I flung on my robe, and it was by instinct, rather than memory, that I found the light switch by the door. That left a dim light to reach to the farther corridor. Beyond was darkness – but once I had groped my way and turned on to the main gallery above the great hall of Thirlbeck, the moon streamed down through the windows, and I didn’t need more light. I listened first at Gerald’s door, and then, without knocking, I went in.
The bedside light was on, and Gerald lay half against the headboard of the bed, as if he had struggled to prop himself up with pillows, and had failed. One pillow lay on the floor. The pallor of his face was shocking; the sound of his heavy breathing reached me across the room. As I went near I saw the beads of perspiration on his forehead.
‘Gerald – what is it?’ I was bending over him feeling inexpertly for his pulse.
He wet his lips before he could speak, but I could see an expression of relief and hope flood his eyes. ‘Pain, Jo. Rather bad, I’m afraid.’
‘Where?’
‘Chest – and down the left arm. Very tight.’
I had by now picked up the pillow and placed it behind his head, and reached for another to pile on top of that. I put both hands under his armpits. ‘If I help, do you think you can push yourself up a bit. I think it’s better to sit up. Helps you to breathe.’ His weight was more than I thought, but I got him almost upright, and wedged the pillows so that he wouldn’t slip, and brought cushions from the sofa so that he could rest his outspread arms on them.
‘I can’t give you anything, Gerald, except a sip of water, perhaps. It might be the wrong thing. You’ll have to have a doctor at once.’ I looked at the clock on the mantel. It was 2.20. ‘I’ll have to go and rouse someone. Stay as quiet as you can. Don’t try to move.’
‘Jo ...?’ The whisper reached me as I was near the door. I turned back. ‘How did you know ...?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. Some ... something wakened me.’ I had almost said ’someone’. ‘Be quiet, please, Gerald. It’s the only way you can help yourself.’
Outside I paused on the gallery, wondering what to do, where to go first. Askew’s room was on the other side of the house, but which was it? And would Askew react as quickly as I needed. Tolson or Jessica would be the best – they would know which doctor to call; but where, beyond that baize door, would I find them? There was a whole wing of the house back there, as there was a whole wing on Askew’s side. Then suddenly I saw in the moonlight a sight which almost froze my blood. On to the gallery across the hall from me, their huge white shapes quite well-defined against the darkness of the panelling, had come the whole pack of wolfhounds. They lined up against the railing, in near silence – but the silence of the house about us was so great that I could actually hear their breathing. They didn’t utter a sound, just stood there, watching, waiting.
For a moment I couldn’t make myself move, and then the urgency of Gerald’s situation reasserted itself. I couldn’t call for help – I had to go for it, and would the dogs let me do that? I could see the row of white bearded faces above the railing, ears high, and the tall thin tails straight and erect, and still. I tried to remember the names Askew had called them. Strange names, from the Viking past, names that belonged to the ancestors of these dogs. ‘Thor – Ulf – Eldir – Oden.’ Strange how loud my whisper sounded in the stillness. I began to move along the gallery, walking slowly, to the head of the stairs. As soon as I moved, the hounds did also. We started down each arm of the stairs at about the same time, but then they all moved quickly, and they were waiting on the landing for me to come down. I felt my mouth go dry with fright as I began a very slow and deliberate descent towards that waiting pack.
And then I was among them. There was no growl from them, no sign of threat. Why were they not barking? If only they had set up their ear-splitting chorus, there would be no need for me to summon anyone – Tolson, Jessica, Askew – all of them would have come. But I was thinking of Gerald also, and realising that if the dogs set up their barking he might interpret it as an attack on me, and the shock might be more than he could bear.
‘Shush ... Thor ... Ulf. Come now ... come now.’
They were all moving with me down the stairs, some ahead, some behind, their big paws and nails making scratching sounds on the wood. We reached the bottom of the stairs, and I made to turn for the baize door. Still there was no sound from them; they seemed neither friendly nor hostile; ears were still up, and no tail wagged. Then I remembered the study, and thought there might be a quicker way to summon help. The telephone by Tolson’s desk had a small push-button system on it – it probably had extensions in Tolson’s part of the house, and perhaps in Askew’s room. I turned slowly, and with the delicate tread of a sleepwalker, I made my way, surrounded by the dogs, towards the study door.
