She slipped into the bedroom, and looked around her. It was even darker here than it had been in the Gallery. The room was furnished with heavily carved dark oak furniture, and the four-poster bed and windows were hung with red brocade curtains. It was a sombre apartment. Beyond the bed a large mirror hung over a cavernous fireplace, reflecting in its speckled depths that part of the room which was hidden from Frances by the bed. Beyond the fireplace a door stood ajar, presumably leading into a dressing-room.
There was no one to be seen.
Frances drew in her breath. Agnes’s remarks about dirt had been justified. She thought the room could not have been aired for days.
She called, ‘Nurse?’ No one replied.
She did not care to look at the bed closely. She was not there out of curiosity, to gawp at a dying man. She spied a clutter of medicine bottles and glasses on a table between the windows. No doubt the stopper had come from one of them.
Someone moaned on the far side of the bed. Frances’ eyes went to the mirror. She glimpsed a grey shape which writhed and then subsided back on to the floor. The moans, the dusk, the seclusion, all combined to upset the governess’s equilibrium. Like Agnes, she put both hands over her mouth to stifle a cry, but unlike Agnes she did not flee.
‘What’s all this, then?’ demanded a sleepy but human voice. The tousled figure of Benson, dressed — or rather, half-dressed — appeared in the doorway of the dressing-room. Before she could flounder out an explanation of her presence, he cried out, ‘Crissake! The Major!’, and plunged into the gloom on the far side of the bed.
Pulling what looked like a bundle of old clothes off the floor, he swung it towards the windows. It was one of the agency nurses, Nurse Moon by name, and she was undoubtedly the worse for drink. She staggered, rebounded off the table and sank into a sprawl on the floor. The fumes of gin and vomit were overpowering.
Frances hammered open a window, and then went to help Benson. The batman was kneeling on the floor beside something which the nurse’s body had previously concealed from sight. A bolster from the bed lay partly over the face of his master. The slim body was clad in a rumpled nightshirt, badly stained. There was a discoloured bandage round the injured man’s brow; the splints had been removed from his arm, and another bandage wound round his left forearm. This second bandage was not doing its duty, for it barely covered the tip of an open wound from which blood was now crawling to drip on the carpet.
‘She’s murdered him!’
Frances felt the sick man’s pulse. ‘No, he’s still alive. Help me lift him back on the bed.’
‘Not on those sheets,’ cried Benson, beside himself with grief and rage. He pointed to the soiled bed-linen. ‘That filthy, drunken crew! Christ’s sake! The Major was always so particular ... it’s enough to make him ill, never mind what the doctors and the nurses have done to him between them ... help me wash and change him, and put clean sheets on the bed!’
Frances drew back. That was none of her work, as he must know.
‘I’ll ring the bell for a servant, who will fetch the other nurse.’
‘The bell’s broke, and the other nurse will have gone off to the village for the afternoon.’ Benson stroked his master’s forehead and tried to get some water between his lips. The invalid shuddered. His eyes opened and he began to struggle, his eyes dilated.
‘It’s all right, Major. The battle’s over. Benson, reporting for duty, sir.’ The sick man relaxed and closed his eyes. His chest rose and fell rapidly, indicating distress. He was unkempt and emaciated, but Frances did not think he looked particularly villainous; intelligent, yes, and possibly humorous, but not vicious or dissipated. His mouth, under a curved moustache, was well-shaped. Benson babbled soothing nonsense as he bathed his master’s face and arm. Frances, unasked, fetched clean water and cloths from the wash-stand in the dressing-room. The sick-room was littered with the impedimenta of nursing, but nothing in it seemed clean. The water in the bowl Benson had been holding was discoloured, and the glass from which the sick man drank had previously held some yellowish liquid which had left a deposit on the bottom. There were bottles, bloodstained splints, soiled bandages and dirty crockery on trays and even on the floor. If the sick man were at all conscious of his surroundings — and Frances thought she had seen the flash of intelligence in his eyes before weakness overcame him — then he must feel his neglect acutely.
