‘Do not speak ill of the dead,’ I said loudly, translating from the Latin phrase. I had heard John say it once, up in his rooms. Mr Holmes had scoffed. If no one spoke ill of the dead, he pointed out, his job would be a lot harder.
Miranda looked at me and nodded.
‘Well, just say that, instead of muttering in a godless language!’ Betty snapped. She appeared to be under great strain. We all were. The atmosphere in the ward was tense and angry, and we all seemed to be on the edge of a great argument.
That was when the visitors arrived.
Mary came straight to my bed.
‘Typhoid,’ she announced. I was puzzled. For a moment I thought she was talking about Emma. ‘The boy’s parents,’ Mary explained, taking off her hat and throwing it on my bed, to the nurse’s distress. ‘The ones you told me to look into, because their death might be significant? They died in a typhoid epidemic, along with dozens of others. Nothing suspicious at all.’ She looked around the room. ‘Where’s Emma?’
I told her the news.
‘What, that wonderful woman?’ Mary said, taken aback. ‘It’s hard to believe; she seemed so alive yesterday.’
‘When she told us all those stories,’ I said, in a low voice. ‘Who knows what she would have told us today?’
‘Yes, quite,’ Mary said, sitting down on my bed. ‘What did you see last night?’
I shrugged.
‘I was very sleepy. We all were. I can’t be sure I saw anything.’
‘Oh, to hell with sure,’ Mary said. ‘What happened?’
‘I saw it again,’ I said quietly. ‘The same bed. She’d had to move, and they put her in the empty bed at the end, the one with the screens around it, now. They put them there when she died. They always hide the bodies. I woke up in the middle of the night, and there it was.’
I looked around the room. Miranda had wandered away to the door of the ward. Eleanor and Flo were talking quietly, but fervently. Betty was surrounded, as usual, by her mass of badly dressed daughters.
‘The shadow? Like the first night?’ Mary asked. She never doubted me. Bless her for that.
‘I can’t be sure, still,’ I admitted. ‘I felt so sleepy, my limbs were heavy, I couldn’t even move. It was like a nightmare.’
‘Some drugs do that,’ Mary said. ‘They’re just supposed to send you to sleep, but some people wake up and find themselves in a sort of paralysis.’
‘We all slept heavily last night.’
‘If something happened, there’ll be physical evidence,’ Mary said, glancing over at the screened bed.
‘The sheets have been changed and the bed and floor washed.’
‘Something always gets left behind,’ Mary insisted, standing up. ‘It’s one of Sherlock’s maxims.’
‘But you can’t investigate,’ I said, hissing, trying to remain quiet. ‘Everyone is watching!’
‘Well, it’s about the time the nurses have their midafternoon meeting,’ Mary said blithely. ‘There, you see, they’re going off to the corner. They won’t notice. All you have to do is distract the others.’
‘How am I supposed to do that?’ I snapped. She smiled mischievously.
‘It’s only for a moment. You’ll think of something: just enough to get me in there.’
Very well, if I must. And if I really thought about it, I knew exactly what to do.
I got out of bed and stood up, still shaky, but determined to walk across the room. Betty was holding up a cardigan to her second eldest daughter, and it was awful. I walked – well, limped – over to her bed, hanging onto Miranda’s bed on the way.
I stood at the foot of Betty’s bed, and said loudly, ‘You’re not going to make the poor girl wear that, are you? It’s hideous.’
I don’t think anyone had ever spoken to Betty like that before, judging by the way she gaped at me. Her daughters stared at me, the youngest two angry, but the eldest two with a sort of relief. The other two just seemed very bored, and sighed heavily every few moments.
‘How . . . how dare you?’ Betty stammered. I was tempted to say I wasn’t quite sure how I dared myself, but instead I turned to Miranda and said, ‘Don’t you agree, Miss Logan?’
She looked away from Emma’s bed at Betty. She had never liked Betty, and she took great pleasure in drawling the word, ‘Vile,’ in as disgusted a tone as possible.
‘My dear, ignore them, they’re jealous,’ Eleanor said. Flo, her eyes bright with excitement (well, she did enjoy a good scandal), came up to join us.
