Two for Three Farthings

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘I’ll put a glove on,’ said Jim, ‘and if you’ll give me your coal shovel and the bucket, I’ll see to it. If anyone’s to go to bed, it’s you. Off you go.’

  Miss Pilgrim, of course, was quite against taking orders from her lodger, and in the end they cleared up the mess together, Jim wearing a protecting glove. Before he went up, he elicited from Miss Pilgrim a promise to speak to the vicar about Mrs Lockheart. She refused to go to the police, but she agreed to ask the vicar for his help. Someone must contact the Asylums Board. The vicar had the right kind of authority to do that.

  The next evening, Jim cleaned up the door, rubbed it down and repainted it. Orrice and Effel wanted to know what had happened, and why there was a new doormat, and Jim got away with a reference to an accident involving paraffin.

  In her compulsive growing attachment to the children and their welfare, Miss Pilgrim kept a watchful eye on them during the rest of their holidays. The summer went, brief autumn followed, and winter arrived, with its damp and its fogs. The country, struggling to recover from the war, braced itself to fight the hardships of winter. Alice went to and from school wrapped in a warm cosy coat and a woollen hat, and Jim bought warm coats for Orrice and Effel. Alice could not be detached from her growing friendship with Orrice, and Orrice found he could not be detached from his protective role as Effel’s brother or Alice’s sweetheart. Mr Hill kept an encouraging eye on Orrice’s abilities, and Miss Forster did her best with the awkwardness of Effel.

  Jim took Molly out on occasions, but did little or nothing, relatively, to advance his cause with her. He knew himself incapable of asking her to take on Orrice and Effel as well as his illegitimacy. Her father, George Keating, was a man of the old school, despite his general geniality.

  He arrived home one evening in early December suffering a headache and little bouts of feverishness. He had a bad night, and when he crawled out of bed the next morning he was a sick man.

  Miss Pilgrim, in her kitchen and at her breakfast, looked up as knuckles rapped on her door.

  ‘Come in,’ she said. She might have sighed at this continuing invasion of her privacy, but her voice was quite welcoming.

  Orrice showed his face, a worried face.

  ‘Please, Miss Pilgrim, could you come?’ His diction showed definite improvement. ‘Could you, please? It’s Uncle Jim, me and Effel don’t think he’s very well.’

  ‘Well, we can’t have that, Horace, can we? Is he in bed?’

  ‘No, Miss Pilgrim, ’e’s on the floor, ’e just sort of folded up. Could you come and look at him?’

  Miss Pilgrim did not reply. She came swiftly to her feet, picked up her skirts and ran up the stairs. Orrice, following on, saw yards of white lace. Jim was lying beside his bed in his pyjamas. His body was racked with shivering, his eyes closed, his breathing erratic.

  Miss Pilgrim pulled the bedclothes far down. Effel stood silently watching, upset and helpless.

  ‘Horace, will you help me, will you take hold of his legs while I lift his shoulders? We must get him into the bed.’ Miss Pilgrim spoke urgently. Orrice stooped and took a firm hold of his guardian’s legs. Miss Pilgrim, bending, put her hands under his shoulders, to his armpits. ‘Ready, Horace? Now lift at one go.’

  They lifted him and placed him on the uncovered sheet. Quickly, Miss Pilgrim drew the bedclothes up over him and tucked them in on her side. Orrice tucked them in on the other side.

  ‘Please, ain’t he very well?’ asked Effel.

  ‘No, Ethel, I’m afraid he isn’t,’ said Miss Pilgrim. She felt Jim’s forehead, and was appalled. He was on fire. ‘Horace, who is his doctor?’

  ‘Doctor? He’s not been to no doctor since ’e found me and Effel, Miss Pilgrim.’

  ‘Then will you run and get Dr McManus in the Walworth Road?’

  ‘Oh, I know ’im, Miss Pilgrim, I’ll run all the way.’

  ‘Yes. Don’t worry about school for the moment. Tell him he must come, tell him the message is from me. Go, Horace, be as quick as you can.’

  The boy rushed away. Out of the house, he ran fast through the cold, wintry morning.

  Effel peeped worriedly at her guardian. Jim was burning but shivering, his mind bursting in his thumping head, his awareness of the presence of Miss Pilgrim a vague, elusive thing of running fire. She hurried downstairs and came up again with two blankets. She laid them over the bedclothes. She felt Jim’s hand. That too was alarmingly hot.