‘Hold him for me while I get a clean nightshirt,’ Benson commanded, and Frances took the invalid into her arms without a word of protest. She was a warm-hearted girl, and it was not in her nature to refuse help to anyone who needed her, whatever he might or might not have done. Lord Broome started at the touch of a stranger’s arms. She spoke to him soothingly and, feeling him shiver with cold, wrapped him in her own shawl.
‘Why isn’t there a fire in here?’ she asked.
‘Too much trouble for them lazy, thieving servants. Also they say Lord Richard never had a fire in here, so what do we want with one. I did hear one say the chimney was blocked, but it looks all right to me.’
Frances frowned. She had a fire in the schoolroom, Nurse had a fire in the day and night nurseries, there were fires in all the reception-rooms and in every one of the main bedrooms — except this.
Benson brought in a thick, coarse nightshirt, very unlike the fine cambric of the one Lord Broome wore at present. ‘Mine,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘I sleep next door on a cot, so that I can watch over him at night. I was just having a kip when you came, as a matter of fact. I don’t know what they’ve done with his linen.’ She helped him strip Lord Broome, wash him, and reclothe him.
‘A Zulu spear did that,’ said Benson, seeing her look at a long, puckered scar on his master’s ribs. ‘Major Mercury they call him, because he’s quick and deadly. Wounded twice. Decorated three times. Just luck, he says. But it was more than that.’
The invalid’s eyes were half-open, but not properly focused, as if he saw everything through a mist of pain. His lips moved. Frances guessed he was asking for water. She lifted a glass that lay nearby and put it to his lips. After one sip he closed his lips and turned his head away.
‘He’s dying,’ said Benson, ‘but he won’t drink that. Everything they give him has that yellow medicine in it, and he can’t abide it. What I say is, if he doesn’t like it, why force it on him? I’ve asked for gruel and tea and broth for him, but they tell me to mind my own business, and forbid me to give him anything for fear of upsetting him. Them and their theories! What do they know about what he likes? I’ve tried him with some of my own supper, and a jug of water and some beer and barley water that I’ve brought up here, on the sly. He takes that all right. But I have to do it in secret, at night, when there’s just the two of us, and the nurses can’t see. They said they’d get me barred from the sick-room altogether if I interfered with him in any way. That’s why I couldn’t shave him. They’d have noticed, see. I can feed him, on the quiet, but I can’t shave him. Now, you won’t tell on me, will you, Miss? I can’t be doing him any harm. Why, last night he’d have had all of my supper if I hadn’t thought it wrong for him to eat so much: so quickly, after having been starved like he has been.’
Frances sniffed at and then sipped the liquid in the glass. She decided that she wouldn’t have wanted to drink it, either. There was a tray nearby, set with tea things for one; presumably for the nurse. The tea-cup stank of gin, and the tea was cold, but when Frances held the jug of milk to the sick man’s lips, he drank it all, and seemed eager for more.
The nurse snored, arms and legs spread wide. The neck of a bottle protruded from a pocket in her dress. The vomit on the apron, added to the smell of gin which lingered around her despite the open window, explained how his lordship had come to be on the floor to Frances’ satisfaction, if not to Benson’s.
‘The murderess!’ he muttered. He had brought through some coarse sheets from the dressing-room, stripped the bed and remade it. The sheets were not big enough to cover the bed properly, and they had be
en slept in before, but they were far cleaner than those he took off. Frances fed the invalid the slices of bread and butter on the nurse’s tray. He ate them with relish.
‘You see?’ said Benson. ‘Knocks on the head is funny things. Likely the Major didn’t know who he was or where he was at first, but I reckon he’s pulling out of it. I told the doctors so, but they wouldn’t listen. You can see for yourself that he’ll eat and drink normally when he doesn’t have to take that medicine. Up we get now, Major. On to the bed.’
The sick man had by now so far recovered as to understand what was being said to him. Obedient to Benson’s suggestion, he tried to help them as they bent to lift him on to the bed. Putting his weight on his left arm, he gave a gasp of pain and fainted. Frances caught him as he crumpled against her, and cried to Benson to fetch the doctor. Blood was once more seeping down the left arm.
