Too Close to the Sun

by Jess Foley

  But there was something wrong. As she drew back a little and reached to take his hands he flinched, sucking in his breath slightly and drawing a little away.

  ‘Pappy, what is it?’ she said, concern sounding in her voice.

  ‘Ah, the thumb’s been playing me up a bit,’ he said. ‘But we’ll be better now that I’ve got my nurse back.’

  She took his left hand and looked at it closely in the bright afternoon light. ‘How does it feel?’ she said.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s throbbing like billy-o and I’ve a lump under my arm the size of an egg.’

  She could see that the thumb was shockingly swollen, and there was a dark reddish line moving from his knuckles up under the cuff of his coarse shirt. She reached up and laid the back of her hand against his forehead. ‘You’ve got a temperature,’ she said. ‘Pappy, you’ve got a fever. Come on, let’s go on home.’ She pulled herself up into the trap then watched as her father climbed up beside her. ‘Would you like me to drive?’ she asked.

  ‘No, dear,’ he replied. ‘That’s all right. And you know how fussy Robin is when it comes to who has the reins.’

  She allowed herself a smile at this. ‘Oh, I do indeed.’ She hooked her right arm through his left one, careful not to touch anywhere near his hand. ‘I should never have gone away,’ she said with a shake of her head. ‘All I’ve been doing is thinking of myself.’

  Grace would always remember the ride home. After initial conversation about her stay with her aunt, and how her aunt was, and what the two had done, her father lapsed into silence, and Grace surmised, correctly, that he was not in the mood to talk. And as they progressed, her concern for him began to change to feelings of alarm. It was quite clear that he was in great discomfort from his injured thumb, made even clearer when the carriage rode over a deep, jarring rut in the road and he winced and gave a little gasp.

  ‘Pappy,’ she said, ‘we’ve got to get you home and look at that hand. You shouldn’t have come out. You should be at home, resting, waiting for the doctor to call.’

  ‘Doctor,’ he said. ‘You know how I feel about doctors.’

  ‘Nevertheless, there are times when they’re needed. And it’s no good complaining about the cost. There are such things as false economy.’

  By the time they reached Bramble House just after 5.30 Samuel Harper was shivering. Grace was regarding him with alarm; she had never seen him in such a state before. And why should he be shivering so, when the day was warm? ‘You go on indoors, Pappy,’ she said to him. ‘I’ll unhitch Robin, and give him his feed. You go on into the house and sit down. I’ll be in in just two or three minutes.’

  He would not have it, though. ‘No, I can manage,’ he said. At that moment Billy came from the house, and Grace, after only the briefest word of greeting to him, said, ‘Billy, come and give Pappy a hand with Robin.’

  Leaving the two to deal with the pony, she went into the house and before doing anything else filled the kettle and put it on to boil. She had just taken off her hat and cape when her father and Billy came into the kitchen. She watched anxiously as her father, giving a slight groan, lowered himself into his chair.

  On questioning her father, Grace learned that the shivering fit had started earlier that day. And also, she discovered from him, three abscesses had formed on his body, one behind his knee, another under his arm, and another, he indicated, on his lower belly.

  Grace gently removed the bandage and looked closely at his thumb. It was huge, swollen to nearly twice its size. The nail, partly lifted away from the flesh beneath, rose up an unnatural bluish-black. The skin surrounding, strangely discoloured, looked distended to the point of bursting.

  Grace turned to her brother. ‘Billy, you must go immediately and fetch Doctor Harrison.’ At once Billy reached for his hat, and she turned and followed him to the door. Outside in the yard she said, lowering her voice to an urgent whisper: ‘Tell him it’s urgent, and tell him what the trouble is – that Father’s got a poisoned hand, and that he’s shivering all the time.’

  ‘What if the doctor’s not there?’ Billy said.

  ‘Well, if he’s not there, then leave a message for him to come as soon as possible. Now be as quick as you can.’

  Without hesitating another moment Billy turned and was hurrying across the yard.

