No Angel

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘I’m – so sorry. Is LM bearing up all right?’

  ‘Wonderfully, of course. She is so brave. But – if that little boy – well, if he doesn’t survive, I don’t know what she will do. He’s all she has in the world. All she cares about. I fear for her, Oliver, I really do.’

  ‘Well we must hope. And pray.’

  ‘There is nothing else that will help him,’ said Celia sombrely, ‘and I don’t set a great store by either of those things, I’m afraid.’

  Oliver sighed. She looked at him.

  ‘You look exhausted, Oliver. You’d better go home. Evidently a whole day is too much for you.’

  ‘It is nothing of the sort,’ he said shortly, ‘and I do assure you there will be no more part-time attendance here by me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘that I’m horrified by what has been going on here in my absence. Horrified. This is the first time I have been able to look at any of it—’

  ‘That’s hardly my fault, Oliver.’

  ‘I realise that. On the other hand, neither is it mine. Nor that I was forced to leave Lyttons in your hands.’

  ‘Lyttons has survived,’ said Celia lightly, hanging on to her temper with a gargantuan effort, ‘in fact it is in tolerable health. The same could not be said of many other houses.’

  ‘Oh really? Macmillan, John Murray, Blackwoods, all seem to be thriving. And having taken rather less unpalatable medicine than you have forced down Lyttons’ throat, if I might pursue your rather apt analogy.’

  ‘Oliver, where exactly is this leading? And is it really so important that I must discuss it with you now, while LM’s son is quite literally on the brink of death?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ he said irritably, turning away, ‘and please don’t imply that I don’t care about Jay.’

  ‘You implied that of me yesterday.’

  ‘I most assuredly did not.’

  ‘Oliver you did. When I started talking about the jacket of Sebastian’s book.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ he said, ‘can we please have at least one discussion that doesn’t lead us to that wretched book.’

  She was silent.

  ‘Look,’ she said finally, struggling to sound level, reasonable, ‘look, Oliver, we’re both exhausted. I can see that there must be things you are not happy with. It was inevitable, I expected it. But wouldn’t it be better to talk about them at home, over dinner? So that I can explain a little, give you the rationale for what I did? I think that’s important.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m dining at the Garrick tonight. With John Murray.’

  ‘Oliver, is that wise? After a long day here. And you know how heavy the food is at the Garrick.’

  ‘Allow me to make decisions about my own life, Celia, would you? As you clearly have been doing about your own.’

  She stared at him, felt a flush rising. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ He said nothing, then walked into his office, pulled a stack of papers towards him. ‘I have a great deal to do. I think it would be better to postpone this conversation for a day or so, when I have a few more facts at my disposal.’

  ‘As you wish,’ she said. She went into her own office and slammed the door. She suddenly felt very sick.

  She went home early, read stories to the twins, put them to bed, sat looking at them tenderly as they lay there drifting into sleep, in exactly the same position, curled up on their left sides, their dark curls fanned out on their pillows, wondering again how she would feel, how she would bear it indeed, if it were they who were close to death; and then she went up to see Barty, reading in her little room, told her with sober truthfulness how Jay was, tried to comfort her as she wept. And then went downstairs and wrote to Giles: Giles whom she had neglected ever since he went to Eton, who wrote so dutifully every week to her. She did not deserve all the good fortune heaped upon her; just as LM did not deserve the bad.

  LM was asleep in a chair in the corner of Jay’s room when the night sister shook her awake. It seemed to her incredible afterwards that she should have been able to sleep so deeply; she supposed she must have been utterly exhausted.

  ‘What is it?’ she said, starting up, staring at her in terror, ‘what, has he – is he—?’

  ‘No, no, but he’s very agitated. He wants something. I don’t know—’

  LM went over to the bed; Jay was tossing about, his fevered eyes staring unseeing in front of him.

  ‘Barty,’ he kept saying, ‘where’s Barty?’

  ‘She’s not here, darling,’ said LM, putting out her hand, stroking his burning head, ‘she’s at home.’

  ‘Want to go home. I want to go home. With Barty.’

