‘How long now?’ Sophie managed.
‘Mr Ffoulkes is putting in the last stitches, your ladyship. Half an hour perhaps? I will fetch you.’
Sophie waited till the nurse had left, then rang the bell for Hereward.
‘Please ask Mrs Goodenough to have coffee and a good meal ready for the medical team in about half an hour.’ She had no idea what they might like to eat, or rather, the knowledge was buried somewhere, but was not retrievable right now.
‘Yes, your ladyship. If I may say, your ladyship, we prayed for his lordship at the servants’ dinner. We will keep praying.’
‘Thank you, Hereward. We . . . we are praying too.’ She waited till the butler had left, then held out her hand to Jones again. ‘We can wait outside the room.’ The chairs were hard there, but she did not want to make a fuss and ask for armchairs. ‘I’ll meet you up there.’
She washed her hands in ‘midwives’ water’ — water that had been boiled for half an hour with rosemary and lavender. Others would touch Nigel with gloved hands, but she needed skin to skin, and hers must be clean. She was careful not to touch the door or banisters, or even her skirt as she sat next to Jones.
And waited.
The door opened. Mr Ffoulkes came out, taking off his mask.
Sophie stood, and found no words.
‘Ah, Lady Nigel. Successful,’ said Mr Ffoulkes, sounding weary, self-important and sympathetic all at once. ‘The tumour was discreet. We removed it all.’
‘His pulse? Breathing?’
‘His pulse is a little uneven, but strong. You may go in.’
But she was already moving, stood by the hospital bed, saw his white face, the regular breathing, in, out, in, out. His beard had been shaved off that morning, as had the hair on most of his body. Sophie had even had them shave his head. She had learned in the war that hair carried infection, unless it was the lice that infested hair that carried it. She was taking no chances.
She used her foot to move a plain wooden chair from the corner of the room over to the bedside. The room smelled of Lysol and blood and intestines, a smell she had never thought to have to bear again. The chair too had been boiled in a copper, carried here in gloved hands. It was the only other furniture in the room. Even the floor was scrubbed wood, the carpet taken up, new pipes installed to hold hot water warmed by the fires in the rooms on either side, so there should be no chill but no smoke or ash or firewood either.
She sat, found Nigel’s hand under the sheet, held it. Watched him breathe. Keep breathing.
In, out, in, out . . .
A minute, an hour, or a month passed. The beam of sunlight on the scrubbed floorboards began to dim. She found a nurse standing next to her. They had been introduced, but the name had fled. The nurse felt Nigel’s pulse, counted it with the watch on her belt, nodded to herself and then, when she remembered Sophie understood, to her. ‘Steady enough,’ she said.
‘I know.’ Sophie had seen patients with far worse vital signs survive. And those with better, die, but that had been from sepsis, gangrene . . . ‘When does he need more morphia?’
‘When he begins to show signs of pain. It is difficult to know how long the anaesthesia from the operation will last.’
She had known that too. But procedures might have changed in seven years.
In, out, in, out . . . The most boring activity two people can manage in bed, Nigel had told her, is in, out, in, out . . .
He was going to live. He had to live. If she had to stand in the doorway and wrestle death, he was going to live.
He breathed. And she breathed with him.
Mr Ffoulkes came to stand with her under the bright electric light. Sensible Miss Lily, to prefer the gold light of candles. The surgeon did not deign to check Nigel’s pulse himself. ‘I believe the tumour was cystic,’ he informed her. ‘Not cancerous.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’ Leg amputations, brain surgery . . . she had no experience of cysts or cancers.
‘It means that if he recovers there is a good chance the growth will not return.’
‘Oh. Good. Thank you, Mr Ffoulkes. I hope they have given you a good dinner.’
‘Excellent, thank you, Lady Nigel. His lordship’s port is . . .’ The surgeon hesitated, obviously realising that this was not the time to praise the port. Not a socially subtle man. But what man of empathy could spend his life cutting up the bodies of living people either? Either a saint, or one who could turn off fellow feeling.
