The Ribbon Weaver

Chapter Thirty-One



It had now been two days since Toby had rescued Amy from the bottom of the ravine but as yet she showed no signs of gaining consciousness. It had almost broken Molly’s heart the first time she had stepped into the room and seen her. The gash on Amy’s cheek had gone deep to the bone and the doctor had stitched it as best he could, but it still looked grotesque. If anything it looked even worse now than it had on the night the doctor had stitched it. Now the whole area around it was black and blue with bruises, and that side of her face was so swollen that the corner of her mouth and her eye were pulled down and she looked disfigured.

A cage had been placed beneath the sheets to hold them off her leg. The doctor explained that he had amputated halfway between the ankle and the knee, and assured them that once the stump was healed, Amy would be able to have a wooden leg made that would fit over it. But this was little consolation to Molly. She knew that Amy would never be the same girl again. Not that it made her love her any the less. If anything she loved her even more now and had not left her side once. She talked to her constantly and begged her to come back to her. If the girl died, Molly knew that she would have nothing left to live for.

Josephine had barely left the room either and she and Molly had taken it in turns napping in the chairs that had been placed at either side of the bed. Two nurses were now in attendance and the only time the two women slipped away was when they needed to use the commode or when one of the nurses was changing the dressings on Amy’s leg. Somehow, neither of them could face watching that. The doctor was still calling in three times a day but each time he would leave shaking his head. There was nothing more he could do now.

Samuel had written to François to tell him of the accident but knew that it would probably be at least another week before he could expect a reply, and with Amy as she was, anything could have happened by then.

Toby had called in to The Folly each evening on his way home after work to enquire after Amy, but had declined the offer to see her. For now, he preferred to remember her as she had been, not the broken girl he had lifted up the steep cliff face.

It was on this evening, as he was making his way home after calling in at The Folly, that he began to question for the first time how the accident might have come about. How could Amy, such a sensible soul, have fallen from the edge of the ravine if she was sitting sketching? And why had the sketches he had seen been trampled on and scattered about? But then, he asked himself, who would ever hurt Amy? She was loved by all. There was one thing for sure. Unless Amy woke up to tell them what had actually happened, they would never know.

By the fourth day, although no one admitted it out loud, everyone was beginning to lose hope of Amy ever awakening. Molly was so tired that she was sure she could have slept for a whole month straight through, but she was afraid of taking any more than a few moments’ nap at a time in case Amy stirred.

Adam had been in to see her that morning, looking pale and pinched as they all did, but after hearing that there was still no change he retired back to his room.

At lunchtime, the doctor called in for his midday visit just as he always did, and for the first time after taking her pulse, he smiled tentatively. ‘Her pulse is steadier,’ he told them, not wishing to raise their hopes yet wanting to give them something to hold on to. ‘And her heartbeat is more regular too.’

‘Does that mean that she’s goin’ to be all right?’ Molly asked hopefully.

‘Well … let us just say for now that it is a step in the right direction,’ the doctor told her cautiously. ‘I shall be back this evening. But if there is any change at all in the meantime, do not hesitate to send for me.’

The two women bade him goodbye, then sat back to continue their vigil. Molly’s head was dropping by mid-afternoon, but she still clung firmly to Amy’s limp hand. It was whilst she was doing so that she suddenly detected a slight twitch in the girl’s fingers. Her head was up in an instant as she stared down at it, and sure enough a few seconds later it twitched again.

‘Mrs Forrester … I reckon she just moved her hand a little,’ Molly muttered, praying with all her soul that she had been right. Josephine was up in an instant, and taking Amy’s other hand, she gently shook it up and down.

‘Amy, my dear … can you hear me?’ Her voice was little above a whisper. For long moments there was no sign that Amy had heard her but then she suddenly let out a low groan.

It was Molly’s turn to try now. ‘Amy, if yer can hear us, open yer eyes, pet.’

Again nothing for some long time, and then Amy blinked. It wasn’t much but it told them that she had heard them.

‘Blink again,’ Molly urged, and this time Amy obeyed her almost instantly. Looking towards Josephine, Molly told her, ‘Get someone to run fer the doctor. I reckon she’s comin’ round.’