  He could manage no more for a while; lay there, staring in that same dreadful way, his breathing tortured, a torture to listen to. Then, ‘Barty,’ he said again, ‘where’s Barty?’

  ‘He’s very distressed,’ said Sister ‘it’s not helping.’

  ‘No,’ said LM, ‘no, I can see that. Barty is – well she’s his cousin. He adores her. Could I – that is, would it be possible to – use a telephone?’

  The night sister was rather different from her daytime counterpart. She looked at LM sternly. ‘It would be absolutely against regulations,’ she said, ‘absolutely. Or for anyone to come here at this time of night, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ said LM humbly. She had hoped she just might – but it was clearly completely out of the question. She began bathing Jay’s forehead and neck again; she could feel his small body sending out waves of heat.

  ‘I think the crisis will come soon,’ said Sister, looking at him intently, ‘very soon.’

  LM had learned what that meant; it was the turning point in pneumonia cases, when the fever reached its height and, in medical language, broke, began to go down, and the body began to recover. Or – she looked at sister and saw that she read her face. Sister patted her hand.

  ‘Now, I have the rest of my round to do. And – Mrs Lytton – the telephone is on my desk.’

  With which she was gone.

  The telephone rang: sharply and endlessly in the darkness. In the heart of the house in Cheyne Walk.

  Brunson who might have heard it, had taken a sleeping powder; in his middle age, insomnia plagued him. There was an extension to the telephone in Celia’s study, a greatly exciting innovation in the house; and her study was on the ground floor immediately underneath her bedroom.

  ‘I shall hear the telephone if you ring,’ she had said to LM, before leaving her that evening, ‘and even if it’s the middle of the night, don’t hesitate, I shall come at once if – if you need me.’

  She did, in any case, always sleep lightly; she had no fears that she would not hear it.

  But technology is no match for man’s – or woman’s – folly; that very afternoon, the housemaid had pulled the extension telephone wire out of its socket by mistake, with her own much-prized piece of modern equipment, the Hoover electric vaccuum cleaner: and thus Celia’s phone did not ring.

  LM went back to the ward; Jay’s breathing was worse. He was coughing helplessly, his little body wracked with spasms, and in between coughs, fighting for breath.

  ‘He’s still calling for his cousin,’ said Sister, ‘and saying something about home. Could you not get through?’

  ‘I couldn’t wake anyone,’ said LM, ‘I’m afraid.’

  ‘Is it a big house?’

  ‘Very big.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  She looked again at Jay. ‘He’s not – good is he?’ she said to Sister. Sister looked back at her. ‘Mrs Lytton,’ she said, and her voice was very sombre, ‘you must never give up hope.’

  LM knew what that meant.

  Barty had actually heard the phone without realising it. She had fallen asleep over her book, Little Women, had been weeping, indeed, almost as much over Beth’s illness as Jay’s, and woke up with a start, a crick in her neck. Something had disturbed her: what was it? She de
cided to go to the lavatory. As she made her way along the nursery landing, she looked at the grandmother clock which stood at the end of it. Half past one: very much the middle of the night. Everyone was fast asleep; Wol had been out for the evening, but he had arrived home at ten, she had heard him. There were no animals in the house, no dog that might have barked, no cats scuttering about, pouncing on mice. Well at least only in the cellar. Perhaps outside: yes, probably that was it. A car going past down the Embankment, a tugboat hooting, but she was used to those sounds, they wouldn’t have woken her.

  She was just walking back to her room when she remembered the telephone: you could just hear it up here, she and the twins often argued about whether it was ringing or not. The twins’ ears were exceptionally sharp; awake they would have heard it, but they were very deep sleepers. Anyway, she had heard something. And it was most likely to be the phone.

  Terrified of the news it might have brought, she raced down the stairs and across the hall, stood looking at where it stood, on a small table by the door, feeling rather silly. It was very silent now. It was hardly going to tell her anything. Then she remembered the operator. There was bound to be someone on duty, even at night. Otherwise the phone couldn’t have rung. She unhooked the receiver from its upright base and started pressing the cradle up and down, to attract the attention of the exchange. After a minute or so, a bored female voice said, ‘Number please.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Barty, ‘oh, this is Sloane 589. And I—’

  ‘What number do you wish to call?’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Barty, ‘I want to know if anyone has called this number. In the last few minutes. Is it possible to tell me that?’

