Salvation Equation - Chapter 20. Letters

{ Hello Miss Madeline Loenfield. I am not sure if this address is correct.

I could not have foreseen that I would send you such a letter. But do not doubt. Because I am now writing this letter to everyone I know! 

I will start with a confession. From the beginning I was uncomfortable with you. I still don’t understand what you were up to and why you took it upon yourself to be my guardian at that time. It was also a little suspicious that you knew about my relationship with him (you know what I mean, right?).

I’m still a little uncomfortable with you, but does such a thing matter in front of our situation?

You said to me. ‘If you are alive, there is a way’. So I want to do the best that a living person can do (unless you are my enemy).

I intend to turn Nottingham Mansion into a rehabilitation hospital for wounded soldiers. The field hospitals in mainland Europe may be sufficient for now, but as the war expands, we will need more hospitals in England. 

Our mansion is the right place to be used as a hospital. It is too large and luxurious for many people and the gardens are beautiful enough for wounded soldiers to rest. 

It would be a sin to make fun of such a land. 

My mother is strongly against it, but there is no one to stop me. I am looking for someone to study nursing and serve with me. 

Of course we are also looking for experienced doctors and nurses.

Please contact me if you have any questions about salary matters.

Respectfully, Isabel. }

It was an incredible letter. Considering the abomination Madeline had seen on a rainy day at Nottingham Mansion, Isabel’s proposal was beyond audacious and astounding. She wondered what on earth she was thinking.

But Isabel’s suggestion that she could not fly to Europe right now, but do what she could, resonated with Madeline.

Besides, her father’s condition was getting worse and worse. In addition to being short on remaining possessions, her drunken father needed rehabilitation.

The idea of an aristocratic young lady becoming a nurse sounded very unprecedented, but with everything falling apart, there was nothing unprecedented about the situation.

Madeline tucked the letter neatly into her pocket. She needed time to decide if she should accept Isabel’s proposal.

She sighed.

But at some moment a decision must be made. She couldn’t just indulge in grief.

* * *

– Madeline at 26. (The past)

Arlington visited the mansion periodically after the ‘incident’*. (*The Count got a seizure)

He was cynical but basically tactful. He showed only a serious desire to contribute to humanity as a doctor.

Of course, he was a man of the greatest scientific interest.

Arlington observed the Count’s movements and “treated” him. However, Madeline also questioned how much progress had been made. It was because the turbulence that had flowed for a while disappeared as if it were a dream.

The Count sank back into himself. Madeline also had long since lost the courage to reach out again. She didn’t know how to approach him, so she kept hesitating. She wanted to tell him it’s okay. But how?

The once active girl had somehow become nothing more than an isolated entity. She had stood still. She remained regressed to the current of the times. She was in a daze.

After the morning treatment, she suggested Arlington to have some tea. She somehow wanted to talk to someone and was concerned about her husband’s condition.

“Dr. Arlington.”

She approached him, smiling as gently as she could.

“Madam.”

On the flip side, Arlington’s eyes were tasteless. But it was so in a different direction than Ian’s. He was a believer in the advancement of humanity through science and rationality. As such, it was the look of someone who could be infinitely more unattached to each and every person.

He was a blue-eyed man with neatly combed blond hair.

“How is my husband?”

Arlington brought various machines. The reason was that the seizures the Count suffered from were due to “shell shock,” so he had to be “desensitized” by the impact.

(*You know how in some movies, the doctors treated patients in the hospital or an asylum where they attached wires to the patients’ heads and turned on the voltage and electrocuted them. The doctors believed that that would make the patients sane again or cure their sickness, but it actually turned the patients into broken dolls under the electrical torture of the brains. That’s how Arlington was treating Ian.)

As for Madeline, there was no reason to see that a highly respected doctor would talk nonsense. She had to rely a lot on Arlington’s treatment.

“For the time being…”

Arlington lowered his teacup and whispered to Madeline.

“It’s a good idea to spend some time away from your husband for the time being. He needs some time alone right after he’s been exposed to the stimuli.”

It’s too burdensome a treatment. Arrington’s recommendation was practically an order.

“Is he having a hard time?”

Unbeknownst to Madeline, her voice began to tremble. Would Ian be okay? He was weak.