  ‘’E’s only a little bit ill, ain’t ’e?’ asked Effel anxiously.

  ‘We’ll see what the doctor says, child. There, you go off to school. Have you had breakfast?’

  ‘Don’t want none. ’ave I got to go to school?’

  ‘Yes, you must, Ethel,’ said Miss Pilgrim. It was better for the girl to be out of the way. ‘It will please your guardian if you make no fuss, and please me too. Horace will join you when he comes back. Everything will be all right with the doctor here.’

  ‘We can come ’ome dinnertime?’

  ‘Of course, just as you usually do.’

  ‘A’ right,’ said Effel, and went to school reluctantly, thinking about what had happened to her mum and dad when they’d been taken ill.

  Orrice ran all the way back from the surgery. He found Miss Pilgrim seated beside the bed in which his Uncle Jim lay shivering and restless.

  ‘’E’s comin’, Miss Pilgrim, the doctor. I said I come from you, I told him about Uncle Jim being on the floor all shivery, like, I told him we put ’im in the bed. He’s comin’, Miss Pilgrim, only I ran back to tell you, like. Is Uncle Jim a bit better?’

  Miss Pilgrim saw the boy’s worry and concern. Mr Cooper had won himself a place in Horace’s affections. She silently prayed for both of them, and for Ethel.

  ‘That’s splendid, Horace. I’ll let Dr McManus in. You go off to school. Ethel went a little while ago.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Pilgrim.’ Orrice hesitated. ‘Can’t I stay? I can make ’ot lemonade, if yer like. I can do things like that.’

  ‘I’ll see to that, Horace. You go to school. I’m sure your guardian will be better when you come home for your dinner.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like—’ Orrice stopped.

  ‘We’ll see, Horace, we’ll see. Thank you for going for the doctor. Run off to school now.’

  Orrice went even more reluctantly than Effel, but he shut from his mind the thought that having lost their parents they might also lose the man who had saved them from an orphanage.

  Dr McManus made no bones about the fact that the patient was already in crisis. Miss Pilgrim put a hand to her throat.

  ‘Crisis?’

  ‘How long has he been sick?’

  ‘I don’t know how long he’s been as bad as this. He was at work yesterday, and made no comment to me on his return in the evening.’ Miss Pilgrim bit her lip. Mr Cooper had made a habit these last two months of putting his head into her kitchen and saying hello to her every evening on his return from work. He had not done so last night. Horace had told her later that his Uncle Jim had a headache and had dosed himself with a Beecham’s powder. ‘But he did tell Horace he had a headache.’

  Dr McManus frowned. Vicious flu was sweeping the country. It had galloped up on this man. It could do that. It could give someone a bad headache and shivering fits one day, and kill him the next. Or take its time to be fatal.

  ‘He’s in extraordinary fever, Miss Pilgrim. Perhaps I should arrange to get him to hospital.’

  ‘No.’ Miss Pilgrim was swift and emphatic. ‘I will nurse him. I have nursed Chinese people in fever, and was doing so when I was sixteen. I will take your instructions, doctor. He’ll only be one more patient among the hundreds already in hospital. Let him stay where he is. That is, if you think I’m competent to do as much for him as a hospital can.’

  ‘You know I think you fully competent,’ said Dr McManus. ‘I’ve brought tablets and medicine. Give him two tablets every—’ He thought. ‘Every two hours, and one tablespoon of the medicine in bet
ween. Keep him fully covered. Don’t worry about food, but you can pour as much liquid into him as he’ll take.’

  ‘Fresh hot lemonade?’

  ‘Excellent. Then keep your fingers crossed, Miss Pilgrim.’

  ‘It’s as bad as that?’

  ‘You’ll know by midnight. I’ll look in again this evening. Oh, take two of the tablets yourself, and give one each to his wards. They’re a preventive as well as a cure, although as a cure they’ve been known to fail. I have to tell you that. He’s your lodger?’

  ‘He is my friend, Dr McManus.’

  ‘He’s a privileged man, then. Oh, one more thing. If you find it difficult to get him to drink the liquids, use a teapot.’

  ‘A teapot?’

  ‘Put the spout into his mouth.’

  ‘That is so practical, doctor.’

  ‘I thought you’d like the idea. Good luck.’

  ‘Thank you for coming so quickly.’

