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Chapter Six
Mark called the next day before he left town and was allowed a short visit to the sick room, where Jane sat reading to her sister. Jane put the book down and went over to the window to look out on the busy street and give them a little privacy. She heard him ask Isabel how she was and her sister’s low answer, but then the conversation stopped. They were silent for so long, she risked a glance. Mark was sitting on the chair she had been using and Isabel was propped up in bed, with the covers up to her chin. They were simply sitting there with nothing to say, both looking down, both unhappy.
‘I am going back to Hadlea immediately,’ he said at last. ‘Have you a message for your parents?’
‘Tell them I am doing well and no harm has been done,’ she said. ‘Tell them not to worry. Jane is looking after me.’
‘Ah, the inestimable Jane.’ He turned to her. ‘You are looking tired, Jane. Has no one thought about how you feel?’
‘I feel fine,’ she said. ‘Do not worry about me. Tell Mama and Papa I shall stay until Issie is well enough to travel.’
‘I will come back and fetch you.’ He rose, picked Isabel’s hand off of the coverlet and kissed the back of it. ‘I’ll be off then. Don’t do anything rash while I am away.’
Isabel laughed. ‘I can’t do much stuck here in bed, can I?’
He bowed to Jane and left. He was no sooner gone than Drew arrived, but Lady Cartrose did not think it fitting to allow him into the sickroom. She received him in the drawing room and gave him an account of the patient’s progress and he had to be content with that.
Day by day Isabel recovered and though Jane spent some time sitting with her, trying to cheer her up, she was quiet and withdrawn. Drew called regularly to ask after the patient; Isabel did not see him, though Jane did. He was most concerned for the invalid, more than was warranted in Jane’s opinion, considering Isabel was engaged elsewhere. She might not have thought of it if she had not seen the look on his face as he cradled her sister in his arms. She wondered whether to confront him about it, but decided against making an issue of it. Once they returned to Hadlea it would die a natural death.
When she was not sitting with her sister, Jane returned to the matter of raising funds and continued to write letters and invite people to Aunt Emmeline’s soirée. Her aunt had wanted to cancel it altogether, but Isabel, feeling guilty about what had happened, insisted it go ahead a week later than planned when she was sure she would have recovered enough to play her part. Jane encouraged her to walk about her room to strengthen her muscles and, on the sixth day, Bessie helped her to dress and she went downstairs for the first time. She was there when Drew arrived on his daily visit.
‘I am pleased to see you looking so well,’ he said, after bowing to Lady Cartrose and Jane. ‘I feared you might have sustained a serious injury.’
Isabel laughed. ‘A bump on the head, that was all, and it is quite gone now. I am my old self.’
‘Then I am, indeed, relieved.’
‘Are you going to come to Aunt Emmeline’s soirée tomorrow evening? I think it will be a very grand affair.’
‘It is not meant to be a grand affair,’ Jane said. ‘It is to raise funds for my orphanage.’
‘Well, I know that, but Aunt Emmeline has invited a great many wealthy people so it is bound to be grand.’
‘Whatever it is I would not miss it,’ Drew said. ‘If Mark is not back in time, I shall stand in for him.’
After he had left, Isabel went back to her room to rest, but as she no longer needed anyone sitting with her, Jane went to walk in the garden where she rehearsed under her breath the words she would use to persuade people that the soldiers’ orphans were a worthy cause for their charity.
It was there Mark found her on his return. ‘Jane, how are you?’ He took both her hands in his own and leaned back to look at her. ‘You are looking pale. Have you not been sleeping?’
‘I am perfectly well, thank you.’ His touch was sending shivers into the very core of her. Her love for him was something that could never be cured and must never be spoken of, so every tiny touch, every short private conversation, was secretly treasured. ‘You should be asking about Isabel, not me.’
‘I imagine she is fully recovered,’ he said drily. ‘Bessie has just informed me she has gone out with Lady Cartrose and Drew.’