With an excited smile on her face, Josephine lifted her skirts in a most unbecoming manner and ran to do as she was told.

Amy opened her eyes properly early the next morning, and groaned with pain. Molly was up and leaning over her in an instant as she soothed, ‘It’s all right, lass. Just relax an’ take it easy.’

As Amy’s eyes settled on the old woman’s face her eyes fluttered shut again as she fell into a natural sleep. From time to time she would wake, flailing and crying as if she was caught in the grip of a nightmare, but then when she saw Molly she would settle again. This went on for two days, during which time her mouth would open and close as if she was trying to tell them something, but no words came out.

‘She is probably just traumatised from the accident,’ the doctor told Molly when she expressed her concerns. ‘In actual fact she is doing very well, so try not to worry too much. Injuries such as Amy sustained are going to take a long time to heal, so please be patient.’

Molly nodded. She knew only too well that they had a long way to go. As yet, Amy had no idea that she had lost part of her leg; nor about the damage to her face, but Molly knew that soon they would have to tell her, and she dreaded it. Outwardly, her cuts and bruises were healing. Even the scar on her face was not quite so swollen now, but already Molly could see that if would never disappear, and it ran in a jagged angry line from just beneath her eye to her chin. And the girl had been so beautiful; it almost broke her old heart to see her.

Josephine was just relieved that Amy had survived the accident, and chattered to her constantly about François and the forthcoming wedding. ‘We shall have to get you well,’ she would tell her as she spooned chicken broth into her mouth. ‘so that you can get busy on the design for your wedding dress. I have no doubt that François will be coming to see you soon to make sure that you are recovering.’

But François did not come. The following week Amy received a letter from him, which Josephine read out to her. He expressed his regrets at her accident and assured her that he was looking forward to the wedding and counting off the days. Secretly, Josephine was a little peeved that he had not taken the trouble to come and see Amy personally. After all, he was her fiancé. But then as her husband pointed out, the Laroques were very busy people and could not just leave their businesses unattended without a great deal of preparation.

Now that Amy was showing signs of improvement, Molly finally accepted the Forresters’ offer of a room next to Amy’s where sometimes she went to rest but never for more than a few hours at a time. As yet, Amy had not spoken a word, and when she was awake she would just lie staring at the ceiling. Sometimes she would appear agitated and her hands would grasp the sheets, but when she was asked what was wrong she would simply purse her lips.

‘Amy, lass,’ Molly gently asked her one morning when the nurses had washed her and changed the dressings on her leg, ‘can yer remember what happened? How did yer come to fall into the ravine?’

Amy merely looked towards the window without attempting to answer. Molly and Josephine exchanged a worried glance. All they could do was wait until the girl was ready to talk to them.

The doctor assured them that behaviour such as this was normal following a bad accident. He even suggested that Amy might not remember what had happened and so for now they had to be patient.

That evening, when Toby called in as was customary to see how Amy was, on his way home from the schoolroom where he had been working, Molly was waiting for him in the hallway.

‘Come up an’ see her, lad,’ she implored him. ‘Happen she’ll speak to you.’

Toby hesitated but then after taking a deep breath he nodded and followed her up the stairs.

‘She’s in here,’ Molly wheezed pausing at the bedroom door. ‘Go on in, lad.’

Toby gulped before grasping the door handle and stepping into the room. A nurse was in the process of folding some linen but when he appeared she bobbed her knee and quickly left as Toby stood wringing his cap in his hands and staring towards the bed.

Amy’s head turned ever so slightly, and when she saw him standing there, a tear squeezed out of the corner of her eye. He was at her side in a minute, grasping her hand as all the love he felt for her rose in him like a tide.

‘Aw, lass.’ His voice was strangled. ‘Thank God you survived.’ He did not see the ugly scar on her face or the cage above her legs, only the girl he had always adored from afar. ‘You give us a rare gliff back there for a time, I don’t mind tellin‘yer. But it’s over now an’ all that matters is you gettin’ well again.’