  Orrice and Effel ran home from school at dinnertime. Not to see what Miss Pilgrim was giving them for the meal, but to see how their guardian was. Miss Pilgrim came down to let them in and assured them she was doing everything for him that the doctor had advised. She was sorry not to have prepared a hot meal for them, only sandwiches. They were first to swallow a tablet each, they would find them on the table beside their plates, and drink water to wash them down. Then, when they had eaten their sandwiches, they could come up and see their guardian for a moment.

  She said nothing about how worried she was. Her lodger seemed worse by the hour, his fever racking him, his shivering unabated. He kept coming to and staring at her out of eyes hotly bright with fever.

  She went up to him again, while the children obediently did as she had requested. Effel made no fuss at all about taking the tablet, although she didn’t know what it was for. Orrice, sharp of mind, said it was so they didn’t catch no flu themselves.

  They went up when they’d finished their sandwiches. Miss Pilgrim was sitting beside the bed, a sponge in her hand, a bowl of cold water resting in her lap. They watched as she applied the sponge to their guardian’s forehead. They couldn’t think why she was doing that when they could see he was shivering. But his face did look very hot and flushed. He opened his eyes.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he asked, his voice dry and husky.

  ‘It’s us, Uncle Jim,’ said Orrice, ‘it’s Effel and me.’

  ‘I’m wiv Orrice,’ whispered Effel uncomfortably.

  ‘Orrice and Effel, Orrice and Effel.’ Jim’s voice wandered. ‘Well, I never, Orrice and Effel. Where’s our angel?’

  ‘She’s sittin’ next to you, Uncle.’

  ‘She’s got a sponge,’ said Effel.

  Jim sang croakingly, ‘Angels come to funny places, some of them with dirty faces.’ New shivers beset his aching body. ‘Not Miss Pilgrim, though, not—’ His voice wandered away and his eyes closed. Effel ran out, going into her bedroom. Orrice followed her. Effel was crying.

  ‘Don’t cry, sis.’

  ‘Our dad did that,’ she sobbed, ‘our dad said funny fings when ’e was ill.’

  ‘Our dad won’t let Uncle Jim die, Effel. When you’re in ’eaven, you can do things for people that’s down here.’

  ‘We won’t ’ave no-one again, no-one,’ sobbed Effel.

  They did not want to go back to school for the afternoon classes, but Miss Pilgrim was gently persuasive, and they went in the end. She did what she could for their guardian, she was constantly at his bedside, and she watched him fighting the fever. She gave him the tablets and the medicine at the prescribed times, and she got him to drink the fresh lemonade she made at intervals. He gave no trouble about that. She helped him sit up, she put the glass to his lips and he gulped the warm liquid like a parched man.

  She sponged his fiery brow and she kept his restless body covered up. His skin was dry and burning. She knew he was in crisis, that unless she could help him break the fever he would be gone by morning.

  The thought distracted her. There was a moment when she found it unbearable and fled downstairs to the kitchen, and to the sink, where she laved her face with handfuls of cold water. She paced the kitchen, her petticoat swishing and rustling, her distraught state made worse by a sense of angry helplessness. She might once have said such anger was a sin, for it was an anger at church and God.

  She could not remain long from his bedside. She found herself running up the stairs to resume her watch. And as the time went by she saw him becoming worse. He was in incoherent delirium on occasions. She suffered for him, for what his racked, burning and shivering body was doing to him. But she persevered, she persevered in her watching brief and her ministrations. Sometimes his shivering was distressingly uncontrollable. At other times he tried to throw his coverings off. She kept them tightly around him.

  When Orrice and Effel came home from school, she felt there was a pause in the worsening condition. He did not seem so racked. He was quieter. He was still very hot, but not so restless. She asked the children what they would like to eat. They could have supper, not just tea, she said.

  ‘Please, I don’t want nuffink,’ said Effel.

  ‘I’m not hungry, neither,’ said Orrice.

  ‘I don’t mind a drink of tea and a biscuit,’ said Effel.

  ‘I don’t mind that, neither,’ said Orrice. ‘Miss Pilgrim, would you like a cup of tea? I can make it.’

  ‘Thank you, Horace.’ Miss Pilgrim felt exhausted from her day-long watch. ‘You’ll be careful with the kettle, won’t you?’

  ‘Uncle Jim seems a bit better, don’t yer think?’ said Orrice hopefully. ‘D’you think he might like some tea too?’

  ‘Yes, Horace, we’ll try that, shall we? It can do no harm. It’s more liquid.’

  Orrice gladly got on with making the tea. Effel stayed in her guardian’s bedroom with Miss Pilgrim. The little girl sat on the edge of the bed, looking at his dry hair, his dry, hot face and his closed eyes.