As I touched the knob Tolson’s alarm system was triggered. Alarm bells sounded through the house, and I could hear them ringing in the passages behind the baize door. I stood petrified, the sweat trickling down my arms. Very soon, within a minute or so, the lights began to come on – from the gallery above, and another shaft falling across me from the passage when Tolson swung open the door. But in that time the strangest of all the strange things which had happened since we had entered the environs of Thirlbeck occurred. Instead of adding their chorus of huge deep voices to the strident ringing of the alarm bells, the dogs, as if moved by one reflex, all squatted down around me, those odd whiskery faces almost smiling at me, the dark eyes intent, and the tips of the long tails beating the floor with pleasure. None of the heads turned as Askew appeared on the gallery above me, or as Tolson paused, rooted, in the doorway.
Though they were like some loving circle of protection about me, I thought once more of the great white hound who had been seen by me – and only by me – on the slope of Brantwick, and I was sick with fear and bewilderment.
CHAPTER 4
I
We followed the flashing blue light of the ambulance along the road that led by the South Lodge of Thirlbeck, past the high wall and iron gates, through the narrow pass to Kesmere, I seated beside Askew in his sports Mercedes, my hands tightly clenched, and my teeth clamped together to keep them from chattering with cold and tension. I kept watching the blue light, somehow believing that as long as it kept flashing, Gerald would still live. There were lights on at the South Lodge, and a man stood by the gates to see us pass, giving a slight nod to acknowledge Lord Askew, and then at once he closed the gates. About a mile farther along the valley we had passed another house, a dark shape set back from the road, and on a slope, where more lights burned at a lower window.
‘Nat Birkett’s up,’ Askew said. ‘Either going to bed late or getting up early. I thought all the lambing was finished. It might be a calf though ... it’s always something being born, or dying, with farmers.’
‘With people, too.’
‘Yes,’ he said.
We didn’t speak again until we reached Kesmere Hospital – a modern brick building, sprawling in several directions on one level, a sort of overgrown cottage hospital. We saw Gerald only briefly as he was wheeled to a room, but I was cheered by the smile he managed to give us. He was attended by a man who had shaken Askew’s hand when he had come to Thirlbeck – a man of about Askew’s own age, Dr Murray. ‘Can’t believe he’s still here,’ Askew had said during the drive. ‘I used to play cricket with him. He attended my father before he died – even wrote to me in Spain to warn me of what was coming, but I never got the letter. The war ... And then he came after ... after the accident. Did his best. I was very grateful to him. Came to see me for a drink a few times after I came back in ’45. Both of us rather in the same state – recently demobbed, and both of us inheriting from our father. He got a country practice, and I rather think he got the better deal. At least he was trained for his job. He must have thought I was a bit of a dead loss ... Tolson says he’s a very good doctor. He looks after all the Tolsons – the wives and grandchildren. Knows them all. Hard to fi
nd that sort of thing any more. I’m glad he’s looking after Gerald.’
We sat together in the waiting-room of the hospital, and I broke my rule and smoked one after the other of Askew’s cigarettes. A nurse came in and gave us some tea; she was middle-aged and curious. She stayed to arrange magazines on the table, and offered remarks about the weather, but no answers to the questions I asked about Gerald. I saw how she stared at Askew even when he’d given up listening to her. She would have been old enough to remember the return of the much-decorated Earl after the war, the brief stay at Thirlbeck, the absence that now had become legendary. I had watched her colour when he had spoken to her; in his sixties he was handsome enough to cause a woman to do that.
Then Dr Murray came back. I jumped to my feet. ‘How – ’
He gestured me to sit again. ‘Got a cigarette, Robert? Thanks.’ I could have streamed with impatience as he lighted it. ‘Well, now, things aren’t at all bad. We’ve got a good little cardiac unit here. Quite new. Damn good little hospital, in fact.’