She did not care particularly which he was, as long as his technique was good.
She slept in the chair, her arms and head resting on the bed beside Nigel’s. Twice he became restless. The nurse must have been listening next door because, before Sophie could call, she came to give him his morphia. A different nurse the second time, and then a doctor, one of the assistant surgeons, who pulled back the wound dressing, checking for swelling, haematomas, though Sophie had checked for those shortly before.
She woke again at dawn, to find Nigel watching her, his face inches from hers. He smiled, the barest movement of his lips. His eyes closed again.
In, out, in, out. Both breathing and pulse were stronger now.
She left the room, called for Jones, hugged him, cried in his arms for thirty seconds, then left him to take her place, white gowned and white gloved, while she went to bathe and dress and eat, and then return.
Nigel woke enough to smile again as she came in, woozy from the morphia. His first word to her was, ‘Bedpan.’
She held the bottle, not the pan; she was relieved to see him urinate, even if the urine was blood tinged. She put it aside for Mr Ffoulkes and the nurses to examine. Nigel lay back, exhausted by the effort.
‘You’re going to live,’ she said. ‘It was a cyst, not cancerous. No infection.’
‘Early days,’ he whispered.
‘Are you in pain?’
‘Not yet.’ The faintest of smiles. ‘Once your soul has lived in agony, the body’s pain can be . . . a distraction. Almost welcome.
‘Please don’t die, Nigel. I need you. I love you!’
‘Then I had better live,’ he whispered.
‘Shh.’ She dropped a kiss on his dry lips, held up water for him to sip. Water was important after surgery, another law she had learned in France that English doctors did not seem to know.
Mr Ffoulkes arrived, smelling of kippers, accompanied by a retinue of two assistants and a nurse. The nurse took Nigel’s temperature, looked startled. ‘Half a degree low.’
‘No infection! Excellent! We’ll have you playing golf in no time, old chap.’
‘Never,’ whispered Nigel. Mr Ffoulkes ignored him. An earl who was a patient was still only a patient. No attention need be paid him.
There was no fever that night either. Nigel dined on clear chicken broth, spooned by Sophie, rich in bones and the juice of vegetables, then apple juice. ‘Cut down the morphia by half, beginning tomorrow,’ she instructed the nurse.
The nurse looked startled. ‘But Mr Ffoulkes’s patients —’
‘In half,’ ordered Sophie. She had seen too many men struggle with addiction and daymares as they tried to wean themselves off the stuff. Nigel would have the regular dose of morphia to help him sleep at night, but each day the dose would be cut in half again.
Still no fever on the third day. She helped Nigel stand for a few minutes, again without Mr Ffoulkes’s knowledge or permission, and another of the reasons she had wished the surgery and recovery to be in a house she controlled rather than a hospital with its own regimen. Once a patient stood up things seemed to ‘fall back into place’ as one VAD had described it in France. If the stitches were placed well, they’d hold.
They did. A little swelling that afternoon: the wound needed draining — more morphia for that, but when Nigel woke, his pulse was stronger than ever. ‘What’s that music?’
‘Carol singers. I gave them permission to sing in the hall.’
‘What a lovely sound to wake up to
. And your face too.’
‘I could telephone His Royal Highness if you’d like a change in repertoire.’
He laughed, winced. ‘What is for dinner?’
‘Clear chicken soup, or beef consommé, and port wine jelly for dessert.’
‘That sounds almost delicious. Sophie, are you . . .?’
‘Pregnant? I don’t know yet. But there has been nothing to say that I am not.’
The singers below burst into ‘Unto Us a Child is Born’. Sophie caught Nigel’s eye and they laughed.
If he could laugh, then he would live.
On Christmas Day Mr Ffoulkes presided over the Shillings dinner table with oysters, cream of onion soup, a tranche of turbot with sauce Albertine, venison in red wine, roast goose with chestnut stuffing, roast potatoes, parsnips and carrots followed by endive salad, anchovy toast, pudding, chocolates, nuts, crystallised fruit, mince pies and petits fours.
