Blue Damask Read Online Free PDF Page B

anger, his eyes wide with fear.  Elsa put a hand to her ribs and gasped.  The edges of her vision were still black from lack of air and it was at least three deep breaths before she could see clearly again.  Marshall hung out the window and shouted loudly.  Elsa could not follow his English.  It sounded almost like another language entirely.
         He pulled back from the window and glared at her, his face was blotched white and red.  “You stupid woman!  Did I not warn you?  God damn you and all women!”  He  pushed past her knees and left through the opening into the corridor.  His pounding feet echoed in the car and she heard the door at the end open and slam shut.
         She heard his voice shouting outside on the platform.  Elsa pushed herself up and moved to the shattered window and looked out.  A crowd had gathered around where she assumed Lord Sonnenby was engaged in battle with the orderlies.  She could see nothing but the broad backs of workmen and the bobbing of hats.  The crowd shouted encouragement to one side or another and the station’s uniformed engineers and conductors and linemen joined the noisy fray.
         She leaned back into the seat and used her notebook to brush the remaining shards on the cushions to the floor.  She remembered what the doctor had once told her , the taste of true learning is the bitter tang of failure .  She winced.  The car shook as many feet climbed aboard.  She heard the angry voices and puffing struggles of several men as she imagined they strong-armed a re-captured Lord Sonnenby into his sleeping car.  The straightjacket would be tightened again and soon Mr. Marshall would be in to give her a tongue-lashing.
         Her hand trembled as she put her notebook and pencil on her lap.  She gave herself a moment to breathe before she opened it and started to write.  She had written quite a few lines before she realized the pencil had broken with the glass and only the scratches on the paper were visible, like scars on the page.
         Marshall arrived at the open door with a conductor who surveyed the damaged window with professional acuity.  Neither man looked at her until they finished the examination.  The conductor turned to Marshall and said, “We have telegraphed the next station.  They will have a replacement ready for us as well as a glazier.  Nothing can be done here until it is repaired.  I suggest,” and now he looked at Elsa sitting small in her seat, “that passengers remain in their compartments for the next section of the trip.  We will be in Budapest tomorrow morning.”
         Marshall nodded.  “Thank you, Mr. Bingham.”  The conductor turned sideways to brush past him.  Marshall looked down his nose at her.  Elsa gave him a defiant tilt of her chin, though her eyes admitted her guilt.
         “ Fraulein , I suggest you retire to your bunk until we reach Budapest.  I will have the steward bring you some supper.  We will not take supper in the dining car tonight.”  He said nothing more but turned his back on her and left.
     
    That night Elsa lay awake in her top bunk, listening to the voices in the next compartment.  The rumbling of the steel wheels on the track kept the words from her, but tone and volume were all that she needed.  Sonnenby was not being left alone for a moment. Right now all three of his keepers were there with him and it seemed all of them had something to say.  She did not hear the distinctive baritone that signaled he was responding, only the tweedy voice of Marshall and the twang of one of the Welsh orderlies.  Probably Jones.  Sonnenby was being roundly savaged for the damage to the window.  Probably also reminded of his duty to father and king and country.
         She heard a few thumps and the wall between the chambers shook.  This might be Sonnenby’s response.  It was effective, for the voices stopped berating him.  Then silence again for a moment before the