‘Gerald – ’
‘Mr Stanton is all right. You’re not his daughter, are you?’
‘No, he’s a very old friend. We work together.’
‘Well, he’s doing well. It was quite a mild attack – or at least that’s what the cardiogram is saying now. He says he’s pushing seventy. In very good shape for his age. Just have to be a little careful. We’ll keep him here a while – do a work-up on him. Of course he’ll have to rest. That’s imperative. I hope he was here on a holiday, not for work.’
‘A bit of both,’ I said unhappily. ‘We did the drive all in a day. I suppose we should have stopped ... and we did some other work on the way up here. The motorway makes it seem easy ...’
‘Too damn easy. Whether you’re flying or driving, it’s all hard work, and he’s not a young man.’
‘Should he go back to London, Alan?’ Askew asked. ‘Would there be better treatment there? I don’t mean to be offensive, but he’s ... well, a lot of us regard him as a rather important man. And a lot of us’ – now he was looking over at me – ‘love him.’
‘What are you suggesting? That he should be in the clinic? Just fashionable, that’s all. He’ll get everything he needs here, and fresh air as well. Probably better nursing – we’re pretty well staffed here, and we’ve got a couple of good young men just joined the staff. No, leave him here. The journey back to London by ambulance wouldn’t help him one bit – not screaming down that motorway, breathing diesel fumes. I’ll let you know if he needs a specialist from London. I promise you I won’t hesitate about that. But he won’t. When he’s completely fit to travel he can go and get his specialist check-up in London. Until then, he’s better here.’
‘Can I see him?’
He shook his head. ‘He’s dozed off. We’ve sedated him. He has no pain now. Just tired.’
‘I’ll wait then.’
‘I wouldn’t if I were you. It could be hours before he wakes.’
‘I’d like to wait. I want him to know I’m here.’
Murray stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Well, I can’t kick you out. But are you going to keep Robert waiting here with you? We old men, you know, we need what sleep we can get.’
‘No, of course not. There’s just the question of how I get back. Perhaps ... perhaps one of the Tolsons will be coming into Kesmere in the morning ...’
‘It’s morning now, my dear girl.’ Askew got to his feet. ‘Here’s the keys of the car. Come to think of it, I’ve still got the keys of Gerald’s car. You’ll run me back, won’t you. Murray? Not too far out of your way.’ He smiled down at me. ‘Try not to worry, and don’t wait too long. It would be just as well if you came back and rested, and saw him later. All right’ – as he saw me open my mouth to protest – ‘I don’t insist. Just tell Gerald I’ll do everything in my power for him. Thirlbeck is his home for as long as he cares to use it. And I will gladly stay on to keep him company. I hope you will, too. You’re good for him. Oh, here ...’ He put his cigarette case in my hand. ‘You’ll be needing these.’
Through the window I watched them both walk to the doctor’s car. They were deep in conversation. For the first time I was grateful to Askew. He had known that I could not have left without seeing Gerald; the time was still too close to Vanessa’s death. I would wait.
One of the nurses let me sit near to the windowed area of the intensive care unit. From there I could see Gerald’s every movement, the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the occasional movement of his arm and fingers. His very heart beats were being recorded on a monitor. I was watching the second that his eyes flickered open. I went and touched the arm of the nurse on duty, but the monitor had already told her that much. ‘Can I ...?’ I said. ‘Just for a second. I won’t say a word. I just want him to know I’m here.’
She nodded. ‘Be very quiet. There are other patients ... don’t excite him.’
And then I went and did what I should have done before. I went and stood by the bed, and I bent and kissed him. In ordinary circumstances he would have hated it – the fact that he was unshaven, rumpled, showing signs of his agony and fatigue. Now he just smiled faintly. ‘Knew you’d fix it, Jo.’
It was beyond all the canons of my time, my generation, but I no longer wanted to play it cool. I touched his cheek, that unshaven cheek, and pushed back a lank piece of hair from his forehead. ‘I love you, Gerald,’ I whispered.
And then, obeying the beckoning of the nurse, I left.
