“Mr Ferguson is badly hurt, sir. Hit by the same bit of scaffold as flew at you and me by the look of it.”
“Show me.” Howes was also bleeding, Darcy noticed. They had none of them escaped unscathed.
The steward was in the same spot upon which they had been standing when the collapse occurred, only now supine on the ground, dazed and groaning. Darcy crouched next to him. “Ferguson, can you hear me?”
Evidently, he could not. Darcy removed his jacket and laid it over him, then stood up. “We must get him inside. Do you know if Mr Jacobs is well?” He had been standing with them.
“I shall live,” answered he, limping up to join them through the gloaming. “Buttheymight not if you do not stop them.”
Darcy looked to where the architect was pointing. With twilight leaching the colour and clarity out of everything, all he could make out was the roiling shadow of men at work at the base of the collapsed wall, toiling to free their fellow ground worker. Underscoring the seriousness of Jacob’s warning, a torrent of loose stones abruptly cascaded down over the rubble, sending the men scattering across the lawn.
“Get away!” Darcy yelled. “We will get him out, but do not get yourselves crushed trying!”
“It is not only the danger from above, sir,” Jacobs said. “It is whatever is beneath it that brought it all down. There is no way of knowing what ground is safe.”
“Then we must find out, for we cannot leave him there! Is he the only one? Hell’s teeth, we need some light!”
“It is coming,” Howes said, nodding over Darcy’s shoulder to the house.
Darcy turned to see a wall of bobbing lanterns approaching. One came directly towards him, revealing Matthis’s steely face.
“Where would you like these, sir?”
Behind the butler and the line of lantern-wielding footmen, Darcy saw a host of maids hurrying across the lawn bearing armfuls of blankets and what looked like casks of beer. Elizabeth peeled away from the troops she had evidently rallied and came to stand at his side. An image of her pink gown disappearing beneath an avalanche of falling stone flashed before his eyes and hollowed out his stomach biliously. He stepped closer so their arms were pressed together, touching her the only thing he could think of that would drive away the horrible feeling. They exchanged a fleeting look, a tiny, conspiratorial nod, and then they were both swept forward again in a relentless churn of frantic activity.
Darcy tasked the butler with illuminating the mountain of toppled stonework. Howes was charged with accounting for every man’s whereabouts. James was sent to fetch a pallet to convey Ferguson inside. Jacobs and the stone mason were despatched to see whether anything could be discerned about the integrity of the remaining structure. Maids dispersed across the lawn, distributing drinks and blankets to those in need and shepherding the walking wounded into the house. Elizabeth must have given that instruction. Darcy lost track after a while of which of them had given what commands. He lost track of Elizabeth more times than he liked, too, each time, the same, empty feeling welling in the pit of his stomach.
He found her when he went to oversee the footmen lifting Ferguson onto the pallet. She was kneeling next to the steward, gently encouraging him to drink from the cup she held to his lips. She stepped away to allow the footmen to reach him.
Darcy touched her arm. “Are you bearing up?”
“I am if you are.”
That was all they had time for before Howes appeared with his report.
“Six hurt, one trapped, two unaccounted for, sir.”
“Then danger or no danger, we must get them out. Where is Jacobs?”
The four footmen hefted the pallet bearing the steward off the ground and set off for the house, Elizabeth in tow, but she paused as she passed Darcy and laid a hand on his arm. “I shall not ask that you do not help them, but I beg you would take care. Every care. Please.”
He saw it again; the cloud of debris engulfing her with sickening speed. He gave her his word and strode away in search of Jacobs in the hope that he might outrun the memory.
The architect was clambering over what was left of the east wing, assessing what still stood as best he could by lantern light, what had been exposed beneath, and what was safe to move. At length, an approach of minimal risk was agreed upon and the task of shifting rubble began, but with every new cascade of scree prompting a swell of panic among the men, it was a fraught undertaking. Darcy had no idea how long it took to free the man whose foot was trapped. It seemed too long. He had stopped yelling in pain and gone quiet by the time they pulled him out, which boded abominably ill for the two men buried further underneath the ruins.
Darcy followed the men who bore him inside to see that he was properly attended, but as he neared the house, a figure came darting towards him out of the darkness, distinguishable only by her wailing. He swore under his breath and was schooling himself to be as gentle as possible when someone else dashed from the house and intercepted them.Elizabeth!Of all the ways she had assisted him that day, Darcy thought he might be most grateful for this intervention. Mrs Ferguson, heavy with child and distraught with worry for her husband, was not something he relished dealing with. After a quick, reassuring smile at him, Elizabeth put her arm around the steward’s wife and led her inside, murmuring soft words of comfort. Darcy inhaled deeply in a vain attempt to dispel the unrelenting but nameless feeling gnawing at his guts and followed.
Inside was not much less chaotic than out. Household servants and labourers had taken over the saloon. Maids were attending to cuts and bruises; Mrs Lovell was pouring hot drinks that Mrs Annesley was distributing; Georgiana was washing the grit from a young lad’s eyes. It did not escape Darcy’s notice that someone had covered all the furniture with sheets, and the fleeting thought that Mrs Reynolds would have approved made him smile in spite of everything.
His smile vanished when he saw Lady Catherine, standing at the edge of the room with a shawl pulled tightly about her shoulders, watching the fray with an inscrutable expression. When her gaze met his, her countenance shifted, and he thought he saw pity in her eyes. It was not a sentiment for which he had any use at the present moment, and he turned hastily away.
“Is everything well?” he asked his sister.
“Yes—oh! You are cut!”
“It is just a scratch. Is the physician here yet?”
“Yes, he is with Mr Ferguson. And the apothecary has come up from Lambton. He went to attend to the man who was just carried in.”
