Ursula’s eyelids fluttered as she started to wake. The crisp sheets felt cool against her skin. A ceiling fan beat a rhythmic pulse above her. She noticed the brilliant red flowers in a vase on the windowsill, the peeling fresco of the Virgin Mary in an alcove above the sink, and finally the image of Lord Wrotham, bent over that sink, his hands gripping the sides, as water ran down from his face into the basin. He looked up, and she saw the blue of his eyes reflected in the mirror, more vivid than she had ever realized before.
“Ursula!” he exclaimed, and rushed to her side. He took her pale hand in his and clasped it to him. His hair, still wet at the ends, dripped cool beads of water, and like raindrops they trickled down her arm. “It’s been nearly a week. I had begun to fear the worst.”
“Where am I?” she croaked.
Lord Wrotham propped her head up and put a glass of water to her lips. “Here,” he said. “Drink this. Try not to talk….” He then gave a weak smile. “Difficult for you, I know.”
Ursula sipped a little water before sinking back onto the pillow. She raised her hand to her head and felt the bandage across her temple.
“You’re in a hospital in Ciudad Bolívar. The comandante and I brought you here by boat.”
“Bates?”
“Dead.”
“What about the letters?” Ursula croaked.
Lord Wrotham touched her cheek lightly. “Even now you worry about your friend. Well, you have no need to. I cabled Harrison. The letters contained all the information he’ll need.”
“So Freddie…”
“…is free.” Lord Wrotham dug around in his coat pocket and pulled out a telegram. “I also received word from Harrison this morning that they found a body washed up on the banks of the Thames. The man was carrying papers identifying him as John Henry Bates. Seems he had sought passage aboard a ship bound for India but fell overboard the night before they were due to set sail. The ship’s doctor said there were reports of drinking and brawling among the midshipmen.”
Ursula stared at Lord Wrotham in disbelief.
“This means that Bates’s son is dead,” he said.
“Dead?”
Ursula burst into a torrent of tears. The fear she had felt for Winifred, the loss she had felt for her father, seemed lifted, and only now, with this unbearable lightness, did Ursula realize what an immense strain this fear had been. As she sobbed and heaved, Lord Wrotham handed her a handkerchief, and she had to smile. Finally she leaned back on the pillows, sighed with exhaustion, and closed her eyes.
The next thing she knew, she was looking up into the dark eyes of a nurse fussing and tucking in the sheets around her.
“Where’s Lord Wrotham?” Ursula asked, sitting up. The nurse gave her a quizzical look and Ursula pointed to Lord Wrotham’s panama hat that lay on the bench under the window.
“Ah, sí, sí…” the nurse replied, and started speaking quickly in Spanish.
“I’m afraid…I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Ursula interrupted her, and tried to get up.
“No…no…” The nurse pushed her back down and then, with a sign to her to stay put, hurried from the room. Within minutes a tall lady in a long nun’s habit came into the room, and Ursula found herself staring into a pair of brilliant blue, good-humored eyes.
“So you’ve decided to finally grace us with your presence, have you? I was beginning to think his lordship was havin’ delusions!” The nun spoke swiftly, with an Irish-tinged accent. “Don’t look so surprised. This hospital was established by the Order of Poor Ladies of St. Clare. I’ve been here three months now—joined the order five years ago in Galway.”
“Could you…could you tell me where I might find Lord Wrotham?” Ursula tried to sit up again, but the nun stopped her. “No, I cannot,” she replied emphatically. “I’ve ordered him back to the Colonial Hotel to get some rest. He’s been here day and night waiting for you to wake again.”
Ursula touched her head gingerly.
“Now, you just lie back and be still,” the nun ordered her. “You’ve caused everyone quite enough fuss and bother. Sneaking off on your own to find that madman…. You wouldn’t read about it in a cheap thrup’ny novel—and there was his lordship dashing back here with Comandante Sarría, demanding this and demanding that. The whole town was in an uproar.”
“I’m sorry…I don’t…I don’t really remember what happened. Was anyone else hurt?”
“Two of the expeditionary force that accompanied me died.” Lord Wrotham’s voice cut through the air. Ursula turned her head and saw him standing in the doorway.
“Bates’s woman was injured in the crossfire but she escaped into the jungle.”
Ursula dimly recalled seeing her flee as Lord Wrotham carried her back to the river’s shore. Semiconscious, she could recall little else, except the heat of the sun and an intense thirst that no amount of water could seem to quench.
“What about the Warao man and the boy who led me to Bates?”
“How else do you think I found you? They are talking with the regional authorities, but I’m sure they will be released soon.”
“I heard you…I heard you speaking to the comandante,” Ursula said.
Lord Wrotham walked over to her bed. “Hush, now,” he said gently. “It’s over.”
Ursula let relief wash over her at last. She watched as the nun left, as the nurse resumed her fussing. Lord Wrotham took a seat by her side.
“I brought you my copy of Tennyson’s Princess; I always travel with poetry. Thought you could do with something to read.”
“I’m surprised you own a copy of Tennyson’s poetry.”
“I’m not nearly the philistine you believe me to be.”
Ursula barely suppressed a yawn. “I doubt I would ever call you that. A fuddy-duddy maybe, but never a philistine. Read something to me.”
His presence seemed safe and familiar, and Ursula felt the warmth of his closeness.
He opened the book, flicked through the pages, and started to read.
Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are sealed:
I strove against the stream and all in vain;
Let the great river take me to the main:
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield;
Ask me no more.
Ursula sank back into the pillow. Closing her eyes, she let his words pour over her and within minutes she was asleep.