‘Thank goodness for that,’ Diva said. ‘Now you’d better slip away out of town through the back streets, while I go out shopping. Don’t go near the High Street, whatever you do.’
‘So I will go to Canossa, then,’ Mapp said sadly as she put on her hat.
‘No, dear,’ Diva replied, puzzled, as she put on her own. ‘Grebe, surely?’
‘Any news?’ Diva asked anxiously as she encountered the Wyses in the High Street.
‘Nothing definite,’ Susan replied sombrely, ‘but it sounds as if Lucia is very unwell.’
‘Indeed,’ her husband concurred. ‘Mr Pillson sat with her all night apparently. He’s quite exhausted, I fear. The hospital sent him home to rest.’
‘Poor Mr Georgie,’ Diva said wretchedly. ‘How awful this must all be for him.’
‘Miss Coles is with her now,’ Mr Wyse said. ‘She insisted on volunteering. So at least there will be someone Lucia knows beside her when she comes round.’
‘Comes round?’ Diva cried. ‘Do you mean that she’s unconscious?’
The Wyses looked at each other uncertainly.
‘A deep sleep can be very restorative, you know,’ Mr Wyse said reassuringly, ‘in cases of this nature.’
‘But is that all we know?’ Diva persisted. ‘I mean, why is she unconscious or deeply asleep or whatever she is? Has she been sedated or something?’
‘Perhaps a mild sedative,’ Susan replied. ‘We really don’t know. There is a high fever apparently, so all may yet be well. We just have to wait for the fever to break, and that will mean that the infection has been mastered.’
‘Infection?’ Diva echoed. ‘I thought it was some sort of allergic reaction to an insect bite.’
‘An insect bite, yes,’ Susan said quietly, ‘but rather more than an allergic reaction, I understand. It seems to have given her blood poisoning.’
‘Blood poisoning? But that’s dreadful!’ Diva hesitated. ‘I mean … isn’t it?’
‘It can be, yes,’ Susan said, ‘but we mustn’t fear the worst, at least not yet. The hospital has got hold of some of this new wonder drug, penicillin. You know, they used it in the war for soldiers whose wounds got infected. It came down from London, special delivery on the train.’
‘An antibiotic, I believe,’ Mr Wyse said. ‘Very difficult to obtain.’
‘But very effective,’ Susan said quickly. ‘One of the doctors told me that he worked in a hospital in Italy during the war and had wonderful results with it, even with men who had been lying wounded in the open for two or three days.’
‘So we may hope for a rapid improvement,’ Mr Wyse said reassuringly, ‘and for the dear lady to be fully restored to health and come among us once again as soon as possible.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Diva replied briskly. ‘We must all be positive.’ Mr Wyse bowed slightly and said ‘Capital!’ Then, with a lift of his hat, they parted, though for once nobody said ‘Au reservoir’.
* * *
At Mallards Georgie awoke to the sound of Foljambe’s persistent knocking at the door.
‘I’m so sorry, sir,’ she said desperately. ‘I know you’ve not been back long.’
‘That’s all right, Foljambe,’ Georgie replied automatically as he sat on the edge of the bed and fumbled for his slippers. He felt dazed and stupid from his all-night vigil and there was a horrible taste in his mouth which no tooth powder could remove.
‘Doctor Kendrick telephoned from the hospital, sir,’ Foljambe informed him anxiously. ‘He said if you could be sent for then you should come at once.’
‘Very well, Foljambe,’ he said, slipping in his dressing gown. ‘Please draw me a bath as quickly as ever you can.’
‘Oh, sir!’ she cried. ‘We are all so worried about madam.’
As she ran to the bathroom Georgie heard a muffled sob.
He sat down heavily at the dressing table and stared vacantly into the mirror. The face of a distracted, haggard man with bloodshot eyes stared back at him. For a moment he wondered who it was.
‘We must all be strong,’ he said absently.
Doctor Kendrick was a young man, and clearly nervous. Rather awkwardly he offered Georgie a cigarette, which Georgie equally awkwardly rejected with a whispered, ‘No, thank you.’
Doctor Kendrick sat down behind his desk and lit up. It seemed to Georgie that his hand trembled slightly as he did so.
‘Well now,’ he began, and then stopped and looked at Georgie. He was unable to hold his gaze, however, and rose and went to the window. He gazed out of it, his hands crossed behind his back, one of them still holding his cigarette.
‘How is she?’ Georgie asked.
‘We administered the penicillin yesterday afternoon, as you know,’ the doctor said. ‘When I have seen it used in the past it has often had very dramatic results. I was an army doctor during the war and saw even quite advanced cases of septicaemia clear up. I was hoping that something of the kind would occur in this case too.’
He took a drag at his cigarette.
‘You mean …?’
‘I mean that it hasn’t,’ Kendrick said rather brusquely. He distractedly detached a small piece of tobacco from his tongue and gazed at it intently.
‘May it yet?’ Georgie asked, feeling a very deep nausea settling upon him. ‘I mean, it’s only been twenty-four hours.’
‘No, I rather think it won’t,’ Kendrick said in that curiously matter-of-fact tone adopted by the English middle classes in potentially emotional situations. Perhaps feeling the mantle of countless war film heroes resting upon him, he finally sat down, stubbed out his cigarette and looked evenly at Georgie.
‘The infection was very advanced, and perhaps more serious than we realised. After all, it was only an insect bite. Nobody expected such a rapid deterioration, although one of the nurses tells me there was a similar case here before the war – the wife of General Montgomery, I believe.’