She returned the pressure on his fingers for the briefest of seconds but then her eyes fluttered shut and as she drifted off to sleep again, Toby hung his head and wept openly with relief.

Toby continued to call in at The Folly every evening on his way home from his shift down the mine or after his few precious hours per week spent in the schoolroom, and it was on one such evening when he was making his way home that he stopped by to see Mary. She had just put the twins to bed and she and Joe were enjoying a bit of peace and quiet.

‘Come on in, love,’ Mary welcomed him when she opened the door. ‘Yer just in time fer a brew. Sit yerself down, there’s plenty left in the pot.’ She hurried to fetch another mug as Toby sank into the chair next to Joe and asked, ‘So how was she today?’

Toby sighed. ‘They reckon she’s healin’ as well as can be expected, but she still hasn’t spoken yet.’

Mary glanced at him out of the corner of her eye as she spooned sugar into his drink. Knowing Toby as she did, she suspected that something was troubling him. After carrying it over to him she asked gently, ‘What’s troublin’ yer, love?’

After chewing on his lip for a moment, her brother confided, ‘I’ve just got this feelin’, an’ I can’t get it out o’ me head – that what happened to Amy weren’t an accident.’

Mary frowned. ‘But what else could it have been? As far as I know, I was the last to see her afore the accident happened an’ there weren’t anyone else about …’ Then an image suddenly flashed before her eyes and the colour drained from her face.

‘There was someone else in the grounds, now I come to think of it,’ she said. ‘Me an’ Amy were standin’ at the gate, an’ as we were talkin’ we saw someone ridin’ a white horse alongside the river. It was a woman dressed in green an’ she were goin’ hell fer leather. I remember commentin’ on it to Amy just before she left me.’

As she and Toby stared at each other, a terrible thought occurred to them both simultaneously. ‘Weren’t Miss Eugenie’s horse white?’ Mary asked.

‘Aye, it was.’ It was Joe who answered with a deep frown on his forehead. ‘Did she see you an’ Miss Amy talkin’?’

‘I … I don’t know,’ Mary stuttered. ‘There’s every chance she did. Yer don’t think she followed the lass, do yer?’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me,’ Joe answered as he rose from his seat. ‘It were common knowledge that she was jealous o’ Miss Amy. I reckon we ought to go an’ tell the master.’

‘I’ll come with yer,’ Toby told him, and in seconds both men were out of the door and heading back to The Folly.

Once Lily had admitted them, Mr Forrester took them straight into his study and listened solemn-faced to what they had to say.

‘O’ course, we could be quite wrong,’ Joe admitted. ‘But it’s funny as it were a pure white horse, ain’t it? What do yer think we should do about it?’

With his hands joined behind his back, the master strode up and down the room for a time as he thought about it. Then he told them. ‘I think I need to ask Amy if Eugenie was involved in the accident and we’ll take it from there. Please wait here and I’ll be back shortly.’ Without another word he left the room and once upstairs outside Amy’s door he took a deep breath before entering.

Nodding at his wife and Molly who were sitting at either side of the bed he bent and lifted Amy’s hand and smiled at her.

‘How are you feeling, my dear?’ he asked gently.

She smiled at him weakly in answer.

‘Toby and Joe are downstairs,’ he went on. ‘And Mary remembered something quite interesting this evening. She remembered that on the day you had your accident, just before you left her, you both saw a woman on a white horse riding through the grounds. Is this right, Amy?’

He heard her sharp intake of breath and she pulled her hand from his.

‘Please don’t be afraid to tell me what happened, my dear,’ he urged. ‘Was that rider Eugenie?’

Mr Forrester’s heart was thudding with rage. Could it be that Adam’s wife had tried to kill Amy? He had known for many years that Eugenie was a jealous, possessive and self-centred woman, but surely she would not stoop to such levels?

When it became clear that Amy was not going to answer him, he quietly left the room, closely followed by his wife, who asked him in a horrified whisper, ‘You surely don’t suspect that Eugenie was involved in Amy’s accident, do you, Samuel?’

