“Sister Heath has taken him upstairs—at least he thinks he is taking her upstairs,” said Mrs. Halliday.
“Good for Sister,” said George and as he said the words his mother suddenly realized that everything was normal. Her husband was old and failing. A nurse was in the house— a nice woman too with good manners and pleasant speech, knowing many of their county friends—and Leonard was safe with her, which was the only thing that mattered.
“Yes, good for her indeed,” she said. “And just in time,” with which plain speaking George absolutely agreed and told her so.
“Because, mother,” he said, realizing that the welfare of her menfolk was more important than anything to her now, “if father gets a bit more invalidish now it will be too much for you and I simply can’t leave the farm till we’ve got through the work. Now, what you have to do is to let Sister Heath take on the job. And don’t you go thinking that he will be unhappy, because he’s going to have the time of his life. Heath isn’t a bad looking woman and they’ll be as snug as a bug in a rug,” at which beautiful simile Mrs. Halliday had to laugh and so did her son and they both felt much more cheerful.
“Now, look here, mother, you go to bed,” said George. “You can’t do anything and old Heath is on the spot. It’s lucky you and father don’t have a double bed. It would be a frightful nuisance for him to be ill and not be able to call his bed his own. Do you remember the Caldecott picture books we had in the nursery, mother, and the one of the Babes in the Wood where the father and mother are both dying in nightcaps in a double bed? Sylvia and I adored it and we used to get into her bed when Nanny was out of the room and pretend we were the father and mother. Nanny was furious when she found us and we both had to stand in the corner,”
“I never knew Nanny put you in the corner,” said Mrs. Halliday indignantly. “What a shame.”
“Of course you didn’t know, mother,” said George. “We thought it was rather fun and had a kind of secret society about it. We called it FOST, which were the beginning letters of Finding Out Secret Things.”
“And did you find anything, darling?” said Mrs. Halliday.
“Nothing at all,” said George, “except that if we only took one lump of sugar each out of the nursery sugar basin, Nanny didn’t notice. Come along, mother. Bed for all and I’m as sleepy as a dormouse.”
So he turned out the lights and they went upstairs. Sister Heath had heard them and was on the landing to tell Mrs. Halliday that Mr. Halliday was nice and comfy in bed and she had given him something to help him to sleep.
“And if you do hear me move in the night, Mrs. Halliday,” she went on, “it will only be if Mr. Halliday wants some nice warm milk but I don’t think he will. He is sleeping beautifully.”
At that moment, though without words, Mrs. Halliday gave her husband entirely to Sister Heath, without any sense of loss, with gratitude to someone who could help him better than she could.
“I’ve put a thermos of nice hot milk by your bed, Mrs. Halliday,” Sister Heath went on, “and the sugar in case you like it sweet. And now don’t worry, because I’ll have the door open between my room and Mr. Halliday’s and I’ll hear him at once if he wants anything.”
“Thank you, Sister, very much,” said Mrs. Halliday, almost like a child. “And have you something to read? I put some books in your room.”
“Now, how kind of you, Mrs. Halliday,” said Sister Heath. “I did see the books and believe it or not, there was Mrs. Morland’s new book. I’m a great one for reading and I always read hers, but this is one I hadn’t seen, The Mannequin Mystery. I know I shall thoroughly enjoy it. So now I’ll pop into bed with my book and I expect we shall all sleep soundly.”
“What a nice woman,” said Mrs. Halliday, more to herself than to George. He agreed warmly with her and said goodnight. Mrs. Halliday did not linger over her undressing, for bed seemed to her a safe place, a view which she knew to be unreasonable, but could not be bothered to argue with herself about. She had given Sister Heath the new Mrs. Morland, but for herself she had kept the new thriller by Lady Silverbridge, better known to the great library reading public by her pen-name of Lisa Bedale. The plot was mysterious; the detective, Gerry Marston, as debonair and attractive as ever; the heroine of just the right silliness and attractiveness. And what was best of all, she did stop reading presently and turn out the light. It needed courage, but her common-sense told her that to go to sleep with the light on and then to wake at two or three o’clock not knowing who or where one is, does not make for a quiet spirit. And we are glad to say that in spite of anxiety both she and George slept well through the night. George had to be up fairly early and met Sister Heath, looking very dashing in a boudoir cap of pink silk and a pink silk padded dressing-gown, over a cup of tea. All so far was well and another day was before him.
