by Susan Barrie
In the kitchen of the flat Marianne was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in front of her. She was smoking one of her stepmother’s cigarettes and looking as if the evening before had been anything but a success. Indeed, Alison had seldom seen her more depressed.
“What’s happened?” she asked, as she rushed in adjusting the front of her neat grey dress. “Didn’t you have a good time last night?”
Marianne shook her head.
“Ron and I quarrelled,” she admitted. “It was serious,” she added briefly.
Alison glanced at her. There were dark circles under her eyes. She even had a mildly dissipated air.
“Have you had any breakfast?” she asked.
Marianne shook her head.
“I couldn’t face breakfast after last night.”
“Why? What did you do?”
“Oh, we dined at the usual place, and then we went on to the dance and had a few drinks—”
“What sort of drinks?” sharply.
“Vodka and lemon.” Marianne glanced up at her mockingly. “You should try it some time, Ali ... It really gives you a new view of life. For the time being, of course. This morning, I’ll admit, I feel as if I’ve got a bit of a hangover.”
“I think that’s a horrible thing for a girl of your age to say,” Alison commented.
Marianne mocked her.
“Look who’s talking! Anyone would think you were in your thirties, at least. You’ll have to start growing up yourself, Alison, and then you won’t be so shocked at everything I do.”
“I’m not shocked, I—”
But Jessamy came creeping in from the corridor, and she looked a trifle mysterious.
“I’ve been listening outside his door, and he’s not making a sound!” she told them. “I was going to take him a tray of tea if I heard any movements—”
Alison was shocked again.
“You’ll take him a tray of tea? You won’t do anything of the kind,” she ordered Jessamy. “What do you think a man like Charles Leydon would think of a girl like you creeping into his room with a tea-tray while he’s still in bed? For one thing, we don’t even know that he likes early tea, and for another—”
“He was terribly nice to me last night,” Jessamy recalled reminiscently. There was a kind of glow on her face.
Alison looked at her. Instead of her usual wool jumper and slacks she was wearing the new dress that Alison herself had bought for her only a week or so before. It was a slim rose-red model with touches of velvet about it, and she had looped a velvet Alice band across the front of her pale forehead and fastened it under her jetty hair at the back. She looked like a rose-red sprite with appealing eyes.
“I think he’s t-terribly nice, don’t you?” she said, and it was the first time for years she had stuttered.
Marianne looked amazed.
“Nice? He treated me last night as if I—as if I was the parlourmaid going out for the evening. I’m not going to find it easy to overlook it, I can tell you!”
Alison was preparing a tray. It was true Leydon might have fixed ideas about tea in the early morning—not that it was so very early, anyway—and prefer coffee, or even nothing at all, but she couldn’t just enter his room with nothing in her hands. It would be embarrassing enough coming face to face with him in that bleak, cold bedchamber after last night.
Before she left the kitchen she made certain that Lorne had had some breakfast. But all she had had, apparently, was a bowl of cornflakes. Cornflakes! And this morning the temperature was down several degrees.
If only she hadn’t overslept!
Outside Leydon’s door, in the silent corridor, she knocked. But there was no answer. She knocked again, still without result, and then pushed open the door. At first she could see nothing, because the heavy velvet curtains were still dragged across the windows, and there wasn’t a spark of fire on the grate. She set down her tray cautiously on a table just inside the door, and then groped her way across the room to the nearest window. Leydon might resent having a light flashed in his face, and in any case the bedside lamp had been used before he got into bed, and therefore the switch by the door produced no results.
A pale, cold November sun found its way into the room. It was fighting desperately to dissipate the mist that hung about the tops of the trees outside.
Alison looked towards the bed. Leydon was not asleep, but he appeared to have lost his voice.
“Got a bit of a throat,” he croaked.
Alison instantly forgot that she had no real right to do anything of the kind and felt his forehead, and the bristly sides of his face. They were burning, and she realised that he was in a high fever. His eyes, that she had thought so colourless the day before, were brilliant as diamonds between his thick black eyelashes. They were so bright that they alarmed her, and the fact that he also looked resentful did not affect her at all.