Upstairs Sophie, Nigel and Jones shared the servants’ meal of turkey with stuffing, and a small pudding especially made for them by Mrs Goodenough, in each portion of which they found tucked a silver ring, even Nigel’s extremely small one. It was the first solid food he had eaten. Sophie waited anxiously, but he asked for brown bread with his soup at suppertime, so she judged all was well.
Mr Ffoulkes departed on Boxing Day. This had been an experience his wife would dine out on forever, and his daughter too, but Nigel was so obviously recovering that there was no need for him to remain, though, as Mr Ffoulkes reminded them, he was only a telephone call away.
The two surgical assistants would stay to supervise, remove stitches, continue the watch for haematomas or fever. The nurses stayed too, though Sophie insisted on bathing her husband, helping him dress in one of the soft white cotton nightshirts embroidered on the collar that she had ordered for him, as near to a nightdress as a man could wear without comment.
On New Year’s Day he walked to his own bedroom, leaning on Sophie on one side and Jones on the other. Sophie slept next to him that night, waking often to listen to his breathing, in, out, in, out, subconsciously careful not to jostle him in her sleep.
Five days later Green arrived, with trunks. Jones blushed when Sophie asked him at breakfast the next morning how he’d slept. It was good to hear Nigel laugh again.
From then on Sophie’s dress improved enough for Nigel to remark on her outfit each morning; he made suggestions to her and Green, as he watched the bathing, hairdressing and selection of dresses from their bed with gentle, wistful eyes.
On 19 January she woke and watched him sleeping — the dose of morphia had been lowered till it was almost non-existent, but he still slept much of the time — then swung her legs over the bed. Dizziness swept over her, so for a second she wondered if a surgical embolism might be contagious, and then she managed to reach for the chamber pot before retching. She covered it quickly with a cloth, turned and found Nigel had lifted himself to sit against his pillows. He raised an eyebrow.
‘Pregnant,’ said Sophie. ‘No, don’t you dare try to kiss me. My breath must be foul.’
‘Champagne?’ he offered, grinning.
‘No celebrating till I’m three months along. I don’t want to tell anyone either. Just in case . . .’ For this would almost certainly be her only pregnancy, if this man was going to live, as she was now sure that he was. If she lost this child, she could just bear it — but not if the world sympathised with her. Though of course they must tell Jones . . .
Green entered with the tea tray, looked at the chamber pot, and smiled.
And Greenie, of course, as well.
Chapter 61
When we teach the young, we imply that life is simple, and can fit the rule we show them. It is not, of course. The more one knows of life, the more complexity one finds; difficult, sometimes, but always fascinating.
Miss Lily, 1911
FEBRUARY 1926
The letter arrived with Maria Thwaites, beloved, darling Maria, beautifully dressed in a brown suit that said ‘Paris, not the colonies’. Green’s influence was pervasive.
‘I feel I have known you forever,’ Nigel said in greeting, a Nigel standing, dressed in flannels and waistcoat again, his hair regrown to an acceptable length, but thankfully without his beard.
News of home, a packet of dried gum leaves for her to smell and use to remind Nigel of his promise they would travel to Australia, perhaps not this year but certainly when the baby was a year old.
The letter was from Midge, the first she had received from Australia since she’d left. Thank goodness for telegrams. This letter was on quality stationery and she had used good ink too, but the paper was slightly yellowed, the paper of a woman who ordered her stationery from Sydney once a year, just as she ordered her linen and whatever food stuffs the Bald Hill store did not provide, like crystallised fruits and sherry that would not choke a brown dog and toilet rolls, gardenia soap, oil of cucumber for the complexion and a lipstick that was neither blush pink nor sunset orange.
Darling Sophie,
(Midge’s handwriting was still copperplate, the girl’s hand she had been using since she left school to create a canteen with Ethel and the still unknown Anne, at sixteen.)
First, a thousand million congratulations on your marriage. You have no idea how Bald Hill is buzzing — you almost won an election and then married an earl! They cannot wait to see him. I believe lots will be drawn on who gets to ask you to tea first — after us, of course.