We need hardly say that the joyful news of serious illness and a hospital nurse was swiftly relayed through the neighbourhood. The Milk was the first to get it and through him it percolated rapidly to the Mellings Arms where Mr. Geo. Panter washed his face—an operation usually postponed by him till the dead hour of mid-afternoon—and rolled his shirtsleeves up to the elbows, anticipating a rush of custom. Nor was he disappointed. At eleven o clock there was a rush of four people to the door, at half-past eleven there were at least half a dozen and when the barman, who was a young lady in a pullover and a kind of naval trousers highly unbecoming to the female form, opened the door she was obliged to get behind it for her life. Twelve pints were served by Mr. Geo. Panter himself in the first ten minutes. Opinions were divided, some saying it was The War as done it, some that it was those German bastards as done it (though another word beginning with b and of stronger pejorative quality was also much in favour); some that it was the Government, taxing a man till that man didn’t rightly know if he was on his head or his heels; others again that they daresayed old Staylin was at the bottom of it. The names of Old Gandhi and Old Franco were also brought forward, but disallowed as frivolous by a large majority, the company having now almost doubled owing to the wives coming in to see if their husbands were there and to hurry up if they wanted their dinner because you couldn’t expect your dinner to keep hot by itself and what was the good of cooking dinner if a man didn’t come in punctually and they wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t the Government.
“Ah! if we’d a had old Winnie there wouldn’t have been none of this,” said The Fish, represented by Mr. Vidler who had a flat cart (all intelligent readers will understand this) and came out from Northbridge, sometimes as himself, sometimes by proxy as The Boy. “He knew what was what, old Winnie did,” to which fine though rather vague tribute the company responded by such good old Wessex monosyllables as Ar and ‘Sright. Young Vidler (who was well over forty) went so far as to say that They did say, but was at once shut up by his father. In the middle of the slight commotion caused by the shutting-up Caxton, Mr. Halliday’s estate carpenter, came in. All were now silent and kept such of their countenances as were not dealing with a half-pint fixed upon him.
“Morning,” said Caxton in a general way. “Usual, miss.”
The trousered barmaid drew a pint of Pilward’s Entire and pushed it towards him. Even as the augurs watched the flight of birds, so did the company assembled watch Caxton’s face and with about the same result, namely being just as wise as they were before.
“Same again, miss,” said Caxton, putting his mug down. This time Mr. Geo. Panter filled it, leaving the barmaid to attend to lesser customers.
“Any news, Mr. Caxton?” said Mrs. Panter, wife of Mr. Halliday’s carter.
“There are some,” said Caxton, glancing round the assembly and apparently not seeing any spies, “as looks for good news and some as looks for bad.”
“It isn’t good news, nor yet bad news we want,” said Mrs. Panter. “It’s News. How’s the Squire? When I see the car go by yesterday afternoon with Sister Heath driving—a nice lady she is and I know what I’m saying because when I was in t
he Cottage Hospital with My Bad Leg, ten years ago that was, she was there and she said she’d never seed such a shocking Leg in her born days—it gave me quite a turn. Well, what’s the news?”
“There are some,” said Caxton, observing the same lofty abstraction from mundane affairs, “as likes to hear good news and some as likes to hear bad. Well, it’s needier.”
Murmurs arose from the public of “Same as my old uncle —laid in bed for eleven years he did with no stomach” and “Auntie was took like that, it was a Creeping Paralysis and she couldn’t do a thing for herself,” and, last, loneliest though far from loveliest, an unsolicited testimonial from Lord Pomfret’s underkeeper who had come to see Geo. Panter about that old dog-fox who was popularly held to have an earth in every part of West Barsetshire and peculiar powers (probably infernal) of transporting himself from one part of the county to another, just to annoy, to the effect that Squire Halliday he was a gentleman as was a gentleman and when the hounds met at Hatch House they were sure of a good run. And of some good beer, he added. Beer as was beer. But this last, we think, was more a piece of atavism than a criticism of Pilward’s Entire; a tradition from his grandfather’s time when Pomfrets and Hallidays still brewed at home; already an affectation of Old Times by then, but pleasant.