“This room has felt like an iceberg all night,” he croaked. “I haven’t been warm for a moment. Do you think you could put a hot brick in the bed, or something of the sort?”
“I’ll bring you a couple of hot-water bottles.”
“No.” Instantly he sat upright in bed, and she could see that he was wearing sheer silk pyjamas. “I don’t like hot-water bottles. They leak.”
“These won’t.”
She didn’t stop to argue, but after hastily pouring him a cup of tea and placing it beside his bed she flew off to her own kitchen to fill the hot bottles. While engaged in this operation she issued her orders to Marianne, and to Jessamy.
“Ring Dr. Geddes and ask him to come at once,” she instructed Jessamy. “And you, Marianne, must collect me some firewood as quickly as possible. I’ll have to get his fire lighted, and in the meantime I’ll have the electric fire from your bedroom, Jessamy. It’s more powerful than mine, and I think there’s a point in Mr. Leydon’s room, although I’m not absolutely sure.”
The girls gaped at her.
“Is he really ill?” Marianne demanded.
“I think he’s got a raging temperature. His bedroom’s like ice.”
“Serves him right,” Marianne returned unfeelingly. “He shouldn’t have kept you up amongst the chimney-pots for so long yesterday. You’re the one who should have a raging temperature ... and I expect poor old Minty’s got one, too. I thought he looked half dead when you brought him down from the roof.”
“Please hurry and get the firewood,” Alison ordered impatiently.
Marianne looked mutinous.
“You don’t mean I’m to go outside and collect some, do you?” she demanded. “I’m not a forester! Anyway, where do you keep it?”
“In the cupboard under the stairs, of course.” Alison actually snapped at her. “There’s a supply already chopped.”
“Oh, well, in that case...”
But although Jessamy flew to the telephone, Marianne took her time over collecting the wood. Jessamy came hurrying back from the main hall to report that Dr. Geddes, who had most fortunately been caught at his house before setting out for his surgery, was as good as on his way, and in the meantime they were to keep the patient warm. Warm! Alison felt slightly frantic. How on earth were they to do that in the main part of the house ... a house without any kind of central heating?
When she returned to Leydon’s room he was looking rather more glassy-eyed than before. He had subsided beneath the blankets, and hadn’t touched his tea. Alison, who had had plenty of experience of sick nursing looking after her husband, slid one of the bottles expertly in between the sheets near the foot of the bed, and the other she gave to Leydon to hug. He clutched at it gratefully, despite his avowed aversion to rubber hot-water bottles.
The next thing she did was to plug in the electric fire that Jessamy handed cautiously round the door, and then she produced a thermometer and inserted it in Leydon’s unwilling mouth. In a threadbare voice he spluttered:
“I don’t need this thing!”
“Be quiet!” she ordered.
&n
bsp; When she looked at the thermometer all her worst fears were realised. Leydon’s temperature was very nearly a hundred and four.
Dr. Geddes arrived a quarter of an hour later. He seemed surprised when he was conducted up to one of the main bedrooms in the principal part of the house, and then instantly became interested when he heard that it was Charles Leydon himself who appeared to be very much under the weather.
“Sir Charles?” he said. “Oh, I shall enjoy meeting him. We’ve all been wondering in the village when we were going to see him.”
“Please don’t call him Sir Charles,” Alison begged, following him up the stairs. “He prefers to be known as Mr. Leydon! And I think it would be better if you didn’t let him know if he’s really rather ill.”
“Why?” He paused and looked at her. “A nervous type?”
“Not in the ordinary sense, but I suspect he might be the kind to worry over himself, as he’s probably very fit most of the time.”
“Ah, I get you!” The doctor looked as if he understood perfectly. “A bit of a he-man with a tendency to make much of a cut finger! Well, it’s common. The stronger a man is physically the more he dislikes being ill.”