I went out into the air, to the strange car in the parking lot, to a new key in my pocket, jingling against the gold of the cigarette case. Against all that I had thought about the changeability of the weather here, the morning had dawned as calm and fair as all the radiant night had promised.
II
The gates at the South Lodge were firmly locked, and no one came to open them when I sounded the horn. Smoke rose from the chimney of the lodge, a building very much like the derelict one over beyond Brantwick, except that it was in immaculate condition, and had a fairly recent addition at the back. Here the wrought-iron gates with the crest of the Birketts had been preserved – no doubt by the same Tolson son who was so skilful at making metal shutters. They were formidably high, beautifully worked, and painted a glossy black. The walls on either side ran straight across this narrow end of the valley, and were in good repair. The face that Thirlbeck showed to those who came venturing on this dead-end road was prosperous enough, and hostile. On the wall beside the gates was a starkly painted notice.
THIRLBECK
STRICTLY PRIVATE
BEWARE OF THE DOGS
And beyond, almost lost in the distance and by the budding cover of the trees, was the heraldic frieze topping the great windowed bays of Thirlbeck outlined against the backdrop of Great Birkeld, the plunging beck glistening in the morning sun, the lower slopes a mingled mist of larch and birch. An enticing, beckoning fairytale world to which admission was strictly forbidden. I rattled those closed gates in frustration, and returned to the car to wait until someone should come. Was everyone who used these gates expected to have a key? Or did they know the comings and goings so accurately that they could leave the lodge, and the unexpected arrival might just possess himself of patience until they returned? It was Sunday morning, but in a farmer’s life that made no difference. The chores were there to be done, as always.
The thought of farming brought me back to Nat Birkett. His house was there, visible, on the slope about a mile back; if he had a key to the North Lodge, then he probably had a key to this gate. I turned the car; better to do something than sit and wait for one of the Tolsons to turn up and let me in.
Nat Birkett lived in a rather beautiful house, I thought. It was called Southdales, simply a geographical description of its location. There were two oaks by the gate, a short drive, and a house of the myriad colours of the stone and slate of the Lake Country – blues, purples, dull greens and greys, all laid with the precision and craftsmanship t
hat these men of the stone trade had learned through generations. It was two-storied, quite low, an L-shaped building with dormer windows on the upper floor. Its position on the slope, the slate of walls and roof, made it appear to grow out of the ground. The vines and climbing roses that twisted about its length were just beginning to put out leaf, and they pulled it farther into the earth, and gave it the homeliness of a house that had never aspired to grandeur. I began to understand Nat Birkett a little more – he, in his independence, possessing this and good farming acres as well, what would he want of Thirlbeck?
He had opened the door before I was out of the car. He marched out to meet me. ‘Is there trouble?’ he said. ‘Can I help?’
For the first time since the moment I had discovered Gerald ill I could have wept with relief. For a second it seemed that Nat Birkett would shoulder all my worries, that he offered me a welcome and a concern I had not yet encountered.
‘Yes, there was some trouble. You can help, in a small way, possibly. I’m locked out of Thirlbeck. I wondered if you have a key to this gate, since you have a key to the other one.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Then he looked at me closely. ‘What’s happened? You look awful ... Come in.’
I found myself in a kitchen which felt as if it had been inhabited for a thousand years, and that all the domestic life of the house flowed from this room. There was a beautiful dark oak dresser displaying blue china, red striped curtains at the windows, two rocking chairs before a brick chimney piece that had a bright red Aga cooker set into it. There was an electric stove, and a big refrigerator, and a new sink, and someone had found panels of old oak from which to make cupboards to surround all this. There was a great old table in the middle which was worthy of Thirlbeck itself, and a set of beautiful Windsor chairs. I had rarely been in a room of such charm and warmth. I found myself seated in one of the rocking chairs, edging up to the gentle heat that came from the Aga, nursing a steaming hot mug of coffee into which Nat Birkett had splashed some brandy, and he was rapidly making slices of toast as he listened to me talk.
The Property of a Gentleman: One House. Many secrets. Page 16