By lunch-time the whole neighbourhood, high and low, knew that Mr. Halliday had a hospital nurse and when Dr. Ford’s rackety little car was seen going over the bridge to Hatch House, the very worst was expected and we may almost say hoped. Not that anyone wished him to die, for he had been a kind and a just Squire and done his duty in every way, but we all have a hankering for something exciting and unusual to happen and though death is inevitable, each death is a fresh surprise and makes us, as Mr. Macfadyen the rich market-gardener and man of business was wont to say, think of our latter end.
“My old mother, she remembered Old Squire’s funeral” said Mr. Geo. Panter. “Squire’s father that was. That was a funeral. They had the undertaker from Barchester and everything tip-top and the coffin was took down to the church in the big farm-waggon and black rosettes on the harness.”
“It’ll be one of them motor-hearses now,” said Mrs. Panter. “I wouldn’t go in one of them things not if you paid me.”
“Ah, but you’ll be Carried, Mrs. Panter,” said Vidler— known, rather like a depressing Irish play, as Vidler the Fish. “That’s the way to do it and no mistake. Though, mind you, there’s always a risk with Carrying. You want the Bearers all of a height. I’ve seed a coffin nearly fall down in the Church Porch itself because one of the Bearers was ill and they had to get Hubback to heir)—him as was Miss Hubback’s uncle up at Hatch House—and he was a good six inches too short. Dreadful it was. My wife said it gave her quite a turn.”
This fascinating subject having been exhausted the party broke up and went back to its shop or its kitchen or other work.
Meanwhile Dr. Ford in his disgraceful old rattle-trap had arrived at Hatch House where he was always welcome not only as the doctor but as an old and trusted friend. According to his usual custom he drove into the back yard and went in by the kitchen where, as he said, one always got a good idea of what was going on, and though he was equally welcome in Lord Pomfret’s hideous and imposing seat and in Gatherum’s monstrous pile, he was apt to appear via the servants’ quarters. With the tact—or it may be the knowledge of the more selfish side of human nature that he had brought to a fine art during a long professional life—he greeted Hubback, sat down and asked after her leg, which limb had a Pain in it deeply valued by its owner, who took a commendable pride in its having baffled the highest medical authorities for many years.
“Well, we mustn’t complain, sir,” said Hubback, “but sometimes it hurts me cruel. Just like a knife it is and catches me all of a sudden just as I’m taking the tray in to lay lunch. I wonder I haven’t broke a dozen glasses lately with this leg.”
Dr. Ford, not without a passing reflection upon the difficulties of the English language, said he would give her some more of the Embrocation.
“I knew I’d find you in trouble,” he said, “So I brought a bottle with me. And what’s the news here? The Squire not too well, eh?”
There had been so many cries of Wolf in the last year that Dr. Ford may be forgiven for a slight scepticism, but Hub-back’s really heartfelt description of the change in him during the last few days was a call to action.
“The Nurse is a very nice lady,” said Hubback. “No trouble at all and Mr. Halliday took his breakfast nicely. But I don’t like the look of him, sir.”
“Well, what he looks like is my business,” said Dr. Ford putting four lumps of sugar in the cup of tea Hubback had set in front of him. “That’s a nice big cup—Mr. Halliday’s isn t it?
“Oh no, sir,” said Hubback, shocked that he should suspect her of such treachery to her master. “That’s the other big one, sir, the cup with the Eddystone Lighthouse on it. I’ve always washed it myself, sir. These girls—” which speech she left unfinished, knowing that Dr. Ford would fill in the gap for himself.
“Well, I’d better go up” said Dr. Ford. “Tell Mrs. Halliday I’m here. No, don’t trouble. I’ll just go through,” and he went out of the kitchen and so into the hall where, doubtless warned by the noise of his car, Mrs. Halliday was waiting for him.