‘Well, I know you’re not jealous,’ I said, to Eleanor. ‘I heard you tell Mrs Bryson you thought the colour of the wool was rancid.’
This was perfectly true, and in the way of liars everywhere, Eleanor was particularly shrill in denying it – especially when Miranda agreed that rancid was a perfect description.
I didn’t need to say any more. With Eleanor vociferous in Betty’s defence, and Betty’s hatred of Miranda and her foreign ways, and Miranda’s coolly spoken insults and Flo’s delighted enjoyment at it all, everyone was thoroughly distracted. The nurses were mostly still in the other room, checking stock and reading notes. I looked over my shoulder.
Mary had sneaked behind the screens that surrounded Emma’s deathbed. It was perfectly obvious someone was in there, as the screen brushed against her body, but for all anyone knew, it was a nurse – unless they saw Mary’s neat dove-grey kid boots.
I turned back to the argument, now in full flow. Betty’s daughters looked embarrassed and fascinated. I mouthed ‘sorry’ at the oldest one, and she just shrugged and smiled weakly. I had the feeling Betty’s temper was a common sight at home.
We were all tense and worried and wound up, and everyone took advantage of the momentary slip of good manners to release their fears. To be honest, I think we all felt a good deal better for letting go, though that hadn’t been my intention.
The nurses, finally drawn by the noise, came and ushered us back into bed. Mary managed to slip back out of the screens in the general melee.
‘Well?’ I said, as soon as I was safely tucked up in bed and Mary was beside me.
‘Blood,’ she said softly, the light of triumph in her eyes. ‘Just a spot smeared on the head of the bed.’
‘Could be old,’ I countered. She shook her head.
‘It would have been cleaned off. The nurses are very efficient. It just wasn’t easy to see at night. Besides, it’s still bright red.’
I thought of Emma’s hands flailing about, hitting his face, and then the bed behind her.
‘She scratched her attacker,’ I whispered.
‘It’s real,’ Mary whispered back. ‘You really did see something, Martha.’
Then I went cold, all of a sudden. I remembered. If what I had seen was real . . .
‘They saw me,’ I told Mary. ‘They saw me watching.’
MRS HUDSON’S FEAR
Mary had to leave eventually. Visiting hours were supposed to be very strict; the Sister was insistent, despite Mary using her husband’s connection to the hospital to come and go as she pleased.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ Mary said as she was leaving, trying to reassure me. ‘I have a plan.’
I wasn’t afraid. Not then. I was worn out and angry and tired. I was also desperate to go home. I wasn’t in that much pain any more, though I was still weak and unable to walk far, but I was beginning to feel better. I was tired of this hospital and sick of the noise and the smells and annoyed with my fellow patients.
To be fair, they were probably sick of me too. The argument I had started had no doubt been simmering below the surface for a while now. We were all living far too close together, politely ignoring each other’s snores and smells, but there is only so long a person can take the idiosyncrasies of a complete stranger that close to them before they snap – and we had all snapped spectacularly. The argument hadn’t cleared the air; we all still merely sat there, brooding over our wrongs, teetering on the edge of shouting at each other again.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Eleanor barked, as if it was any of her business.
‘I am cured,’ Miranda said, not turning to look at her. ‘Therefore I am leaving.’
‘Good riddance,’ Betty said, just loud enough to be heard yet softly enough to be ignored.
‘Do you like anyone?’ Flo inquired of Betty, sweetly.
For a moment we all hovered on the edge of harsh words again, then the atmosphere calmed down, and everyone turned back to their reading, or knitting. Miranda came to the foot of my bed.
‘I suppose there’s no reason for you to stay now,’ I said, glancing towards Emma’s empty bed. It was enough to let Miranda know I knew she had been here for Emma. She smiled a secretive, amused smile.
‘None whatsoever,’ she said in a way that made it clear she was not going to tell me exactly why she was there. ‘But I think we’ll meet again, Mrs Hudson.’
‘Will we?’ I asked.
‘Oh yes,’ she confirmed, and left.
That left me alone with Flo, Eleanor and Betty, none of whom were companions I would have chosen. I sighed, and lay back down on my bed.
