Suddenly she went very red and stared at Martha who was standing now at the foot of the bed, her hands folded against her brown merino gown and her face very composed.
‘I — I think I am being very foolish,’ Amy managed after a moment. ‘I keep forgetting things. Before — before this happened and I was hurt — I thought that all was well about Felix and me and — but it is not, is it? Or did I dream it? I suddenly thought — Felix had gone away from here, to live at the hospital, and you and he — oh, did I dream it? Is it my stupid head that is making me say all the wrong things? I felt so good seeing you there and was so grateful and wanted to say it and now I do not know what I should say —’ and again tears threatened to overtake her.
Martha moved round the bed and came and sat down beside her, and put one hand out to rest it on Amy’s.
‘No, my dear, you are not mistaken. Before you were ill, Felix and I were in disagreement. It was my fault. Entirely my fault. And I much regret it.’
‘Is it no longer so now?’ Amy said timidly. ‘I cannot quite remember why — what the trouble was. It seems as though things before I was ill are floating in my mind and when I try to hold on to them I lose them or they melt away. It is very strange. But if the trouble is gone, I am glad —’
‘It is gone,’ Martha said soberly. ‘As far as Felix and you and I are concerned, that is. I know now that the matter of this case at Doctors’ Commons was not your doing. It was entirely your brother’s —’
‘My brother —’ Amy said and her face crumpled.
‘No, please, do not distress yourself. It is sad enough that there have been these past troubles. Let us now forget as much as we can of them —’
‘Doctors’ Commons,’ Amy said after a moment, and her eyes glazed as she tried to remember. ‘Doctors’ Commons. I cannot —’
And then she remembered. In one great rush she remembered it all. The case that Fenton was bringing, the split in the family, the argument that Martha and Felix had had about her, all of it came back in a great sickening flood of knowledge and she turned her head towards Martha and said impulsively, ‘Oh, I am so sorry — so dreadfully, dreadfully sorry! If I had ever dreamed Fenton would cause such — well, I would not have started the searches at all. But I did so want to know about who I was, and where I started from, and to know about my grandmother was so very important to me! And that it should have caused all this misery — oh, it is all so dreadful!’
‘Not so dreadful,’ Martha said soothingly. ‘Not entirely! It is sad of course that you are ill, but you are mending well, and that is what matters. And Felix and I have made our peace, I am happy to say, and will never again quarrel so bitterly, I am sure.’
She bent then and kissed Amy’s forehead. ‘And we shall be friends. I must tell you, my dear, that my besetting weakness is jealousy, and when I saw how dearly Felix loves you, I think I was overtaken for a while with it, for I care so deeply for him. He is very precious to me. For his father’s sake as well as his own.’
‘His father’s sake?’ Amy said and blinked. Her memory was hazing again. She knew she had heard something of Felix’s father, but she could not remember what. Something to do with the war in the Crimea. She shook her head. ‘I cannot remember.’
‘I will tell you all about it. One day. When you are well.’ Martha smiled a little crookedly. ‘After all, when you and Felix have children he will be their grandfather, will he not? It will be important to you to know of your children’s grandfather, just as it was important for you to know all about your own —’
Amy blushed rosily and smiled, and Martha smiled too and they sat in a companionable silence for a long moment. Then Amy stirred and said doubtfully, ‘That silly Will business — the case. Now that Fenton has gone away, will all that end?’
Martha’s face clouded. ‘I cannot say, my dear. I wish I knew. Felix has today gone to see what can be done — but I fear that the wheels of these things, once set in motion, are like the juggernaut and cannot be stopped.’
‘Oh, I hope it can,’ Amy said fervently. ‘It would be so dreadful if all this were to go on upsetting everybody — so dreadful.’ She paused and then went on tentatively, ‘I wonder — Aunt Martha, now that Fenton has gone and I do not wish this hateful case to continue, cannot the matter be settled by your father? It is he who encouraged Fenton, I fear, by refusing to defend the case. It — I think it made him believe there was some justice on his side. Cannot you ask your Papa to settle the matter with his lawyers? I am sure he can, if he so wishes, and if you ask him —’
There was a long silence as Martha sat with her head bent and Amy bore it as long as she could and then said more firmly, ‘Aunt Martha? Did you hear what I said? Could you not ask —’
‘I heard you. I was wondering whether to tell you. But I think — well, you are almost one of the family now, and have a right to know. He is ill, Amy. My father is very ill and we are not sure if he will live. I go there to be with him every afternoon, and Abby and Phoebe are there every morning — but he does not seem to know us. It is all very —’
Amy was sitting bolt upright in bed. ‘Ill?’ she said and her voice showed her amazement. ‘But how can that be? Felix said that it was he who saved my life. He operated upon my head —’ and gingerly she raised her hand and touched the bandage that covered the scar ‘— and stopped the bleeding that would have ended my life. How can he be ill?’
