Freddy reached for the instrument, a tongue of gleaming flattened silver, and moving with great precision Abel took it and very gently inserted the fine edge at its tip under the edge of one of the fragments of bone that could be clearly seen to be at the rim of the broken part.
Until now, Amy had not moved at all, or shown any sign of life, apart from her barely moving chest, and Charles looked down at her white face and lax mouth and tried to see the laughing wide-eyed creature who had so beguiled him with her ‘speaking countenance’ and could not, for this countenance spoke of nothing. It was as blank and as empty as the window high in the dressing-room wall against which the black night sky was pressing from outside.
But then, all at once, there was a change. As Abel eased the spatula upwards and forwards, so that the bony splinter was displaced enough for it to be grasped, Freddy leaned forwards and with a delicacy to match Abel’s seized the tip of the bony scrap in a pair of forceps and eased it out; and at once a veritable tide of blood rose in the wound, a deep red swelling that for a moment seemed to mesmerize them all with its gleaming beauty.
And then, she moved. The head that had been so still seemed to jerk slightly, and the right arm twitched and Abel said urgently, ‘Good man — now, a ligature. That is a big vein and if I can but find it, we may — that’s it — the silk — aye — no, I will use an aneurysm needle — the long tortoise-shell-handled one — well done — hold that head tightly in case it moves again —’
Freddy as well as Charles held her head, and Abel took a deep breath, and with one hand mopped away the blood which was now covering the whole exposed area. The heaviness in his chest seemed to be increasing, and he was finding it difficult to breathe as he should. ‘Damned theatres,’ he muttered, so thickly that even Freddy could not hear him properly. ‘Never a breath of air —’ and as he wiped the blood away once more, his eyes narrowed as he peered deep into the wound, searching for the source of the blood.
And then his hands seemed to him to work of their own accord. No longer was he directing operations; it was as though he was there just as an observer, lazily and comfortably watching those long flat-fingered hands moving so surely about their business. They passed the curved end of the aneurysm needle round and down into the wound and bore the thread triumphantly back again, and the other hand delicately took hold of the loose end of thread and seized the first with one curving finger and tied the two together, pushing the knot inwards and downwards with one smooth movement and then cutting the ends of the thread with the scissors those self-assured hands took from the table beside the couch. Then again threading and rethreading the long-handled needle, passing it down and into the dull pink brain beneath that translucent bone, and tying the same elegant little knots. The blood seemed to ooze less and less and finally stopped, and the hands stopped too and waited. And after a moment the girl on the couch moved and the right hand rose with a sort of beckoning movement and the white face seemed to crumple a little and take on a new expression.
‘That has released some of the pressure, sir — oh, well done —’ Freddy said breathlessly and Charles laughed suddenly, a silly little sound born of the tension that filled him.
‘Not yet,’ Abel said, and his voice now seemed to come from a long way away in his own ears and he shook his head irritably to bring himself back to his normal senses. But still everything seemed to be remote and dreamlike, and he stopped trying and let his hands do what they wanted to, and his head think as it wanted to. His concentration seemed to him to be fixed on his own chest, which was feeling heavier than ever, and more starved of air than ever.
‘There is a clot to be removed.’ The remote voice that he knew was his own seemed to clip out the syllables. ‘That will complete the business satisfactorily, I hope — there will be no need for burr holes after all. If I can get it all out — be ready with the chloroform.’
His hands moved again, this time bearing a swab of gauze, and one finger slipped in under the edge of bone, again, moving slowly and delicately, and looped itself and emerged to show, nestling in the white gauze, the rich red fabric of blood which had tied itself together into a clot; and the figure on the couch moved and Abel heard his own voice say, ‘Now. Chloroform now. She is emerging — the pressure is lessened and she will be conscious any moment —’
It seemed to go on and on and on. The gauze mask over the face swallowed up the chloroform and the erratic movements stopped as the breathing sounds that filled the room became loud and regular. Tirelessly the fingers that Abel knew were his but somehow seemed to have a personality of their own worked on, removing piece after piece of the clotted blood. Until at last there was no more, and the bleeding was quite stopped, and all there was to look at was pearly bone under a flap of skin.
