Story for the Day: Lady Anaruyd's Legacy

Look to the garden.

Another fit of coughing ensued, the physician marked the seconds on his watch, holding the face up to the light with one hand while holding his patient’s wrist with the other. She spluttered and flailed, the violent motion of the dry heaves overpowering her. Twenty, twenty-two, twenty-four, the physician’s lips sibilated. The coughing continued, increasing in severity as the fit went on. Forty, forty-two, forty-four… his eye on his watch, his patient in his peripheral view, and Warryn sitting in the corner behind him, remarking the sun spill over her mother’s face, the pallid features, the cruenated lips, the sanguined and serous eyes of putrid infection. She seemed bewildered and frantic once the coughing died away, leaving behind it a strained respiration, the punctured rasp of decay. Physician continued counting, her breathing quickened, but her pulse began fading under his grasp. Panic overspread Lady Anaruyd’s face, her limbs began shaking, her lips shuddering with a sudden chill.

                “She is hemorrhaging,” the physician announced. “Take the girl out.”

                The nurses flocked into the room, to help the physician administer the sedative and hold his patient down, and the maids moved toward Warryn, her nursemaid holding her back whilst the others obscured her view.

                “Come, child,” her maid pleaded, “it’s no use your being here.”

                She moved to carry Warryn away, but through the bustle and confusion, a hand shot out, a cry came from the bed, in a voice that was no voice at all, “My daughter… my daughter…” and Warryn, hearing the empty remains of her mother’s dulcet accent, lunged forward, reaching for her hand through the wend and weave of nurses, her hair screening her view, her vision blurred from crying. Her fingers almost touched her mother’s, when her arm was pulled back and her hand was drawn away.

                “Don’t touch it, child!” one of the nurses scolded her. “It’s infectious!”

                Warryn loved to be in her mother’s arms. Her mind called back her thoughts of their daily reading together, of their visits to the garden, of their taking tea together. Long had it been since Warryn sat beside her mother, their sides touching, her mother’s smiles raining down upon her with a radiant glow. The flourish of full health had long passed away, the warmth of her mother’s touch was wanting, there were no tea and books now; there was only the momentary relief that sedatives supplied.

                The physician placed the syringe aside and held his patient down, waiting for the exhale of ease, but Lady Anaruyd was suddenly still, her head turned and eyes fixed on her daughter, whom she saw with red eyes, her cheeks crimsoned and stained with tears, her gown with hems sullied and torn, her arms pushing against the maid, struggling to reach out to her.

                “Warryn…” said she, in a voice just articulate.

                The bustle of the room ceased. Nurses parted, the maid stepped aside, and the physician spied Warryn from the corner of his eye, his watch in his pocket, his patient politeness at hand to comfort a child that would very soon have to succumb to the agony of grief and loss. Warryn came forward, her hands gripping her gown to keep her from reaching for her mother, and saw with horror her mother’s macilent chest, her features sunken and serene, her withered aspect conscious of her daughter’s dismay.

                Warryn leaned as close as the physician and nurses would allow and listened as her mother tried to speak. The sun’s rays pervaded the room, pooling over the bed in a sickly brume, a hand lifted and finger pointed feebly to the window.

                “Look, my child, to the garden…” said Lady Anaruyd, with pained features, her voice straining. Her hand slowly fell to the bed, Warryn reached out to her it as it descended, but the maid held her back, the discolouration of disease spread across her fingertips. Her head titled to the side, and the last tears of life scaled her cheek, her eyes clouded, all colour and clarity fading. Look to the garden… her consciousness repeated, her expression communicating what her voice could no longer covey. She inhaled, trying one last time to speak, but no sound returned; there was only an empty breath, the rale of failing lungs, the billow of a body desiccated and dying. Life had injured her, comfort was coming, and though she admitted to being given the gift of a good life, leaving a daughter so beloved to succeed her wounded her heart, an grievance that would persist beyond the confines of the mortal sithe. Look to the garden…  the intimation of a smile passed her lips, her chest rose and fell, sinking into itself, and she lay unmoving, her mouth still and semihiant, her eyes spiritless and open.

                  Warryn called to her, desperately hoping for some proof of life, but the morbulent frame was proof enough. A pang struck her: her mother was gone, her mind trying to refute what she knew at her heart. The physician reached down and searched for a pulse, he felt and let the arm wilt against the bed, and he turned to Warryn with a sorrowful look. Look to the garden… the physician nodded, and the wails began: Lady Anaruyd, matron of the master’s house, had passed, and the exclamations of her being now at peace went around the bed. Preparations were talked of, how they were to tell the master of his wife’s death, how they were going to convey it to the children—but Warryn was still in the room, her hands still reaching out to the lifeless frame of a mother who had loved her, her heart aching with the wretchedness of loss. Her knees gave way, sinking down in dejection—the maid caught her and supported her, but she need not have held her long. Warryn was out of the room in a moment, running down the corridor and into the adjoining hall, her screams of agony lost the flow of tears.