‘He collapsed after he had completed your care, Amy. Freddy was there, fortunately, and he took him at once to Nellie’s, but —’ She shrugged. ‘They do all they can. He is suffering they say from angina pectoris and fear that another such attack as he had the night of your injury might be the last. It — I believe there must be more than that however, for he behaves differently to the people I have known with that affliction.’ His eyes shadowed suddenly. ‘Felix’s father died of that. And my father seems to be so different. But there is no physician we can find who can help. They have all come to his bedside, for he is a much respected man, my father.’
She lifted her head with a sudden childlike gesture of pride. ‘He started as a gutter boy, and now every great physician in London comes hurrying to care for him. He is a very remarkable man — Amy, what are you doing?’
‘I am getting up.’ Amy had turned and was sitting now with her feet out of the covers and edging her way to the far side of the bed, and Martha jumped to her feet and ran round to the other side to stop her.
‘Are you quite demented, you foolish child? You must stay there for at least another week! You may sit in a chair in the afternoons, but you may not go walking about until —’
‘Aunt Martha!’ Amy sat with her hands clenched into fists which were thrust deep into the mattress to support her, and she was holding herself very straight. In her white lace-trimmed nightgown and with her crumpled hair she looked about five years old. ‘I am going to see him. I cannot sit here being looked after by you when he who saved me lies on a sick-bed himself!’
‘Well, now, my dear, that sounds very interesting and indeed dramatic,’ Martha said mildly. ‘But it is not very commonsensical, is it? You will find if you set your foot to the ground that you are unable to support your own weight. So what use will you be if you do get up? None at all.’
Amy reddened. ‘I know I am sometimes dramatic, Aunt Martha,’ she said with great dignity. ‘But you will find that I mean what I say, however contrived it may appear to your eyes on occasion. I am quite serious now and I would wish you to believe that I am. I know that I am weak, but I am not so very large, after all. Is there not a footman who could carry me to a carriage once I am dressed? And carry me to your father’s bedside when we arrive there? It is my request that such arrangements be mad.’
Martha shook her head and opened her mouth to speak but Amy stopped her.
‘Aunt Martha,’ she said quietly. ‘You said he is not expected to live. I would wish to say farewell to him, as well as to thank him. You cannot deprive either him or me of that.
Can you?’
Martha looked at her for a long moment and then, slowly, turned and moved to the fireplace and lifted her hand to ring the bell.
‘I will send for Edward to come and carry you down,’ she said quietly. ‘In half an hour, then? We should be able to have you ready by then.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The night-time sounds of the hospital seemed to wrap them round, acting as a distant barrier beyond the circle of light in which his bed lay. Amy could hear the clatter of dishes from a kitchen not too far away, and a rattle of wheels as someone pushed a trolley along the stone-floored corridors. There was a sound of voices, too, subdued but busy, and she turned her head to see if she could see any of the other men in the ward, but she could not. There were screens drawn up to each side of his bed, and the light that came from the gas bracket above deepened the shadows beyond. But she could feel their presence even if she could not see them, those other men. They were anxious and concerned and talked softly to each other of their worry about their fellow-patient and in so doing shared it with her.
At first she had been horrified to discover that the old man was lying in a bed in the middle of a ward full of other patients, and had said as much to Martha who walked beside the tall footman who was carrying her, but Martha had merely smiled gently.
‘He made Nellie’s, my dear. He is Nellie’s. When he became ill it was to Freddy’s mind the only place to bring him. My father would himself wish it so.’ She smiled then. ‘I can imagine his rage if anyone ever dreamed that he should be anywhere but in one of his own wards. To be among the patients he cared for — that would be all he would ever require.’
They had sat there, between Maria and Abby, all afternoon. Others had come and gone, Oliver and Phoebe and young Cecily and then Freddy, and after they had gone Isabel and Sarah had come with Gideon. Amy had looked hard at Isabel, trying to see beyond the marble smoothness of her face to what deeper store of feeling might be there, to see if she showed any regrets about Fenton, for it was clear to Amy now that the whole family knew of his defection. But Isabel just looked back at her gravely and showed no hint of any expression other than natural concern for her grandfather, and made no special move towards her, and Amy sighed, and looked away. Poor Fenton, she thought confusedly. Poor darling Fenton, to have chosen so chill a creature. Perhaps all of it is in part her fault — poor Fenton.
At six in the afternoon, as the sunlight lengthened across the ward floor and the men sat up in their beds wrapped in red blankets to drink their hot soup and eat their supper bread, Abel seemed to rouse himself for a little while.
He had been lying still and remote, little more than a vague hump amid the bedclothes, his chin and nose jutting up to the ceiling and his eyes beneath his heavy white brows tight closed. But at six o’clock his eyes opened and his head turned as though he were seeking someone, and Abby rose to her feet and came to one side of him, and Martha to the other while Maria remained in her chair beside his pillow, never taking her eyes from his face. Amy sat and looked at them all, feeling suddenly very much an interloper and wishing she had not come. She was tired now and the back of her head was aching; but then Abel spoke and she forgot her own feelings as she leaned forwards to listen to him.