‘I think those ligatures will hold — but we must remove a little more bone to ensure her safety.’ He listened to his voice with interest. It sounded very normal, he thought briefly. Yet I feel so very strange — so very strange. ‘She will have a sizeable section of unprotected brain there, but she is young and hardy, and her scalp will heal well. If she learns always to wear her hair thick there, and to make sure she has no further blows, she will survive, I think. And if she bleeds again in the coming days, the skin will take the pressure and show us then the need for any further intervention —’
The voice stopped and as its conversational tones died away the hands began again, smoothing, replacing, sewing, until all was neat again. Until the girl on the couch lay with her eyes closed fully instead of showing a line of exposed white, and her cheeks had a faint flush of life on them. On the back of her head there remained only a neat curving scar covered with a white bandage which itself was almost hidden under the tangle of curls that fell over it.
Abel stood and stared down at her, and his face seemed to Freddy to be as it always was. Until he looked up and stared at him and opened his mouth to speak, and then shook his head. Alarmed, Freddy put out his hand to hold him, unheeding of the smear of blood his movement left on the older man’s coat.
‘Grandpapa, are you well? What ails you? You are very tired —’
Moving heavily, allowing himself to be led to the rickety chair at the other side of the small room, Abel shook his head.
‘Not tired,’ he said, and closed his eyes. ‘Not tired — ill.’
‘Grandpapa!’ Freddy knelt down beside the old man, and reached for his wrist, looking urgently for his pulse. ‘What — oh, my God — Charles!’ And he managed to catch the tall spare figure as it slid sideways into his arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
She was swimming. Deep in the dark water of the pond in the Uncles’ garden, down among the black and green of the weeds with little fishes touching her cheeks and stroking the hair from her forehead. Swimming upwards as the light behind her closed eyelids thinned, became a deep red and then a rich pink until at last she broke the surface and took a deep breath, and moved her body luxuriously among the weeds.
But she was not swimming among weeds. She was lying on a soft bed and a hand was stroking her hair from her forehead, and her limbs felt warm and floppy and deliciously relaxed. She was dreaming, not swimming, and as though to reassure herself that this was so, she made herself say it aloud, ‘Dreaming,’ she murmured. ‘Dreaming. Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.’
‘Amy, dear child, do not agitate yourself. Just be still and all will be well.’ Now her dream had changed and she was ill. She had the measles and was lying hot and miserable in a tangle of blankets, rolling her head from side to side on her pillow until the back of her scalp hurt quite dreadfully and gave her the headache and it was Mamma who was stroking her forehead and telling her to be still.
‘Amy, keep still,’ a voice said firmly, and, surprised, she remained still. That was not Mamma. Not that deep strong voice. That could not be Mamma.
‘Mamma?’ she said experimentally and opened her eyes. But the blaze of light was too much for her and she closed them again. ‘Mamma?’
‘Martha,’ said Amy and again opened her eyes, and looked up. And this time she could see, for the light seemed less bright and she saw above her two faces — but it was at only one of them she looked directly. A square steady sort of face surmounted by short cut curling hair, and she felt her own face relax into a smile.
‘Felix. Oh, Felix. I do have such a headache,’ she said.
‘Not delirious at all, Martha, not at all,’ Felix said. ‘A little confused, no more. She will sleep now and when she wakes all will be well. Sleep, my love, your headache will soon be gone, I promise you. Sleep now —’
And she did, turning her head obediently on her pillow and slipping luxuriously into slumber.
‘Are you sure he left no message, Felix? Quite, quite sure?’
‘Quite sure, my love. I am sorry, and I would have kept it from you if I could, but it was just not possible.’