‘Doctors! They’re worse nor vets, and that’s saying something!’ Benson had gone pale, but he kept his head. Under his direction Frances helped him to lift Lord Broome on to the bed and cover him over. Then Benson bathed his master’s forehead and told Frances to chafe the sick man’s right hand.
‘Just don’t touch that left arm of his, Miss. They never ought to have taken the splints off ... it wasn’t ready ... or if they had to take the splints off to get at the bullet ... they shot him, you see, Miss. Probably they aimed at his head and he put his arm up and took the ball just below the elbow, just above where his arm was broken at Majuba. The doctors tried to get the bullet out, but it’s lodged deep and they only made matters worse. They left it, thinking they’d kill him if they pulled him around any more, and I reckon they were right, then. The Major couldn’t have stood it, what with losing so much blood ... those two men beat him up something cruel, and I never noticed them when they passed me ... I told the police I didn’t think I’d know them again ... There, now. He’s coming round again. Now where can I get him some more food and drink without it being covered with that yellow poison?’
‘The tea tray may still be in the schoolroom. Miss Agnes wasn’t hungry and I never eat at tea-time. Do you know where the schoolroom is?’
The Court was built in the form of a hollow square around the cloisters of the abbey which had once stood on the site. The Great Hall occupied the north side of the Court, and the south side was occupied by the Oak Gallery and the principal bedrooms. The reception-rooms and the tower which contained the apartments occupied by Mrs Broome occupied the west side of the Court, and on the east side were the quarters for the staff, kitchens, servants’ hall, and so on. On the floor above the domestic offices were the schoolroom, nurseries, and sleeping quarters of the staff. This floor could be reached by turret staircases leading from the main floor at the end of the Oak Gallery, and also from beside the servants’ hall. Thus, the schoolroom lay one floor above and at right angles to the principal bedroom. Benson nodded, and withdrew.
It was the hour between tea and the time to dress for dinner, when the family would be occupied in the Great Hall or the gun-room. This side of the Court was deserted. In theory Frances ought to have sent Benson for servants to fetch food from the kitchen, but she was a practical person, and knew it would take a good half-hour to obtain any food through the usual channels; and then there was always the point that his lordship would refuse it if adulterated with the yellow powder.
The invalid seemed uneasy. He turned his head from side to side; perhaps he was aware that Benson had left him. Frances spoke to him reassuringly, and he managed to locate her face and fix his eyes on her. He reminded her of Agnes, who also had clear, light-grey eyes. The left side of his head had been badly bruised, but the stains were fading.
She found she was still holding his right hand. She averted her eyes from his left arm. The bandage round his forearm had slipped, or been badly tied. It was too tight, and yet too low to cover the wound. The flesh beneath was no sight for a weak stomach. The scar of the earlier wound was puckered and barely healed. The open wound above showed where the doctors had probed for the buried bullet. The left thumb and forefinger seemed, even to her untrained eye, to be limp and possibly smaller than they ought to have been.
She told herself that she could — no, ought not to interfere with the dressing on his arm, however much it needed attention. She listened for the footsteps of a passing servant. She wished she had insisted that Benson go for the doctor straightaway.
There was a sharp pair of scissors and fresh bandages on the bedside table, beside a pile of books. She read the titles: a worn Bible, Ruskin, St Simon, Gibbons’ Decline and Fall ... these would be the property of Gavin, not Richard Broome. The previous Lord Broome had held all books in contempt.
Blood was welling from the injured arm. She leaned over to touch the sick man’s left hand. Lord Broome stiffened, but his eyes did not leave her face. She spoke to him, explaining that she was going to change his dressings, that it would hurt, but only for a moment, and that he would feel better afterwards. He sighed as she cut through the discoloured bandages and gently bathed the wound beneath. She talked to him while she worked, and to her surprise he cooperated. The bandage round his head was badly stained, but the wounds beneath were almost healed. His hair was thick and dark without any grey in it. Richard had been thirty-seven when he died, so this man must be something less, though he looked about the same age. He smiled at her as she laid him back on the pillows, and she thought his lips were trying to form the words ‘Thank you’.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘I can see you are used to getting your own way; but you will allow me to tell you that you are far too thin and that I prefer my men clean-shaven.’