‘Where is she?’ he whispered. ‘Where has she gone?’ and he looked up at Abby with an appeal in his eyes which seemed so foreign to the man that Amy suddenly felt her eyes prickle. It was as though a child inhabited the spare body of the dying man, an eager hungry child searching for someone or something very important.
‘Who, Papa?’ Abby said quietly. ‘Who is it you want to see? We are here, Martha and I. And Maria, of course. Who is it you want to talk to?’
He turned his head on his pillow and now Amy could see how changed a man he was from the one she had seen in all his imperious command in the casualty room that long ago day of Fenton’s injury, and in his own home just a few short weeks ago. His temples had become sunken now, and his nose looked as sharp as if it had been cut out with a razor. The crevasses in his cheeks which had seemed so hard looked soft and papery, mere hollows between the high cheekbones, and that jutting narrow nose. He had lost so much of his essential energy that now the true state of the man beneath could be seen, and it was painfully, heartbreakingly clear. He was old and very very tired.
‘I wish she would not hide away so,’ he said fretfully and stared at Maria as though he had never seen her before, and she sat there and looked at him with her eyes opaque and her face a mask of misery and said nothing. ‘Tell her she should come back to me,’ he said and then closed his eyes and Martha leaned forwards and with her handkerchief wiped his forehead, which had become damp with sweat.
He opened his eyes again and reared up a little, and moving with all the smoothness of the experienced nurse Martha again leaned forwards and slipped a hand beneath his head and with a lift of her chin indicated to Abby that together they should pull up his pillows so that he could sit more upright.
They settled him back again, gently, and now he could see more clearly and his eyes seemed to fix on Amy, still sitting quietly at the foot of his bed, in an armchair specially brought for her from Freddy’s office.
‘Why did you not tell me you were there?’ he said fretfully after staring at her for a long moment, and closed his eyes. ‘I knew you would come. But you should have said you were there.’
Martha and Abby turned to look at her at the same time, and suddenly Amy wanted to laugh, for they looked so absurd, so very much alike with their jerky movements and their concerned faces, but even as the bubble of laughter reached her lips it changed itself into a sob and she found her eyes had once more filled with those silly weak tears and she shook her head and put her hands to her face.
Abel was now lying as still and quiet as he had been all afternoon and after a moment Martha came and sat beside her and patted her hand comfortingly.
‘Don’t fret, my dear. He is very ill and his mind is wandering. I daresay he thought you were someone else. It happens often when people are dying. Don’t be alarmed. He means no harm.’
Amy tried to speak but could not, and sat there with her face still in her hands trying to control her tears and after a while she felt Martha move away from her side and wept harder, needing so much to feel the touch of a warm and comforting hand on hers. And then Felix was there. He did not have to touch her nor speak to her; she felt him come round the screen and lifted her tearstained face towards him and managed to smile tremulously.
His brows cracked down into a frown. ‘I did not believe it when they told me at Bedford Row that you were here. How comes this, Martha?’
‘I wish to say my thanks and farewells, Felix,’ Amy said, and looked at Martha for confirmation. ‘That is so, Aunt Martha, is it not? You tried to prevent me, but I wanted to show him that I — that I am not like my brother.’ And she lifted her chin at Felix and looked at him challengingly.
There was a short pause as he looked at her and then at the figure in the bed, and then he came and crouched beside her chair and looked searchingly into her face, until, as if satisfied with what he saw, he nodded and smiled at her and set his hands on each side of her head and kissed her brow, and it was as though the atmosphere lifted for all of them, for Abby and Martha smiled indulgently at them both and Maria too raised her head and smiled gravely. And once more they settled themselves into a watchful group about the bed and silence slid among them again as they sat and waited.
As the evening thickened into night Amy dozed fitfully, her head against Felix’s arm as he sat perched on the side of her chair, waking occasionally as other members of the family came to join them, and then sleeping again.
At midnight Felix insisted that she should go to lie down and sleep properly. ‘For,’ he said, ‘nothing, I think, will happen for some time yet. If there seems any sign of his sinking further, or rallying, I promise you I will call you. But now you must rest. And so must you, Aunt Martha. I shall arrange it.’
And so he did, finding a room with two small beds in it upon which each of them curled up fully dressed and slept as soundly as if they had been in beds as familiar as their own. Until five in the morning, when Amy woke abruptly to find Felix sitting on the side of her bed, his hand on hers.
‘I promised to call you, so I have,’ he said quietly. ‘He is sinking rapidly, my love, but is conscious now, I think, if you wish to speak to him —’
‘I’ll come now,’ she said, and struggled to get to her feet, but he shook his head and with one smooth movement slipped one arm beneath her knees and the other behind her shoulders and lifted her as easily as if she had been an infant, and carried her, following Martha who had woken as he came in, back to the ward.
She was never to forget that jolting little journey. Up a staircase carpeted with calico over drugget, past closed mahogany doors to the main men’s ward, and then down the centre of the long room passing beds in which patients slept, some noisily and some silently, on each side; the smell of his jacket against her cheek, the strength of his arms about her — it was all unreal and yet so vivid that it imprinted itself upon her mind indelibly.
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