She closed her eyes and leaned back against her chair, and tried to collect her thoughts. It was now almost three days since she had first woken in Martha’s bedroom in the house in Bedford Row, three days during which she had recovered slowly from the two days of unconsciousness which had preceded them, three days during which she had slept a lot and eaten a little and felt her headache slowly recede until now it was only a faint heaviness above her brows. Three days of Felix coming to sit with her and hold her hand and talk desultorily of their future and how happy they would be. Three days of living only for the moment.
Until this morning when she had begun to remember some of what had happened and begun to ask questions. First, and most important, her injury. How had that happened?
Felix had looked sombre and then said quietly, ‘No one is quite sure. You were waiting in the wings to make your entrance at the end of Act Two and Fenton was with you. He missed his cue, and when Wyndham looked to see where he was, he saw you on the floor with Fenton standing beside you. That is all anyone knows.’
‘Fenton,’ she had said and frowned, trying to disentangle her memories. She could see herself standing there in the wings, wanting to talk to Fenton, feeling the urgency of it; but that was all. At first. But then, as she tried, more and more came back to her, and she saw him come threateningly towards her and saw the gun slipping in his grasp, and frowned again.
‘I think — I cannot be sure, but I think it was a silly accident with that gun — it is all so hazy. I tried to say something and he came towards me and he had the gun — the one he danced with — and it slipped and seemed — I cannot remember. Let us ask him, Felix. He will explain all, I am sure. Let him come to me, will you? I know he hates sickbeds and sick people especially since he broke his leg and was in the hospital but if you tell him I am almost well now, he will come to see me, I know he will. And then he will explain all.’
There had been a pause and then Felix had taken her hand in his and held it warmly and tightly. ‘I am afraid I cannot do that, Amy, my love,’ he said carefully, ‘for he has gone away.’
Her head had whipped round at that, making her wound hurt so that she winced. ‘Gone away? Where? When? How do you mean? When will he return?’
Felix had shaken his head. ‘I mean really gone away, my love. That night — while Abel Lackland operated on you, he went away —’
‘Abel Lackland?’ she said wonderingly. ‘I do not understand. He did an operation upon me?’
‘It was he who saved your life, Amy. There was bleeding in your brain, and he stopped it. He — he is a very remarkable surgeon.’
‘Will he come to see me so that I may thank him? I surely should do that —’
Felix bit his lip and then shook his head. ‘Later perhaps. There is much I have to tell you regarding him, but later. Let me tell you now about Fenton. He was left in a dressing-room with two actors to watch him, and —’
Again she had turned her head to stare at him. ‘To watch him? But why?’
‘Because it was believed by the people at the theatre that he had — well, that he was a problem. He was behaving very strangely and could not be trusted not to interfere with the care that was being taken of you. He tried to prevent your operation — and without it, my dear one, you would have died. So, with my — aid — he was put to wait in a dressing-room until you were taken care of. But —’ he shrugged. ‘It had been a long and exhausting time for the actors, I suppose. Anyway, they fell asleep, and Fenton walked out of the theatre, and went back to Long Acre —’
Her face cleared. ‘Oh, well then, Mrs Miller will know where he is and all about what is happening, for she took great care of us, especially of him and —’
‘No, Amy. She cannot help.’ He looked down at her hand held so closely in his, and with his other forefinger traced the shape of her thumb. ‘I am sorry, Amy, but you must know the truth about this brother of yours. He is a very — he is not a good person. He packed all his clothes, and he took all the money from Mrs Miller’s cash box in her little shop, and also some of her better trinkets. She had been awakened by the sound of his arrival there very early in the morning, she told me, but went back to sleep, and when she rose in the morning she found what had happened. She was — very distressed.’
Amy’s eyes had filled with tears. ‘Oh, no! Not Mrs Miller! She is so kind, and so — she truly loves Fenton, I think. He could not have taken from her!’
‘I am afraid he did.’
‘And he left no message for me? No letter or —’
‘No message at all.’