  Grace, her eyes reluctantly leaving their focus on her father, got up and moved to the kettle. She made tea for him and poured him a mug. Then, going upstairs to his bedroom, she brought down a heavy blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. But still he kept shivering.

  ‘Oh, Pappy,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what to do for the best.’

  The minutes slowly passed by, their passage marked by the solemn ticking of the grandfather clock that stood beside the chimney breast. Grace found her eyes returning to it again and again. Billy and the doctor should have been back before this time; Dr Harrison lived not far away, just on the other side of the village. It would only take Billy fifteen minutes at the most to get there.

  And then at last there was the sound of horse’s hoofs and carriage wheels in the yard, and Grace got up from her seat and hurried to the door. She reached it and opened it as Dr Harrison, with Billy following, came across the cobbles towards her.

  The doctor took off his hat as he approached and gave Grace a curt nod of acknowledgement: ‘Miss Harper …’ He was in his forties, a slimly built man of medium height with reddish side whiskers and moustache and thinning hair. Grace greeted him, thanked him for coming, and led the way into the kitchen.

  The doctor went straight to Samuel Harper where he reclined in his chair. The latter made as if to get to his feet, but the other quickly waved a hand, instructing him to remain seated. Drawing up a chair, Harrison opened his black bag, took out a thermometer and put it into the man’s mouth. After taking his temperature he set about taking his blood pressure, holding the man’s right wrist and at the same time turning his gaze to the clock face. As the doctor counted the seconds Grace turned to Billy who stood beside the table, and gently indicated that he should leave the room. Silently the boy crept out of the room and into the hall. A second later Grace heard the creak of the treads as he went upstairs.

  Left alone with his daughter and the doctor, Samuel Harper told of how the splinter had gone in under the thumbnail, and of how an infection had taken hold, and of how, now, several days later, abscesses had begun to develop at various sites on his body. Hearing this last, Dr Harrison frowned and looked grave, and glancing round at Grace murmured, ‘I think it might be better if you leave us for a minute or two.’ At his words Grace rose and, like Billy before her, silently departed.

  She did not go upstairs but remained in the hall, ready in case she should be needed. And, standing there while the sun shone on the climbing rose beside the window, she became aware of the silence of the place. It was a silence that seemed to point up the little sounds coming from the kitchen, the murmur of the voices of her father and the doctor, the brief creaking of her father’s chair, the faint rustle of his clothing.

  And then, after some time, the door opened and the doctor was there. Grace started forward as if to go into the room, but he put up a hand urging her to remain. A moment later he had come through into the little hall and was closing the door behind him.

  He stood looking at her for a moment, eyebrows raised and mouth set in an expression of consternation. Then he gave a little shake of his head and let fall a deep sigh. At once Grace felt her heart begin to thud in her breast.

  Keeping his voice very low, the doctor said, ‘Well, I’m very sorry to have to tell you that the situation is very serious. Very serious indeed.’

  Grace’s hand flew to her mouth while her eyes searched the man’s expression, trying to read there some evidence of hope. But he remained grave, his brow furrowed in perplexity.

  ‘I’m afraid we have a very serious case of pyaemia. Blood poisoning.’ He spoke in a whisper, hurriedly, as if anxious to get the informati
on over. ‘It’s madness, letting a thing like that go on. You get an infection, and it seems like a small, unimportant thing. But in no time at all it can take hold, and once it does, it can be the devil’s own job to banish it.’ He shook his head again. ‘And he’s got those abscesses now – and they’re a very bad sign. He’s got them behind his knee, under his arm, and a very severe one in his groin. They’re an unmistakable sign that the poison is spreading. The abscesses erupt when the arteries get blocked by the poison and the blood can’t get through. So what happens –’ he spread his hands, ‘is that the poison has to find an outlet. Hence the abscesses. Left without treatment they’ll just increase in number.’