Throughout the treatment, Ian’s low screams would be heard upstairs. How painful it must be. Being treated with electrical stimulation and injected with drugs, even that would be hard on a normal person.

It was a technique that has not been refined so far.

Madeline’s stomach was sour. She felt dazed from the depths of her head.

“It’s inevitable. It’s a cure. Like cutting out a rotten wound. There should be no hesitation.”

Arlington explained calmly. After he had put away his teacup, he stood up.

“The Count is trying only because of his wife. We need you to live up to that effort.”

Arlington’s expression, as he said it, was unknown.

Nevertheless, at night Madeline went to Ian’s bedroom. While the man was sleeping, she wanted to check his condition for a moment.

In front of the faint fire, she saw a sitting man. He was dozing off in an armchair, with his eyes slightly down. He seemed to be trying to work, seeing that he was holding the documents in his hand.

The treatment was very physically demanding. Madeline sighed.

“…….”

She had to go out now. Madeline remembered the doctor’s advice to keep as much distance as possible. She didn’t want to disturb Ian’s rest. It was the moment she was about to walk out of the room that way.

“What’s wrong?”

Ian called her. Madelene turned around and saw the man finally awake. Madeline shook her head. She tried her best to smile.

“Isn’t it hard?”

“The treatment?”

The Count smiled faintly at Madeline’s nod. He shook his head.

“I need to get better.”

“But you don’t have to continue if it’s too hard.”

“For you.”

“……”

“Shouldn’t I get better for you?”

Ian left those words and closed his eyes again. He was beyond exhausted.

* * *

– Madeline at seventeen. (The present)

“Maybe.”

It was the day Madeline received the letter from Isabel. A dark night. Lying in bed, Madeline thought.

Perhaps she should not have allowed Arlington to treat the Count. She felt like everything had collapsed out of control, because of the treatment.

It was a very surprising thought for Madeline, who trusted Arlington like an ironstone. But…suddenly she began to wonder.

She didn’t think there was anything wrong with the method of winning fear was fear itself. But she suspected that it might have been just plain painful for the Count.

As he began receiving treatment, the Count began to talk less and less. His hands began to shake and he could not look at Madeline properly.

He began to have trouble seeing the sun.

Will this get better? Madeline began to ask questions as she contemplated the scene of the past.

She began to ask herself if the treatment itself had not only been ineffective, but had put her husband in even more pain.

Madeline curled up and hugged her knees. If that was the case, it seemed that she could never really forgive herself.

At that time, for Madeline, the prestige that Arlington and his hospital held was the greatest in the world. Who could easily doubt a man who was a member of the Royal Society of Medicine and who wrote the best papers on the continent?

But now that time had been turned upside down and she was living again, she had to doubt everything.

The treatment. Copper wires and syringes. Ian Nottingham, who could not support his body once the treatment was over. His body dried up day by day.

He said he could endure anything for Madeline.

The nerve lines that were sharpened. Even the rough voice that was searching for itself. Hot tears began to flow from Madeline’s eyes.

‘Maybe we did not have be like this.’

It was a sleepless night.

* * *

Isabel smoked a cigarette as she leaned against the window. The weather was not good, foretelling the dark clouds that hung over human history. Of course, it’s hard to find a sunny time of year in England.

The weather was heavy with rain and dreary. It took a long time to invite a nursing teacher and buy teaching equipment. She sent letters to all the ladies she knew, but received only two replies.

One was a polite and euphemistic rejection letter and the other was….

”I hope you get a good result.”

Isabel was in no hurry. She was a firm believer in her cause. Such people do not need evidence for self-belief.

Isabel touched the locket on her necklace. It was Zachary’s last gift to her.

“Nothing can hold us back.”

Even now, when she thought of the man’s sigh that touched the nape of her neck, her heart swelled. It seemed so close, yet so far away. But it’s close again.

She did not feel good when she thought of her brothers who went to war. She cried and fussed at Eric, who insisted on becoming an air force pilot, and it was at least comforting to extract him as a driver in the rear. But Ian… He was deployed as an officer on the front line.

She hated him, but at the same time loved him as a sister.

It was when Isabel had been staring at the vast expanse of land in front of the mansion, plunging into the depths of thoughts for some time. She saw a blurry dot approaching on the horizon.

She stood up and watched it.

***

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