She had sat there with her head resting against the soft pillow at the back of her chair, trying to understand, trying to see Fenton rifling the cash box among Mrs Miller’s pots of paints and sacks of colours, trying to see him slipping out of the house in Long Acre with his valise in his hand, out into the dawn light without looking back, and all too easily the vision was there. And the tears spilled over onto her cheeks and she let Felix wipe them away tenderly.
Her weeping ceased after a while and she said weakly, ‘I am sure he will come back.’
There was a silence and then Felix said a little harshly, ‘The best way to get him back is for us to lay a complaint against him. Then the police will seek him and —’
‘A complaint? Because of Mrs Miller? Oh, Felix, please do not! Tell Mrs Miller I will give her back all her money, but do not treat Fenton like a common thief!’
‘But that is what he is, Amy. You cannot pretend otherwise. But no — not because of Mrs Miller. Anyway, I have already dealt with that matter. She is not out of pocket, I do promise you. It is because of you that I think we should lay a complaint —’
‘Because of me?’ She opened her eyes wide. ‘How can you mean?’
‘If he was the direct cause of your injury, Amy,’ Felix said carefully, ‘then it is surely —’
‘But how can the police be interested in that?’ She was genuinely mystified. ‘I cannot remember, exactly, I know, but whatever happened it was a silly accident and how can the police care about that?’
‘If it was an accident.’
‘But what else could it have been? You are being very strange, Felix!’
‘I think not, Amy. It was well known about the theatre that he and you were — angry with each other. That there was some issue between you. I must tell you that Charles Wyndham believes that Fenton deliberately attacked you, and so do others who saw you there. And the fact that he has run away in this fashion confirms such suspicions, you must agree. It was feared that night that you would die. And I am afraid that Fenton, knowing himself to be the cause of your condition, did not wait to find out. He left you to save his own skin. That, I think, is the truth of the matter.’
Her face had become very white and she sat and stared at him with her eyes so fixed that he put out a hand to touch her cheek an
d said sharply, ‘Amy? Amy —’
Slowly she shook her head. ‘No. It is an infamous suggestion! Fenton, to deliberately — oh, it is impossible that anyone should think so! He is my brother!. He loves me! He may be wild sometimes and selfish and so forth, but to do such a thing as to — oh, it is cruel in you to think it!’ And again the ready tears of the convalescent filled her eyes.
He took her face between his hands and kissed her very gently. ‘No more distress, Amy. I did not for a moment think you would agree with me — and do not really care that you do not. Whatever happened, I am not a vengeful man and care only that you are alive and well. It could have been — oh, it does not bear thinking of. I could have lost you, but I did not, and now I do not care a whit about Fenton. Only inasmuch as you do. You will be sad for a little while, dear one, but I hope you will forget him and not fret for him. For love him though I know you do, I have to say he is a ne’er-do-well, and is best as far away from us as possible. I will help you remember only the good things about him, and forget the rest. We will speak of him no more — no more at all! And we shall be happy, and think only of the future and not of the past.’
There was a long silence as she sat there and tried to take it all in, tried to imagine life without Fenton being there to worry about and look after and sometimes be happy with. But she could not, and shook her head a little in weariness and Felix kissed her again and repeated softly, ‘We shall think only of the future and not of the past.’
And she nodded and tried not to think of Fenton. But it was not easy. It was not easy at all.
It was the next day before she could arouse herself from her preoccupation with Fenton and consider other matters, but by mid-morning she was feeling much stronger. She had woken to find Martha as usual at her bedside, ready to wash her and dress her wound and brush her hair and give her some breakfast, and she had enjoyed her ministrations and eaten a better breakfast than she had since she had been ill. And afterwards, when Martha came back to make sure she was comfortable she watched her moving quietly about the big bedroom with its rich mahogany furniture and rose-patterned wallpaper, tidying the marble-topped wash stand and rearranging the bowl of roses which were set upon a tallboy in the corner, and felt relaxed and comfortable and aware that she was mending fast. And smiled at Martha and said warmly, ‘I do want to thank you, Aunt Martha. May I call you that? I feel that it is — well, right! We are to be related after all, are we not, and —’
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