“I’m sorry about the Squire,” he said. “What’s up?”
Mrs. Hailiday told him and added that Sister Heath, most luckily, had come yesterday and was in charge.
“A bit long in the tooth but knows her job,” said Dr. Ford unchivalrously. “Are you getting some sleep?”
Mrs. Halliday said she had slept quite well last night and would take some of those sleeping things that Dr. Ford had given her last year if she felt wakeful and then Sister Heath, resplendent in her proper uniform, came out of Mr. Halli-day’s room.
“Good-morning, Doctor Ford,” she said. “It’s quite like old times to see you again,” to which Dr. Ford gallantly replied that Sister Heath was looking like a two-year-old and Sister Heath bridled. Then, becoming her professional self again, she went with the doctor into her patient’s room. Mrs, Halliday tried not to think, but it was too difficult, so she went downstairs into the kitchen and helped Hubback to drink several cups of very strong Indian tea (which she loathed) with a great deal of sugar (which she never took) and they talked about old days and how Mr. Halliday would ride that mare at the point to point and had to have his arm in a splint and how Master George nearly got a finger cut off in the circular saw which Caxton had told him not to touch and how Miss Sylvia had been chased by the old turkey and had nightmares for a week and so many little things from the past, soon forgotten at the time, remembered now. While they were drinking their second cups of tea George Halliday I came in, as he often did, to look for the elevenses that Hub-back loved to provide for Master George.
“I suppose Dr. Ford’s upstairs, mother,” he said. “I saw his car in the yard. Tea please Hubback, hot and strong and four lumps.”
“You’ll ruin your teeth, Master George,” said Hubback, and gave him five.
As no one had anything special to say they very sensibly did not try to say anything till Dr. Ford came in. Hubback at once got up and began to make fresh tea but did not go out of earshot.
“Well, you’ve got one of the best nurses in the county, Mrs. Halliday,” he said. “She has done everything as well as I could have done it myself. And I have telephoned to her friend Miss Ward to come over. Your husband will be better with a night nurse and a day nurse. I shan’t say Don’t Worry, because nothing will stop you women worrying. I shall come in again this afternoon or this evening. He is asleep now. I can’t promise anything, but I think he won’t be in pain. The works are running down,” and after laying a kind hand upon her shoulder for a minute, he turned to go.
“One moment, Dr. Ford,” said Mrs. Halliday. “I’ll come to your car with you. No George, you needn’t come,” and she went out into the kitchen yard with Dr. Ford.<
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“And now what’s up?” said Dr. Ford. “Don’t tell me you are feeling unwell. We can’t have another invalid,” which may* sound unkind, but all Dr. Ford’s old patients knew his ways and in any case Mrs. Halliday had no intention of feeling ill, or of giving way at any point.
“It’s not exactly the moment to think of business,” said Mrs. Halliday as they came into the kitchen yard, sheltered and sunny, “but I must tell you something. You know Leonard thinks he made the place over to George some time ago, but as far as the lawyers know he didn’t and we may have to sell the place. There have been Hallidays here for nearly two hundred years. That’s all.”
“You needn’t have told me that,” said Dr. Ford, though very kindly, ‘and I do value your confidence. I should have done all I could, absolutely everything in my power, without knowing about it. But now I know I’ll have the whole British Medical Association down here if necessary and all the quacks in the county too if you like. There’s no question of medical etiquette when your husband and the place are in question. Good-bye.”
After this life became a strange dream as far as Mrs. Halli-day was concerned, not unpleasant, for everyone was kind, her husband seemed vaguely pleased to see her for short visits, once taking her for Lady Pomfret and once for a very nice stranger who had come to visit him. As she left him she heard him ask Sister Heath who that pleasant woman was and whether his mother had come back from Barchester, and whatever Sister Heath answered seemed to please him. Before lunch Miss Ward came, also in her own little car, had a short talk with Mrs. Halliday and went upstairs to her room to emerge as a nurse and looking distinctly more charming than she did in what she called her civvies.
Never Too Late Page 24