  ‘Are you a child?’ said the voice suspiciously. Barty knew what that meant: lack of co-operation, at very best.

  She took a deep breath, lowered her voice as she had learned to do in Miss Wolff ’s elocution lessons.

  ‘Certainly not,’ she said, ‘this is Lady Celia Lytton calling. I would appreciate your co-operation.’

  She couldn’t believe it would work: but, ‘One moment please’ said the voice, slightly less bored, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  She heard it saying, ‘Anyone put a call through to Sloane 589 in the past few minutes?’ And then a long silence. She was just giving up in despair, when the voice came back to her.

  ‘Yes. One of my colleagues put a call through. I can’t say who it was from, though.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Barty forgetting her Lady Celia voice, ‘thank you anyway.’ So it had rung; it must have been from LM at the hospital.

  She looked up the stairs, and squared her shoulders: it took courage, for some reason, to go into Celia’s bedroom in the middle of the night and shake her awake. It was forbidden territory, none of the children was ever allowed in: once the door was shut. Not even to knock at the door. She supposed Celia and Wol must want to be alone sometimes. Nevertheless—

  As she opened the door, having knocked very gently and got no response, and walked across to the bed, the first thing she noticed was that Wol wasn’t there. Aunt Celia was alone in the great bed. Maybe he was still out after all. Or else in the little room where he kept his clothes. There was a bed in there. There was the usual huge pile of books beside the bed. Including some that weren’t even printed properly yet, just heaps of paper, proofs they were called. The one on the top of the pile was the wonderful Meridian book that Aunt Celia had allowed her to read a couple of chapters of. It had been so exciting and so special—

  Stop it Barty, stop wasting time. She put out a thin arm, and rather nervously began to shake Celia’s shoulder.

  Jay had become very still. Stopped calling for Barty, stopped coughing; the only sound in his tiny room was his laboured breathing. LM had no idea what his temperature was now, but the last time Sister had taken it she had folded her lips together and put her thermometer back into its container at the end of the bed, before giving LM a quick, rather strained smile.

  ‘I have to get back to my office,’ she said, ‘I’ll be there if you need me.’

  She patted LM on the shoulder, hurried out of the room. LM buried her head in her arms on Jay’s small high bed, and began to weep.

  ‘Quite right,’ said Celia to Barty, coming back into her room. ‘Clever girl, you are. Run upstairs and get dressed. Quickly. I spoke to the night sister, she said Jay had been asking for you. I’ll see you down here in two minutes.’

  ‘One,’ said Barty, and she was back inside that time, wearing her school jumper and skirt and black stockings and boots. ‘Let’s take Meridian,’ she said, ‘I can read it to him. He’d like it.’

  ‘Oh, my darling, I don’t think—’ Celia hesitated. Then she said, ‘Yes, all right. Come along. Quickly now.’

  Her car, one of the new small Ford Model Ts, was outside the house, standing next to Oliver’s Bentley. Its press-button starter failed to turn the engine over.

  ‘Damn,’ she said, ‘damn, damn, damn. Of all the times.’

  ‘I’ll do it with the handle,’ said Barty. ‘I know how, Daniels has shown me. You stay in the car, be ready to press the accelerator.’

  ‘Barty!’ said Celia. ‘Is there anything you don’t know?’

  Barty smiled at her, and clambered out of the car. Three cranks of the starting handle worked; she smiled at Celia over the bonnet, gave her the thumbs-up sign.

  They roared off, Henry Ford’s rather noisy little engine breaking the silence. Other people in Cheyne Walk stirred, frowned into the darkness, muttered about the deterioration of the neighbourhood.