  He half-turned towards the door to the kitchen, then, turning back to Grace, went on: ‘Well, he’ll need very careful nursing. You might want to make up a bed for him downstairs – it’ll make it easier to nurse him if you do. But he must keep up his strength with some good, nourishing food. He might not have much of an appetite but that’s by the by. Get him some concentrated soups, and beef tea and milk and so on. Good food in fluid form. He must keep his strength.’ He gestured off, in no particular direction, and added, ‘Your young brother gave me an idea of what was wrong so I’ve brought two or three things with me.’ He turned back to the door, reaching out for the handle. ‘Now, let’s go in and see him. And we’ll start off by doing something about that thumb.’

  In the kitchen again the doctor gave Samuel Harper a little opium to relieve his anticipated pain, and then got Grace to prepare a bowl of water with a quantity of salt. As Grace did this he took from his bag a couple of instruments. After rinsing them in the boiling water that Grace poured from the kettle, he had Samuel Harper sit at the kitchen table near the window with his left hand resting on the table on a folded linen cloth. While Grace nervously looked on, the doctor took a scalpel and, holding Samuel’s thumb steady in his left hand, cut deeply through the nail from the bottom to the top. The injured man gritted his teeth and drew in his breath at the shock and the sharp, stabbing pain. And as he did so the yellow pus rose up and oozed out over the severed halves of the nail and ran down the sides of the grotesquely swollen thumb. After the doctor had squeezed the thumb, releasing a greater quantity of pus, he placed the poisoned hand in the bowl of salt water. Throughout it all Samuel Harper made no complaint.

  The doctor left some forty minutes later, having given his patient a dose of medication in the form of a saline powder. This was necessary, he said, to help relieve the power of the poison at its source. To help diminish the fever, he gave Grace a bottle of quinine, of which she was to give her father small doses at six hourly intervals. The doctor also left dressings for the hand, with instructions to Grace as to how to use them. He would, he said, call again the following day.

  When the doctor had gone and Billy had come back into the room, Grace suggested she and her brother bring out from the workshop where it had been stored for so many years an old truckle bed. They could set it against the wall beneath the window. Her father would have none of it, however, saying that he would prefer his chair in the kitchen by day, and the privacy of his bedroom at night. The only change to be effected was that Billy would no longer be able to share his bed, but would have to sleep downstairs on the settle.

  That night Grace lay in her bed overlooking the small front garden. She had seen her father fed with a good meat broth, then had seen him up to his bed with his medicine taken, his hand dressed, and a little of a sleeping draught to help him to relax and deaden the pain. He had begun to perspire heavily during the later evening, but the doctor had prepared Grace for the eventuality so she was not surprised by it. Back downstairs she had got Billy’s bed made up.

  Now, turning in her bed, she found it almost impossible to relax, though she did know a certain relief in the fact that the doctor had been sent for and that her father was therefore in good hands. Beyond that, however, she could find little cause for comfort. It was a long time before she eventually drifted off into sleep.

  The following morning just after eleven, Dr Harrison returned.

  Grace greeted him hopefully with the news that her father’s shivering had ceased and that he seemed much better. She expected the doctor to look pleased with the information, but he merely gave a nod, as if her words were confirmation of his thoughts.

  ‘That’s the pattern such an illness takes,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to say it, but I think there’s no doubt that the shivering will return in time.’

  Before leaving, he examined Samuel’s thumb again and gave him a little more opium.

  That evening her father’s shivering returned, and this time more violently than before. This was followed once again by a bout of sweating. His fever was running high, and as the hours dragged on he began to take on a sallow look and to appear dull and heavy. Touching his wrist, Grace could feel his pulse fluttering beneath her fingers; his tongue looked brown and dry and his lips parched.

  Through bouts of shivering and sweating Samuel Harper passed through one day to another, now never moving from his bed, and Grace, observing him, began to fear for his life. When Dr Harrison called on one of the later mornings she asked him for his thoughts and his prognosis. He stood before her in the kitchen and after a moment of consideration said:

  ‘Are there other close members of your family?’

