Page 57 of Gwen and Art Are Not in Love

Gwen had intended to do some reading or embroidery, but instead she found herself sitting by the fire all evening thinking herself in circles, returning to the memory of her hands on Bridget’s back; the fact that Bridget had courted a woman; that Bridget had trusted her enough totellher that she had courted a woman; Bridget’s hands on hers, guiding her into place; the possibility that she may not have invented this pull she felt between them, that her feelings might be somewhat reciprocated. But then she pictured Gabriel’s face when she’d told him – Gabriel backing away from her like she was something repellent. Shehatedhim for ruining something as good as Bridget.

‘Incoming,’ said a voice at the window, barely an hour or two later. Gwen startled; she hadn’t been expecting Arthur home for a while yet. His face appeared, hair a mess, eyes unfocused; suddenly he pitched forward and landed hard on the floor, barely reacting as bone thunked against stone. ‘Oops.’

It was Sidney who had spoken; he summited the sill, looking almost as drunk as Arthur, then made a hideous belching sound and clasped his free hand to his mouth.

‘If you’re going to vomit, you can climb right back down,’ Gwen said warningly as she rose from her chair.

‘Prob’ly for the best,’ he said, disappearing again. Gwen heard the sound of clumsy descent and then, after a pause, the distinct heave and splatter of vomit hitting the cobblestones below.

‘I’ve died,’ Arthur said dramatically from the floor. Gwen snorted.

‘Not yet. But if I kill you now, I can just say you choked on your own vomit and nobody will be any the wiser.’

‘Do it,’ Arthur slurred. ‘I’m over. I’m done. And I’ve drunk – I’ve drunk all the wine.’

‘In the country?’ Gwen said, watching as he turned over on to his back like an elderly beetle.

‘God, I really hoped I’d climbed through the wrong window,’ Arthur slurred, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. ‘Clearly. Over-corrected. To the right one.’

‘Whatareyou talking about? Can you get off my rug?’

He turned to squint at her, looking violently unimpressed. ‘I know you’re you, so it’s hard, but can you at least dredge up – I dunno … oneshredof human emotion? Empathy? Pity?’

‘Arthur, youchoseto drink too much wine. And you’re getting mud all over everything.’

‘So … that’s a no, then.’ He pulled himself into a sitting position with difficulty. He and Gwen noticed the blood on his sleeve at the exact same time.

‘You’re bleeding,’ she said bluntly.

‘No I’m not.’ He rolled up his shirt and looked down at his arm. The blood was flowing quite profusely, and he hadgone a very strange colour; Gwen had seen that expression on somebody once already today, and couldn’t quite believe it was happening again.

‘Don’t faint,’ she warned. He looked at her scathingly, clearly meaning to say something pithy in response, but betrayed himself by doing exactly what she had forbidden and fainting clean away instead. ‘Oh for Christ’ssake.’

It was lucky that he’d already been so close to the ground; he hadn’t hit his head too badly, and Gwen rather thought he was hard-headed enough to take it. She reluctantly crouched down beside him and turned him over on to his side so that he wouldn’t, in fact, choke on his own vomit. His hair fell into his face, and she swept it away impatiently; his skin was uncomfortably warm, and sticky with sweat. She wanted to call for Sidney, demand that he come up and deal with his charge, but she could still hear him vomiting in the distance.

‘Arthur. Wake up,’ she said, giving him a shake on the shoulder. He just moaned; blood was still dripping from the cut on his arm. ‘Ugh.Fine.’ She cast around for something to stop the bleeding; her half-finished embroidery was on the table by the fire, and she hesitated for a minute before tearing off a long strip of the pearly-white fabric and returning to Arthur so she could wrap his arm.

Arthur stirred as she did so. He made a little sound of discomfort, and then reached for her. Gwen stared down at his fingers, which had closed around the narrow jut of her wrist. He didn’t seem to be conscious. She supposed it must have been a reflex. A desire to hold on to something steady.

‘Arthur? Are you alive?’

He mumbled something, and she leaned down to catch it.

‘No. Better off,’ he muttered, the words sounding heavy in his mouth.

‘What?’

‘Better off dead.’ He said it with such violent self-hatred, even half-conscious, that Gwen winced.

‘Don’t say that,’ she said uncomfortably; she’d certainly wished him gone many times, had joked about murdering him endlessly, but it was one thing for her to say it and another thing entirely forhimto do so with such sincerity. ‘You just need to rest, that’s all.’

She thought about calling for Agnes, or the guards, and having him carried back to his rooms – but instead she went and fetched the half-finished wedding blanket from its place on the dresser and arranged it over him, careful not to get it bloody. When she sat down next to him his fingers twitched; he seemed to be reaching for her hand again.

She sighed, and took it.

Arthur had woken up on floors before, but there was rarely anybody other than Sidney curled up next to him. It was dark outside, with a stillness that suggested the later hours of the evening. Gwen seemed to be fast asleep in a deeply uncomfortable position, her cheek pressed against the stone floor, the well-chewed fingers of one hand resting next to his arm. He lifted his pounding head, confused, and realised he had been woken by Agnes, who at that very moment had given up on knocking on the door and opened it to peer inside.

‘Oh,’ she said. Arthur shushed her, gesturing over at Gwen. ‘I’m sorry,’ she continued, in a whisper. ‘I thought – it’s so late, I thought you’d be gone. Where’s Sidney?’