Staying here was draining me of all energy. It was all too easy to lie back and do nothing, not even read. Food was brought to me, medicine was brought to me – I didn’t even have to walk to the conveniences if I didn’t want to. I just had to lie here, lazily watching everyone else. It was too much effort to talk. It was even too much effort to think. All I wanted to do was to lie in this bed and do nothing and think nothing and stare into nothing.
But then I’d drift off into sleep, and in sleep the nightmares came. The ward became infected with shadows, tall thin shapes that threatened to suffocate me as the other patients watched. All I could think of was death, lingering on this ward, in this whole building.
I sat up, trying to shake off the lassitude that enveloped me. I had spent too long in hospital. I had become used to the routine and the languor of life here. Trying to force my mind to work again, I looked around me.
The screen had been removed from the bed Emma had died in, and the Sister was telling a nurse to clean the blood from the bed frame, berating her for missing it the first time. That was our one piece of evidence, but no matter. Mary had seen it, and that was enough for now. Sister Bey walked past the end of my bed, and frowned.
‘What happened here?’ she asked, lifting the sheets at the end of my bed.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, puzzled.
‘There’s a tear in your mattress,’ she said, accusing, as if I’d done it myself. ‘There’s a huge rip from one end to the other. The ticking is falling out!’
‘I hadn’t noticed,’ I said slowly, though now I thought about it, my mattress didn’t feel right.
‘Well, you can’t sleep on this tonight,’ she insisted. She looked around the ward. It was busy. A lady was being moved into the bed to my left, and the sheets were being stripped from Miranda’s bed to my right. Emma’s old bed was still damp: they took a long time to dry, and the nurses were taking the mattress away to air it out.
The only possible bed I could move to was the one Emma had died in.
‘No,’ I said softly, as Sister Bey told the nurses to move me to that bed. I was struck by a chill. ‘No!’ I insisted. ‘I don’t want to. I’m not going into that bed.’
‘Of course you are,’ Sister insisted firmly. ‘You cannot sleep in your own.’
‘People have died in that bed!’ I hissed. It only seemed to make her angry.
‘People have died in all these beds,’ she told me harshly. ‘Don’t be childish. You cannot stay in your own bed, not when it’s in that state.’
‘Then why can’t I move to Miss Logan’s old bed or Miss Fordyce’s?’ I asked, trying to be reasonable, trying to overcome the blind panic I felt at being moved into that other bed.
‘Miss Fordyce’s mattress is still damp, and as for the other, the mattress needs airing,’ Sister Bey said stubbornly, and I saw that I had made a mistake. She saw me as a rebellious child who needed to be put in her place, and now she had dug her heels in. Nothing would change her mind now.
‘This bed is fine,’ I said to her. ‘I won’t sleep in that bed in the corner. Emma died in it only last night; it’s still warm from her body!’ I heard the panic rise in my voice and felt the tears prick my eyes. I despised myself for my weakness, but I had no strength to fight them. I couldn’t control my feelings. The bed in the corner had assumed monstrous proportions in my eyes. The frame was a cage, the tiny spot of blood a great smear of gore, and the sheets a shroud to choke me.
‘I won’t,’ I insisted. ‘I won’t!’ I said again, aware I sounded like a small child, but unable to stop myself. I was terrified.
‘She’s really frightened,’ Flo said softly.
‘Attention-seeking,’ Betty commented, as she wound another stitch onto her needles.
‘Some people really need to learn how to behave,’ Eleanor murmured.
‘Perhaps if she really is afraid . . .’ Nora started to say, but Sister Bey turned on her, her pale, sharp face flushed red with anger.
‘This is not a hotel,’ she snapped. ‘This is a hospital, and patients need to learn to do as they are told. So do nurses, do you understand?’
Nora stepped back, surprised at the Sister’s anger, but I could see she was going to speak again. Sister Bey, however, just continued.
‘Patients have these odd fancies,’ she told Nora, as if I wasn’t there. ‘If you give way to one, you will have to give way to all, and then the ward would be in anarchy. I won’t have that on my ward. She will be moved.’
With that she walked away to her quarters through the door at the back of the ward, leaving no doubt that her instructions were to be obeyed.