The invalid smiled again, having understood her tone, but not the sense of what she said.
When Benson returned with a laden tea tray, he commended Frances for her work.
‘That’s all very well,’ said Frances, feeding Lord Broome more milk and bread and butter, ‘but we’ve interfered with the nurses’ routine with a vengeance. What are they going to say when they see what we’ve done?’
‘This one won’t say nothing,’ said Benson. He seized Nurse Moon under the shoulders and dragged her towards the door. ‘It’s a piece of luck that you came in today, for you can help me get rid of the nurses, and have his medicine changed. They wouldn’t listen to me when I complained about them, but they’ll listen to you.’
‘I doubt it. I must go as soon as I have fed him this. It is not my job to ...’
‘Nor is it mine, Miss. What if he did nurse me when I was down to skin and bone with dysentery, and could only hobble about with a stick? And again when I was ill on the ship coming home, and he could barely hold himself upright? I’ve paid him back, haven’t I? He asked me to see him safely home, and make sure the doctors didn’t take his arm off on the way, and I’ve done that. I’ve no need to hang around now, when I’ve a family in London that I’ve not seen for a couple of years.’ He got the door propped open, and went back for the nurse. ‘Drat that door. The key’s missing and it won’t stay open. It won’t stay shut when you want it to, neither. And drat this nasty, draughty house, and drat the servants who won’t lift a finger for him, and drat his family who don’t give a damn ... sorry, Miss ... don’t give a hang for what becomes of him. “Poor Gavin!” they say, coming in here without so much as asking if it’s convenient, night or day. “Poor Gavin!” they say, but they really mean, “How inconvenient it is that he’s taking so long to die!”’
Frances shook her head at him. ‘You must not talk like that, you know.’
‘Why not? It’s the truth. You are the first person to give him a kind word. You speak soft and gentle and he likes that. I heard you singing the other evening ... it was you, wasn’t it? Up in the schoolroom? I had the window open, airing the room, and he heard it, too. He lifted his head and opened his eyes and although he didn’t know me, it was the first time he’d shown any real sign that he was coming out of it. I remember it well, because you were singing a song he always use
d to hum when we was on the march. Lillibullero. I reckon it reminded him, hearing you sing that song.’
‘Flattery will get you nowhere.’ Frances stood up and smoothed her dress. ‘I must go. Miss Agnes will be needing me.’
‘You will come again? You will speak to Mrs Broome about getting the nurses out of the place? I can manage him better by myself.’
‘I ... no, he is not my responsibility. Besides, you cannot possibly manage by yourself.’
‘She tried to kill him, you know.’
‘She was drunk.’
‘And where did she get her gin from?’
‘I have heard that she kept a bottle hidden in one of the cupboards upstairs.’
‘One bottle wouldn’t last her more nor a day. And money. She had plenty of it. Where did that come from?’
The questions hung in the air, unanswered. A nurse’s wages were small. One of the few rules on which Mrs Broome insisted was that none of the servants should drink in her house. Frances’ uneasiness grew. She pulled the glass stopper out of her pocket and held it out to Benson. ‘I must go. I only came to return this.’
‘It’s not ours.’
‘Not ...? But ... Well, never mind. I must go now.’
‘Be off, then!’ cried Benson, reddening with anger. ‘No one in this house will blame you for refusing to be a good Samaritan, will they? I hope you have nightmares of him lying here, suffering, when you go to bed tonight ...’
‘What is all this?’ enquired a languid voice. Hugo Broome stood in the doorway, and behind him was Mr Manning. Neither of them looked pleased by what they saw. Frances started, and knocked a book off the bedside table. As it fell to the floor, a stiff, folded sheet of paper fell out and fluttered along the carpet. Hugo Broome picked it up, but not before they had all seen what was written on the outside. It was a Last Will and Testament.
‘Why ...! This is ...’ Hugo scanned the Will — it was short — and passed it to his uncle, while his normally placid expression altered to fierce joy, before being returned to normal. ‘This Will,’ he said to his uncle, ‘cancels the one Gavin made earlier. It leaves everything to Maud!’
Fear for Frances Page 2