We are all well, including my family, all at Thuringa, our sheep and your cattle. A hundred friends send their love or regards, and a sack full of letters will undoubtedly arrive for you soon.
Now for the difficult part of this letter.
The morning you left we were woken by John at six am. Well, I was woken — Harry was already making porridge in the kitchen (send a man to war in France and he learns how to make porridge. But I am procrastinating. Sadly the only friends who understand that word are now only available by letter, apart from your Lady Georgina.) So, to stop procrastinating.
John seemed odd. Elated, embarrassed and I am not sure what else, but as I saw your car by the gate the night before, I hazarded a guess.
I emerged in my dressing gown, as Harry couldn’t understand quite what he wanted. It turned out to be coffee, proper coffee, which he suspected correctly we would have as grounds, not in a bottle, as well as fresh bread and butter if I had it, eggs and perhaps a jar of jam?
I have never known John to ask for anything before, nor to appear anywhere except at his gate. But I gathered up his requests while he refused Harry’s offer of porridge. He then strode out of the garden, along the paddock, and back up the hill towards the gate.
That is the last time anyone has seen him.
The district knows by now that he has left, though it took several weeks for the knowledge to percolate, as you and I and Harry are the only ones now who regularly use that gate to reach each other’s houses.
This means I am the only one who has put three pieces of information together and added them up to what may well be seven. I must stress that no one else seems to have thought to try the same arithmetic. Georgina still believes you stayed the night with one of the volunteers, and hasn’t thought to ask who it was. I doubt she ever will.
I know this seems like nosy neighbouring, but I care for you and John very much, in different ways. The third time he was not at the gate I went into his hut. His clothes, what there were of them, were gone, as were his plate and mugs and billy and blanket. I did however see a note, at the back of the table. I enclose it here, as, just possibly, it was meant for you.
Of course I may be barking up the wrong tree entirely, in which case apologies, especially as you are so wonderfully married and Georgina tells me even expecting an heir, if the baby happens to be of what society insists is the superior sex. You may not even wish to see this, supposing my deduction is correct. But I admire and value John too, and so this has not been tactfully disposed of, as perhaps i
t should have been.
My dear Sophie: whatever happened that night, do not think I judge you, blame you or will even try to understand unless you care to tell me. You are my darling friend, and have my love and admiration forever.
Love, and from Harry too, and our best wishes to Nigel,
Midge
PS Ethel sent me photographs of the wedding. You looked divine and she looked like Ethel! I warn you, I may yet visit, on the pretext that we need to look at rams.
Sophie put the letter down. The only other item in the envelope was a scrap of brown paper, folded many times. She had not even noticed it next to the thick cream writing paper.
The writing looked as though it had been scratched with a rusty nib and blobby ink, but the hand was good and legible:
Darling Sophie, I have gone to find you breakfast. Today the world begins!
The world lurched instead. It had never occurred to her to look at the table. It had never occurred to John, possibly, that she would not fetch mugs from the table when she woke, to make a cup of tea. But he would bring her coffee . . .
He had not fled. He had not left her. He might, even, in time, have loved her; and the child she carried might possibly be his. A child he would cherish. What had been his words? Any child he had would be his twin brother’s too.
She had hurt him. Not in the way she had thought — by breaking what she had assumed was a vow of celibacy — but by bringing him to the world of peace, and then abandoning him. Was she stealing his child from him too, and his brother’s?
Where was he now? Had he gone to find another gate, one with no memories of her, to carve another thousand crosses? Or had he truly resumed his life or gone to find it?
She could not speak of this to Nigel, to Maria or Green or anyone. The child she carried must be Nigel’s. She could trust Midge to keep any suspicion otherwise to herself. Legally, the child of marriage was the husband’s. There was nothing she could do to right this; nor did she even know how to begin to know what was right.
She could not stay still. She had to walk; up a hill of gum trees among the singing magpies; down gullies dusted with ferns. But, given that neither of these was possible, she could, at least, walk down to the apple orchard.
The Lily and the Rose Page 31