‘Well, it sounds very suspicious, don’t you think? Eugenie made it more than clear that she hated Amy, and if it was her riding through the grounds that day, she could easily have spotted Amy talking to Mary and followed her. Also, how many pure white horses have you seen hereabouts? Eugenie sent one of her father’s stable-hands for Snowflake within days of leaving here, much to Seth’s dismay. He had raised that horse from the day that Adam bought it for her as a foal, and she liked the fact that no one else had a mount like hers. She and Seth had many a quarrel about the way Eugenie rode him, but at the end of the day he was her horse and there was little Seth could do about it.’

‘So what are you going to do now?’ his wife asked nervously.

‘I am going to see Eugenie’s father. If she did have anything to do with Amy’s accident, the only way she could have got to the ravine was through the woods. You know as well as I do how dense the trees are in there, and if she forced the horse through them the poor creature would have been scratched to pieces. I shall demand to see Snowflake, and if her father refuses to allow me to, I shall involve the authorities. Although I doubt it will come to that. I always found Sir Edmund to be a reasonable man, and if she was not involved in any way he will be keen to clear her name.’

‘And when will you be going?’

‘As soon as Seth can have the carriage made ready for me,’ he told her, and with that he strode off, leaving Josephine wringing her hands fearfully.

Mr Forrester, accompanied by both Toby and Joe, was on his way to Eugenie’s father’s home, Greyfriars Manor, within the hour. They each sat silent until the carriage drew to a halt at the steps of the magnificent residence just within the borders of Leicestershire.

Toby and Joe waited outside while Mr Forrester was admitted to the house, reappearing moments later with a manservant who led them to the stable-block at the rear of the Manor.

One of the grooms showed them to the stall where a pure white horse was tethered.

‘Hello, Snowflake,’ Mr Forrester cooed softly as the groom opened the stall for him, and the gentle creature nuzzled his hand as he stroked its silky mane. Snowflake had always been a great favourite of Samuel’s, and he had been sad to see the stallion leave The Folly when Eugenie’s belongings were removed.

‘Fetch some lamps, please – I need more light,’ Mr Forrester demanded, and the groom scurried away to do as he was told. Minutes later, as the lamps were held aloft, Mr Forrester ran his hands down the creature’s flanks. There were cuts all along them that had obviously been inflicted recently.

‘When did the horse get these injuries?’ he asked.

The groom frowned as he tried to think back. ‘Oh, it must have been about a week an’ a half or so ago,’ he mumbled. ‘Yes, it was, I remember now – it were the night before we had that bad thunderstorm. The poor critter were in a right old lather when Miss Eugenie brought him back. Foamin’ at the mouth he was, an’ I had to bathe all the cuts meself. But thankfully she ain’t been back out on him since.’

Grim-faced, Mr Forrester strode back towards the house, telling his companions, ‘Wait outside for me, please. I shouldn’t be too long.’ He disappeared back into the Manor, where Sir Edmund Walton, Eugenie’s father, was waiting for him.

Toby and Joe clambered back into the carriage to wait, and when Mr Forrester rejoined them some time later, he was in a towering rage.

‘It was her all right,’ he spat in disgust. ‘Her father sent for her and she was so drunk she almost fell into the room. I actually felt sorry for the man. He obviously doesn’t know how to cope with her. She’s an only child and he’s a widower, and he’s out of his depth. Apparently she’s drinking the second she sets foot out of bed in the morning now. She admitted that she had forced Amy over the edge of the ravine and actually laughed about it. Can you believe that? She showed no contrition – says she is only sorry that she isn’t dead.’ Samuel took a deep breath to get himself under control.

‘So what do we do now?’ Toby asked as his blood boiled.

‘I’m not quite sure what to do yet,’ Samuel admitted. ‘I need to speak to Amy and Adam first. Her father has assured me that if we do not press charges against Eugenie, he will have her admitted to an asylum.’

‘Best place fer her an’ all!’ Toby cried. ‘Either that or she should feel a noose about her neck.’

The three men then lapsed into silence as the carriage bore them all back to The Folly, each locked in their own solemn thoughts. Their beloved Amy had been maimed and crippled for no good reason at all.