And the first thing he did when he entered the sickroom was to greet the patient by his rightful name.
“Well, this is a pleasure, Sir Charles!” he said.
Later, he took Alison aside and warned her that the situation was fairly serious. He had prescribed the usual drugs, but he thought a nurse might be necessary, certainly a night nurse.
“But the trouble is, they’re not easy to come by these days.” He frowned and gnawed the tip of his thumb. “I think I know of one young woman who might be free, but even she might not be able to take over for a day or so. And it’s immediate nursing that is essential.” He glanced at Alison doubtfully. “Do you think you could manage?”
She answered immediately.
“Of course. If necessary, the girls and I will take it in turns to watch him.”
“The girls? Ah, yes, your stepdaughters.” He glanced at Alison sympathetically. “You seem to come in for this sort of thing, don’t you? It’s not a year yet since your husband died, and you were pretty tied to the house looking after him, weren’t you?”
Another thing that concerned the doctor was the size and bleakness of the room.
“Haven’t you anywhere smaller and cosier than this where you could put him?” he asked.
Alison at once offered her own room, but after giving the matter thought Dr. Geddes decided that that might prove too dangerous. To get the patient to walk down long stone corridors and up several flights of stairs before reaching Alison’s room might seriously endanger him. On the whole, he thought he had better remain where he was.
“Keep as big a fire going as you can,” he suggested, “and whatever you do don’t let it out during the night. Plug in any electric heat you’ve got,” glancing at the solitary electric fire, “and keep that going, too. If he wants to use the bathroom will he have to walk far to get to it?”
“No, it’s next door to this room,” Alison told him.
“Good.” But the doctor still sounded doubtful.
Charles Leydon, when informed that he would have to remain in bed for several days, looked as if he neither cared nor was particularly happy at the prospect. By that time the room was warm, Alison had changed his sheets without disturbing him too much, he had said something about getting up and shaving, and then fallen into a doze, and Alison had fetched a bowl of warm water and a sponge and dabbed at his face with it while he slept.
When he awakened and heard the news about himself he seemed, quite literally, to turn his face to the wall.
“I’m being a bit of a nuisance, aren’t I?” he said. He closed his eyes. “Do you think you’ll be able to cope?”
“Of course. You mustn’t worry about that.”
He opened one eye.
“What if I start raving, or anything like that? Will you mind?”
“You won’t, because you’re having sedatives.”
A mirthless grin creased his lips.
“Sedatives! And yesterday I was as fit as a flea! I came down here with the intention of wasting little time, and now it seems I’m going to be out of action until the doctor gives me permission to get up. By the way, I think you ought to ring old Minty and find out whether he’s under the weather, too.”
“I will,” she promised.
Later she was able to report that Mr. Minty was away from his office, and his secretary did not expect him to return to it for several days.
“He seems to be suffering from ’flu,” she said. Charles Leydon grimaced.
“He’s lucky,” he commented. “Apparently I’m well on the way to pneumonia.”
Despite the drugs, he had a very restless day, and no nurse putting in an appearance before night, Alison realised that she would have to sit up with him. The doctor looked in for a brief while when he had finished his surgery, and he offered no comment. He simply said to Alison:
“Well, it’s fortunate you’re a married woman, Mrs. Fairlie. At least you know what to do, and if you were unmarried the situation would be more embarrassing.” He went across to his patient, who appeared to be sleeping, and bent over him. “Don’t forget the two lots of capsules every three hours.”
“No,” Alison said.
Dr. Geddes said he would let himself out, to save her descending the stairs and returning up them again—to say nothing of all those corridors that separated her from her own flat.
“You’ll be worn out before our man is on his feet again,” he remarked frowningly, before he left the room. “I’ll have to see what I can do about that nurse!”
As soon as they were alone, Leydon opened both eyes wide. They were disturbingly bright, but the expression in them was quite rational. The ghost of a smile touched his lips.