  ‘Be quick now,’ said Sister, ‘and very quiet.’ She had met them at the night door of the hospital. ‘I could lose my job if this were to become known. You must be Barty. What a grown-up girl you are. I thought you would be much smaller, more like little Jay.’

  ‘How – how is he?’ asked Celia.

  Sister looked at her. Imperceptibly, she shook her head. Then, ‘He’s holding on,’ she said briefly. ‘This way now. Up these steps. Now wait here one moment – just while I see—’

  See if he’s still alive, Celia thought, see if it’s all right for us, specially for Barty, to go in. She closed her eyes, and prayed with a fervour which surprised her, to a God she did not believe in.

  Jay was lying utterly still now. His breathing was no longer painful, it was too light and shallow for that. He had stopped calling for Barty, for his mother, stopped asking to go home. He seemed to have moved into another place altogether, LM thought, looking at him in despair; not death, not quite yet, but not life either.

  She took the small hand; it was burning hot. She raised it to her lips and kissed it on the back and in the palm, and then laid it gently down again.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jay,’ she whispered, ‘So sorry.’

  The door opened: Sister came in. She looked intently at Jay’s inert form, picked up his small wrist, checked the pulse; then put a finger to her lips.

  ‘Someone to see you,’ she said very quietly.

  The doctor, LM thought; come for a final, useless check on Jay. Before he died. It had frightened her how little they had been able to do. She looked at him; he was quite peaceful now. She wasn’t sure she wanted him disturbed again, have the stethoscope applied to his painful chest, his mouth forced open to clear the sputum, the oxygen mask pushed on to his little face.

  ‘I don’t think—’ she began.

  ‘But you must be quiet. Absolutely quiet.’

  Perhaps it was going to be painful. Unpleasant for Jay. Perhaps she was going to have to watch while he was tortured quite senselessly.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘no really. I don’t want any more—’

  Sister turned round, beckoned, then stood back; a small shadow slipped past her, stood by the side of the bed, looked down at Jay for a moment, and then spoke.

  ‘Hallo Jay,’ it said, very softly, right into his ear, ‘it’s Barty. I’ve come to read you a story.’

  Later it passed into the folkore o
f Meridian that it had saved the life of a small boy; as he lay most dangerously ill, with a fever of a hundred and five and pneumonia choking both his small lungs. The nursing staff and the doctor in charge of his case said (as of course they would) that he reached the crisis of his illness at the same time, and would have recovered anyway. But LM and Celia only knew that as Barty’s soft rather husky voice read on and on through the long night, read the wonderful tale of the child-kingdom, with its oceans of clouds and underwater mountains, its flying fish and swimming beasts, its grown-up children and turned-back time, Jay became no longer torpid but calm, no longer burning with fever but drenched with sweat, struggled less to breathe and cried less with pain, and in the morning was to be found sleeping quite peacefully, propped up on his pillows with Barty’s thin arms held gently round him.

  CHAPTER 18

  ‘I simply don’t believe it,’ said Robert, ‘where is all this filth coming from?’

  ‘What filth?’ said Maud. ‘I don’t see any.’ They were eating breakfast on the terrace at Sutton Place; Robert had to work through the weekend, said he couldn’t spare the time to go to Long Island. Maud didn’t actually mind; Jamie was coming to stay, and he’d said he’d take her to the zoo in Central Park. That would be wonderful fun.

  ‘What my darling? Oh – nothing.’

  ‘Daddy! Tell me. It can’t be – nothing.’

  ‘It is. Honestly.’

  He folded the newspaper he had been reading, smiled at her. ‘When are you and Jamie off?’

  ‘Oh – not for a bit. He’s going to be sleeping late, he said. He went to a party last night. Without me,’ she added darkly.

  ‘When you’re grown up, darling, he’ll take you to lots of parties. Anyway, you won’t want to go with him then. With your brother. You’ll have lines of young men waiting to escort you.’

  ‘I’ll always want to go with Jamie,’ said Maud.

  When her father had gone out of the room, she picked up the paper, turned it carefully to the middle where she knew he had been reading, and studied it to see what might have upset him so much. It didn’t take long; she read remarkably fast for someone of seven.