  There was a knock on the front door.

  ‘Will you answer it, Ethel?’ asked Miss Pilgrim.

  Effel went silently down to open the door. Molly Keating smiled at her.

  ‘Hello, Ethel. Is your Uncle Jim in?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Effel.

  ‘Only he hasn’t been at work today, and I wondered what had happened to him.’

  ‘’E ain’t very well,’ said Effel, and Molly saw the child’s unhappy look.

  ‘Is it the wretched flu, Ethel? Shall I come up?’

  Effel led the way up. Moments later, Molly was in shock. Miss Pilgrim kept the children out of the bedroom while she explained the patient’s condition and told her of the doctor’s visit and prescription.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ breathed Molly, ‘all he had yesterday was a headache, he said.’

  ‘He’s now suffering a particularly vicious type of influenza, Miss Keating, it’s put him into a critically feverish condition which I pray will break.’

  ‘It must break,’ said Molly, ‘he’s someone we can’t afford to lose. God, he doesn’t deserve this. Look, you’re exhausted, and it’s showing. Go and rest for a while and I’ll sit with him for a couple of hours.’

  ‘I would rather continue,’ said Miss Pilgrim, ‘I’m really more worried than exhausted, and there’s the tablets and the medicine. I am in the way of administering them. If you’re agreeable, would you care to sit with the children? I think they need a grown-up with them, to keep them occupied. Mr Cooper, I know, would be grateful for that.’

  Molly was unhesitating in her response.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Dr McManus made his promised evening call at a little after eight. Miss Pilgrim’s hope that the fever was abating had long since proved false. The doctor’s examination was brief, and he advised her that the patient’s life was in his own hands.

  ‘It comes down to that in many cases of this kind, Miss Pilgrim. It rests with a patient’s resilience or lack of it, with strength or weakness of will, and even with a subcon
scious desire to live or to give up.’

  She was stiff-faced and tight of lip.

  ‘Mr Cooper has much to live for, Dr McManus,’ she said. ‘As for resilience or strength of will, I could not fault him myself. He’s made light of grievous disadvantages, and although he may not know it, he’s won the lasting affection of two children he saved from the drabness of an orphanage. He’s not a man to give up.’

  ‘Well, that may save him. But continue with the tablets and the liquids. He may be aware that you’re fighting for him too. His temperature is sky-high, his condition acute. I know of no other medicine that will help him, except that which I’ve given you.’

  ‘There is God,’ said Miss Pilgrim, ‘and his own self.’

  ‘I envy you your faith,’ said Dr McManus. ‘I’ll look in again as early as I can tomorrow morning.’

  Miss Pilgrim would not give up her vigil or her ministrations, and Molly would not leave the children, except to dash back to the club and advise her parents she would be at Jim’s lodgings all night. She was back in quick time to persuade the children to go to bed. Orrice lay wrapped in a blanket on the floor beside his sister’s bed. Neither of them could sleep. Molly comforted them as best she could, but it was close to midnight before they at last dozed off. She went then to see Miss Pilgrim and the patient. There was no change for the better. Jim was a sick man with a restless, aching body and a dry, burning skin. Miss Pilgrim begged Molly to go downstairs.

  ‘Use my bed, Miss Keating. I’ll listen for the children, I’m glad they’re asleep at last. You go down. I’ll call you if there’s any real change.’

  ‘But can’t I relieve you?’ asked Molly in distress.

  ‘I’ll see it through until two o’clock, say, and then you can take my place.’ Miss Pilgrim was sure that by two o’clock it would all be over.

  Molly went down to rest on the bed, and Miss Pilgrim kept her watch on Jim. She was tormented by his obvious inability to get relief. His shivering bouts constantly disturbed him, and the weighty warmth of the bedclothes and extra blankets still did not seem enough. He turned, he tossed and he shivered. She stood up. She drew a deep breath. Her whole being was feverish to save him. She slipped off her shoes. The house was in silence. She drew down the bedclothes and pushed herself in beside him. She pulled the sheet and blankets back into place, and she turned to him. He made a subconscious movement, turning to meet the body of a woman. Impropriety did not enter her mind. She put her arms around him. His own arm came around her. She pressed herself close and held him tightly to her. His body shivered, and to the warmth of the bed coverings she added the healthy warmth of her own body. She lay with him, beneath the weighty bedclothes, and she did not let go of his suffering body. His hot face lay on the pillow close to hers.