Connie Willis - All Clear

Polly ducked into the stairwell and up the steps, braced for the sound of the ward doors opening, of running feet.

More shrieks. “You wretched little—” the woman’s voice said, and then cut off.

Oh, Lord, I hope they haven’t killed anyone, Polly thought, reaching the landing and starting up the next set of stairs, wincing at the sounds drifting up from below

—a horrible thumping, followed by feet pounding down some other flight of stairs and a sound of something (or someone) falling—trying not to think of the effects of the chaos she had just set in motion.

“I think they went that way!” someone shouted. More shrieks.

Polly reached the top of the stairs. The floor was deserted. A flurry of papers lay on the linoleum in front of the matron’s desk, and halfway down the corridor a cane-backed wheelchair lay on its side, fortunately with no one in it.

Polly ran down to Sir Godfrey’s room. His door was shut. Oh, God, she thought, don’t let him be dead. She took a deep, ragged breath and opened the door.

Sir Godfrey was lying propped up against pillows, a gray pajama top open over his bandaged chest. His eyes were closed, and his face and hands were nearly as white as the bandages. A tube ran from his arm to a bottle of dark red blood hanging next to the bed. Polly went over to the bed and looked down at him, watching his almost undiscernible breathing.

“ ‘Time hath not yet dried this red blood of mine,’ ” he murmured, and opened his eyes.

“You’re all right,” Polly said thankfully.

“Yes, though imprisoned here and set about with foul fiends who refuse to let me up. How did you succeed in escaping their iron grip?”

“I had assistance,” Polly said, shutting the door. “Sir Godfrey, last night you told me—”

“Oh, dear, I do hope I didn’t say anything I shouldn’t have. I didn’t confess undying love to some girl fifty years my junior, did I? Or quote Peter Pan?”

“No, of course not. You said last night that I’d saved your life—”

“And so you have, as you can see.” He spread his arms wide. “I am made new, brought back to life again, like Claudio’s Hero. ‘I do live, and surely as I live—’ ”

“No, I don’t mean what happened last night. I mean before. When we were there in the theater, I told you I was sorry I couldn’t save your life, and you said I already had.”

“And so you had, thrice over. You saved me from having to act the part of Captain Hook—”

“Sir Godfrey, I’m serious—”

“And so am I. If you had not dissuaded the troupe from doing that odious play, I should have had to fling myself under one of the District Line trains.”

“Sir Godfrey, please don’t joke. I must know.”

“Very well then, I shall tell you. But first, I demand a forfeit.”

“A forfeit?”

“As Beauty was forced to pay a forfeit for straying into the Beast’s garden, so must you. My current plight is, after all, your fault. If I had died last night, I should have escaped doing the pantomime. Now I must put up with Mrs. Wyvern for a full month. I hold you entirely responsible.”

And I might be, Polly thought. I might be.

“I feel the least you can do,” Sir Godfrey went on, “for consigning me to what is, quite literally, a fate worse than death, is to keep me company during my ordeal.”

“Yes, all right. I promise. I’ll do the pantomime, if you’ll only tell me—”

“Excellent. ‘We shall sing like two birds i’ the cage,’ as soon as I’ve located another theater. I wonder if the Windmill would lend us their stage for a month. We could send you to ask them, in your eloquent bloomers—”

“You promised you’d tell me if I paid the forfeit,” Polly said. “How did I save your life, if I did save it?”

“You did, you have, sweet Viola, every day and every night since first you entered my life. And what an entrance! Worthy of the divine Sarah—a knock upon the door, and there you stood in the doorway—frightened, beautiful, lost. A creature from another country, washed up on the shores of St. George’s. And the embodiment of everything I thought the war had destroyed.”

He smiled at her. “During those first nights of the Blitz, it seemed to me that not only the theaters but theater itself and the Bard had become casualties of war. That Shakespeare’s quaint notions of honor and courage and virtue were all dead, murdered by Hitler and his Luftwaffe. And I felt as though I had been murdered along with them.

“And then you came,” he said, “looking like all of Shakespeare’s lovely heroines and loving daughters combined in one—Miranda and Rosalind and Cordelia and Viola combined into one—and restored my faith.”

She had been wrong. When he’d said she’d saved his life, he had been speaking figuratively, not literally, and her theory hadn’t been right after all.

“What is it?” Sir Godfrey said, frowning at her with concern. “Why do you look so disappointed? Do you regret saving an old man from despair?”

“No,” she said. “No, of course not. I only thought you meant I’d really saved your life.”

“No,” she said. “No, of course not. I only thought you meant I’d really saved your life.”

“But you had. There are a hundred ways a man can bleed to death. And he can be pulled from the rubble of bitterness, of despair, as well as from the wreckage of the Phoenix. And which rescue is the more real? Which mattered more at Agincourt, the longbows or Henry’s St. Crispin’s Day speech? Which matters more in this war, panzers or courage, HEs or love? Nothing you could have done for me, dear child, was more important than the restoration of my hope.”

She tried to smile through her disappointment.

“But you were the salvation of my corporeal being as well. That night when first I saw you—”

“There you are,” the nurse said to Polly, flinging the door open. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. You’re supposed to be in bed.”

“This young lady saved my life,” Sir Godfrey said. “I was thanking her for—”

Another nurse appeared, looking fierce. “Sir Godfrey is not to have visitors,” she said to Polly’s nurse.

“Please, I only need another moment,” Polly said.

“Who’s this?” Sir Godfrey’s nurse demanded of Polly’s nurse. “A patient? What’s she doing out of bed? Why weren’t you watching her?”

Polly’s nurse looked defensive. “She got out of bed without my permission, and—”

“Silence!” Sir Godfrey shouted. “Begone, varlets. I would speak with this lady.” But Sir Godfrey’s nurse wasn’t impressed.

“Take this patient back down to her ward immediately,” she said to Polly’s nurse.

“Please,” Polly said. “You don’t understand—”

“Help!” a voice called from the end of the ward. “Oh, help!”

Binnie! Polly thought. Thank heavens.

“Come quick!” Binnie sobbed. “My mum’s bleedin’. Hurry!”

Both nurses took off at a run.

“Quick,” Polly said, gripping the railing at the foot of the bed with both hands. “Tell me how I saved your life.”

He nodded. “That night you stumbled into St. George’s, I had received a letter from an old friend of mine, offering me a role in a repertory company. It was to tour the provinces—Salisbury, Bristol, Plymouth. It was a dreadful program, no Shakespeare at all. Barrie, Galsworthy, Charley’s Aunt”—he grimaced—“and rep is even worse than pantomime. But all the theaters in the West End were shut, and it would have been a chance to get away from London and the bombs. And it scarcely mattered which play I did, or where. It was all for naught, ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ ”

We haven’t got time for you to do Macbeth, Polly thought desperately. They’ll be back any minute.