, flinching as his hands came into contact with her frozen skin. "And you will stay that way, my wee one," the duke uttered shakily.

"We must find a doctor," Callan said hoarsely. His attention returned to Lily's face. Her eyelashes were still so wet that they were stuck together in black, silky clumps. What he would have given for her ocean eyes to open, to blink and flutter open, and to tell Callan that this had all been an awful dream.

"Help me lift her," urged the duke desperately. "We must return to the carriage."

Callan did not need any help in lifting Lily. He stood up, as steadily as he could, with Lily's body draped across his arms. Callan held her, as securely as he could manage, and cradled her head against his collar bone. Certainly, if she was going to awaken, then the pounding of his heart would have rattled her into consciousness.

But it did not.

The duke barked a desperate order for his driver to take them back into the town in search of a surgery, before they transferred Lily as delicately as they could into the carriage.

The door was barely closed before Callan could hear the crack of the whip and the horses take off. He clutched Lily tightly with one arm as the carriage jostled, and he used his other hand to hold both of her little frozen ones. He prayed that the warmth of his body might do something, anything, to help her.

Across from him, the duke's head was bowed. He was praying, too.

***

The surgery, if it could even be called a surgery, was a one room shack attached to one of the taverns in town. Jovial, drinking men could be heard through a very thin wall as a small, frozen, precious girl lay dying on a wooden table that looked to be stained with old blood. Callan was convinced that it might have been a butcher's block, or perhaps still was.

The doctor spoke little English, as was in fact a sailor aboard one of the ships docked down at the harbour. But he has recognised the duke and Callan's pleas for help.

Despite his lack of English, the weathered sailor demanded the fire be built up in his language, and before long there was heat emanating throughout the small room. Lily's wet clothes were quickly removed, and the duke saw to it that she was quickly covered by a warm, woollen blanket that the innkeeper had brought them.

Callan, once again, was helpless as he watched the sailor work. Lily was motionless, still as pale as a ghost, and her lips were not any less blue. He kept hold of one of her hands; the duke had the other on the opposite side of the bench. Callan kept one of his fingers pressed against her wrist and counted every single one of her slow, weak heartbeats.