Nora sighed, and turned to me. ‘I’ll help you.’ She took my arm to help me up. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on you tonight,’ she said softly.
‘That didn’t help Emma!’ I retorted, and Nora winced as if I’d hit her. I apologized, but I was shaking as I stood up. I had to go: if I didn’t, Sister Bey wasn’t above getting a male orderly to physically drag me into that bed. I wouldn’t sleep though. My mind was full of images of myself lying helpless in that bed, unable to move and yet awake as the shadow leaned over me and smothered the life out of me.
Yet how could I not sleep? I was already exhausted, and my medicine made me drowsy.
‘Nora,’ I said quietly, ‘I have a friend working in the laboratories . . .’ Yes, I was even desperate enough to beg for help from him.
‘The laboratories are closed,’ she told me. ‘It’s Sunday. Please, Martha, don’t argue with the Sister. She won’t accept any kind of protest. Just sleep in that bed one night, and you’ll be back in your own by morning.’
Morning? I wouldn’t see the morning. My last hope of rescue was gone.
‘No,’ I said suddenly, pulling away. ‘I won’t go. I’ll die if I get into that bed.’
But Sister Bey was back again, her hands full of sheets for the bed.
‘If you persist in fighting, we’ll have to sedate you,’ she said firmly, and I saw in her hand, hidden by the sheets, a silver hypodermic. ‘Hold her still.’ Nora held me only lightly, but the other nurse, always in awe of the Sister, grabbed my wrist painfully and held my arm out for the injection. I twisted, terrified that if she put me to sleep I’d never wake up.
‘What exactly do you think you’re doing?’ came a cold, clear voice from the door.
Mary. Oh, thank God, Mary.
‘The patient is being difficult,’ Sister explained, as Mary strode in, her head high, her body stiff with anger. She looked magnificent right then.
‘Difficult in what way?’ Mary demanded, reaching out to support me. ‘All I see is a young fit woman bullying an older, si
ck woman.’
‘She needs to change beds,’ Sister Bey insisted. She was shaken by Mary. She couldn’t overpower her, not by words or deeds. ‘She was refusing to move.’
‘Well, she doesn’t have to,’ Mary said, taking my arm and leading me back to my bed. ‘Here is her discharge notice from Dr Watson.’
Sister Bey read the notice, her face still and white, as Mary pulled the screens across my bed and hurriedly pulled a dress over my nightgown.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I would have come sooner. I had no idea they were going to put you in that bed. I had to make arrangements and they took longer than I thought.’
‘It’s all right, you’re here now,’ I said, as Mary knelt to help me put on my shoes. I felt so relieved she was here, and I was safe, even as I felt embarrassed at the scene I had caused.
‘Can you walk?’ Mary asked, standing and picking up my hastily packed bag.
‘If it gets me out of here, I can dance!’ I said giddily, standing up quickly. Then I had to sit down again, lightheaded, as my knees buckled under me. ‘I may need some help,’ I conceded. Mary smiled at me, and pulling the screen back, asked Nora for help. We walked past Sister Bey, still holding the discharge notice, who just looked at me with blank, empty eyes, as if all this had meant nothing to her. At the door, I looked back at the ward. Flo smiled, and gave a little wave goodbye. Betty sniffed, and returned to her interminable knitting. Eleanor looked smug and disapproving both at once. And Sister Bey was now at her desk once more, writing in her logbook. Yet the hand that gripped the pen was white around the knuckles, and the discharge notice lay ripped into tiny pieces in front of her. She must have hated me. I had challenged her in her own personal fiefdom, and won. She must have felt humiliated. I had made an enemy.
But it didn’t matter. I was leaving now and I would never come back here again.
THE ART OF TEA-MAKING
I was alone at last. Mary and John had dropped me off at 221b and settled me in the kitchen. I had begged Mary for some time to myself. I hadn’t been alone in so long, and I had missed my solitude. She agreed, saying she had a couple of things to sort out, and that she’d be back later. She kissed my cheek, and left me sitting on my comfortable chair, at my own table, finally back in my blessed kitchen, at home.
The Women of Baker Street Page 7