  ‘He has a sister – my aunt in Remmer Ridge.’

  ‘Could she get here without too much trouble?’

  The doctor’s words caused Grace’s heart to lurch, for there was no escaping the meaning behind them. ‘Oh,’ she said, and again, ‘Oh.’ And then, miserably, ‘Yes, she can get here in a relatively short time.’

  He reached out and briefly, gently touched a hand to her upper arm. ‘Then if I were you, I would write to her at once.’ He paused and added, ‘At once.’

  The next morning at just after twelve o’clock Aunt Edie, with her little fox terrier Tippy under her arm, was boarding a train for Liddiston. She had been at work in the kitchen earlier that morning when Grace’s letter had been delivered. It had been marked urgent. Once Mrs Edie Winslow had read the letter, however, she quickly organized her departure, and within an hour she had left the house.

  She arrived at Bramble House later that afternoon, travelling by cab from Liddiston station, and was met by Grace as she hurried across the yard.

  Grace was in tears, and seeing the tears, her aunt could see at once that she was too late.

  Chapter Six

  Rain showers fell on several of the days preceding the funeral, but on the day of the burial itself the sun shone brightly again, shining on the bleached stones of the church graveyard and shimmering on the leaves of the rowan tree that stood in their midst. As custom forbade women’s attendance at funerals Grace and her aunt – and Billy with them – remained at Bramble House while the coffin holding Samuel Harper’s body was carried to its last resting place.

  Afterwards the few neighbours and friends who had attended the service and the burial came to the house where Grace and her aunt, helped by Mrs Tanner, served tea, parsnip wine, ale, sandwiches and cakes.

  Once or twice Grace had found herself wondering whether Stephen might appear. After all, he had written a letter of condolence to her on hearing of her father’s death. But no, he had not attended the funeral. Not, Grace told herself, that she had expected him to. Such an appearance could only have made matters worse where he and Grace were concerned.

  The tears of Grace and Billy had dried now. They had wept over the days past, unable to believe that such a catastrophe had taken place; how could it? How could so much have hinged upon one minute incident? – an incident that for all its seeming trivialness had destroyed the rest of their happiness and their peace of mind.

  When the last of the mourners had left the house, the women cleared away the remains of the food and drink and washed the dishes. Afterwards, when Mrs Tanner had left, and Billy had gone upstairs to change back into his everyday clothes, Grace and Aunt Edie sa
t in the parlour with further cups of tea. It had been agreed that her aunt would remain at the house for two more days at which time Grace would drive her to the station.

  Sitting in Samuel’s favourite chair, Aunt Edie, still wearing her little feathered hat perched on her red hair, stirred her tea and took a sip, then, looking down at her little dog, which sat looking up expectantly, she patted her ample lap, and said indulgently, ‘Come on, then, Tippy, there’s a good boy. I can’t bend. Come on up with Mamma.’

  She patted her lap again and the little dog managed, after one unsuccessful attempt, to leap up. Aunt Edie held her cup and saucer up out of the way as he turned in a circle and settled into his familiar, comfortable nest.

  ‘So, Gracie,’ Aunt Edie said, now giving her attention to her niece, ‘what are you going to do now? Have you given any thought to the future?’

  Grace would have been happy to give a satisfactory answer, but she had no such thing to give. She had had several days now to think on her situation, and that of her brother. Her father had left the simplest will leaving whatever he owned to be shared between his surviving children – the share of Billy to come to him at the age of eighteen. But how much there would be, Grace was sure, would only be very little. And certainly not enough to free them from uncertainty and concern.

  ‘I really don’t know, Aunt,’ Grace said.

  ‘You’ll be looking for another position, of course.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I intended to do so before this – and would have if Father had not been taken sick. Then everything happened so fast; there was no time for anything.’

  ‘Well, you’ll need to move fast, won’t you?’

  ‘I shall indeed.’ Grace didn’t need reminding of the precariousness of the situation. ‘But I’m hoping to get a little more time.’