“So it’s all right because you’re a married woman, Mrs. Fairlie,” he observed. “Otherwise it would be embarrassing. But you’re not a married woman, are you? Not really!”
And despite the fact that his temperature was climbing again his eyes mocked her. Mocked her openly.
Alison decided to enlist the support of Mrs. Davenport. Not merely was she a married woman, but she was very much married. She had a couple of very young children, a couple of in-betweens, and two daughters and one son married. There was nothing she didn’t know about ‘coping’ when someone—particularly a man—was ill.
“Of course I’ll pay you extra, Mrs. Davenport,” Alison told her. “And I’m sure that when he’s better Mr. Leydon himself will reward your services generously. But I must have someone, apart from the girls, to—to sit with him and so on—”
“I know.” Mrs. Davenport rolled up her sleeves metaphorically. “He won’t be able to walk all that way to the bathroom in his weak state, and he’ll have to have a bed-pan, and I’ll see to it. Then I don’t suppose you want to sponge him down...?”
“Oh, no!” Alison exclaimed. They were in the corridor, and well out of earshot of the patient. “Nothing like that! Although I’ll do anything else...”
“I know you will, dearie.” Mrs. Davenport smiled at her. She had known her for a good many years. “It would be different if you and the late Mr. F. had been a little closer to one another, wouldn’t it? I mean, you having one room, and him having another! And one has only got to look at you to know that you ... well, it was what you call a marriage in name only, wasn’t it?”
Alison nodded. Somehow Mrs. Davenport didn’t make her feel embarrassed.
“Yes,” she admitted. “You see, Mr. Fairlie wasn’t—Well, he was much older than me-—old when he married his first wife, and although we were great friends, we—”
Mrs. Davenport patted her shoulder comfortingly.
“Don’t worry, love,” she said. “I don’t have to have my i’s dotted and my t’s crossed. I’ve seen a lot of life, and I sorted you out right from the beginning. I don’t mind admitting I’ve been s
orry for you ... Well, I mean, it wasn’t fair of Mr. F. to marry you and let you lead a life like that, was it?” There was strong criticism of the departed Mr. F. in her face. “A pretty young thing like you! Prettier than either of those two elder stepdaughters of yours, or so I always say!”
Alison was overwhelmed.
“Thank you, Mrs. Davenport,” she said. “It’s very kind of you to flatter me, but I don’t think anyone could be as pretty as Marianne. And I haven’t had such a bad time, you know. For one thing, I got a readymade family when I married, and although you mightn’t guess it sometimes we’re all quite fond of one another.”
“I know that.” But the tough jaw opposite her set obstinately. “But that Miss Marianne, she doesn’t help you as much as she should. And she doesn’t have a job, or anything like that. It wouldn’t hurt her to earn a little to make things easier for you. But I wasn’t thinking of the girls. I was thinking you haven’t got any of your own, and it doesn’t seem you’re likely to have. You ought to be married to a man who would appreciate you ... a proper marriage!”
Alison flushed faintly, but smiled.
“I’m quite happy as I am, Mrs. Davenport.”
Mrs. Davenport rolled up her sleeves literally this time, preparatory to entering the sick room.
“You could be happier,” she insisted. “You ask my Joe what I mean ... although I don’t suppose you’d like to. But marriage is more than just being friends.”
Somewhere about the middle of the first night, while she sat beside him, and Mrs. Davenport was on call but out of sight, the invalid opened his eyes and looked full at the girl in the neat dress who sat with her hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the fire, her expression thoughtful.
“A penny for them?” he enquired whimsically.
Alison started, and then flushed absurdly.
“Did you want something to drink?” she asked. “There’s some barley water here.”
“Thanks.” He looked thirstily at the jug, and she slipped a hand behind his shoulders and eased him into a more convenient position. Although his pyjama jacket had been changed by Mrs. Davenport a couple of hours before it felt wet, and she was pleased, because that meant the fever was breaking.