‘Oh,’ said Georgie in a very small voice.
‘Whatever the case, the penicillin does not seem to have had any effect, and I don’t think we have much time left to play with.’
‘Oh,’ George said again, and then feeling that he ought to say something other than ‘oh’, ‘How much time?’
‘Only a few hours, I’m afraid,’ the doctor replied. ‘Your wife is in a coma, and I fear she’s fading fast. Her pulse is very weak. I sent for you so you could be with her. If you are ready, I’ll take you in.’
He crossed the room and opened the door. As Georgie went to step through it, he had to draw back to allow a tearful Irene Coles to be escorted down the corridor towards the exit by a nurse. He felt an overwhelming sense of unreality. Was this all really happening?
‘It’s all been so sudden,’ he said vacantly, ‘just a few days.’
‘I know, old chap,’ Kendrick said helplessly.
The room had been dark during all those long hours of the night that he had sat there, the only light coming from a dimmed lamp in the corner with a pillow mostly obscuring it. Now it was light and airy. It was also very quiet. He remembered being told that the town council had ordered straw to be scattered in the street outside the hospital to deaden the noise of passing traffic.
Lucia lay with her eyes closed, looking very pale and very beautiful. She was breathing so gently that it was almost as if she had already stopped. As though wondering the same thing, Kendrick lifted her wrist from the blanket and felt her pulse. It was weak, but it was there.
Georgie pointed at the drip which was attached to her other wrist.
‘Is that really necessary?’ he asked.
‘Not any more, no,’ Kendrick said. Seeing that the nurse had just come back into the room, he said, ‘Can we remove the intravenous saline please, nurse?’
The nurse gently pulled it from Lucia’s wrist. Then she bundled up the tubing and took it out of the room.
‘Would you like me to stay?’ Kendrick asked awkwardly.
‘Oh, no thank you,’ Georgie replied. ‘I’d like to
be alone if that’s possible.’
‘Of course. I’ll see that you’re left in peace.’
He closed the door softly behind him.
Georgie sat on the chair beside the bed as he had done during the night, but that had been different. Then there had been hope. Then he had been expecting her to wake up in the morning feeling much better, and to sit up and start planning her next bridge dinner or po’ di mu. Now there was no hope. Now there was just a nasty, dull emptiness gnawing at his soul.
He gazed numbly at the woman who had been the other half of his own life. Almost for ever, it seemed. From long before they were married, and even from before they had come to Tilling. From the days in Riseholme when she was married to Pepino and he had been Drake to her Elizabeth and the bass to her treble. It seemed inconceivable that he might have to live without her. He had never even considered the possibility.
He crossed to the window and stared out blankly. At the end of the street a bus stopped and waited lazily while a couple of women got out carrying shopping baskets. It seemed in no particular hurry to move on again, but finally it did as the women wandered towards the High Street. How could something so momentous be happening in the midst of such everyday banality? Lucia fighting for her life while outside the window, in the world beyond the hospital, other women went about their daily business, perhaps changing their library book at Boots or buying some darning wool?
Lucia made a quiet moaning noise and he turned quickly and went back across the room to be by her bedside once more. Her breathing was more distinct now, but making little rasping noises. A frond of hair had fallen across her face and he reached out and gently brushed it back into place. As he did so, her eyes fluttered and then opened.
He tried to speak, but the breath came hot and peppery into his throat. He swallowed hard and tried again.
‘Hello, Lucia,’ he said, trying to sound casual and unconcerned.
There was silence, as if she was digesting his greeting and wondering what to do with it. Her eyes darted from side to side and then puckered, as though trying to focus. She took another stertorous breath, a little deeper this time, and finally spoke.
‘Is that you, Pepino?’ she whispered.
Georgie gave her hand a gentle squeeze and said, ‘Yes, cara, it’s Pepino.’
‘I can’t see you,’ said a little girl’s voice in the distance. ‘It’s dark.’
‘That’s because we’ve drawn the curtains, Lucia,’ Georgie replied gently, gazing at the sun streaming through the window. ‘But tomorrow you’ll be up and about, won’t you? There is so much to do, you know. There’s the fête and your Dante classes and your Elizabethan pageant …’ His voice faltered at the last.
Lucia smiled and closed her eyes. Then very softly, very gently, more softly, more gently than ever she had played those last lingering notes of the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, came the murmur ‘How you all work me so.’
Then there was nothing, as she slipped away to become a hole in other people’s lives.
Georgie lent forward and kissed her in death tenderly on the lips, as he had never dared to do in life.
‘Goodbye, my darling,’ he said through his tears. ‘Au reservoir.’
Uno Piccolo Codettino
For once there was no need for the ritual enquiry of ‘Any news?’ The Padre arranged for the passing bell to be sounded as soon as Georgie, into whose hand he had pressed an unaccustomed glass of brandy and forced him to drink it, had left him. Though deeply shocked, everyone knew to whom it must refer, and if any further confirmation was needed the flag on the town hall was lowered to half-mast a few minutes later.
As the bell sounded its first few strokes, Susan Wyse stared in horror at Algernon Wyse. ‘Oh no, dear God, oh no,’ she said, and buried her face in her hands. Her husband, who made it a rule never to be seen crying in public, strode quickly into the back garden where he was alone for some time. Later they both dressed in black, which sat oddly in the summer sunshine, and went to call on Georgie.
Tilling was a sombre place for many weeks. A civic funeral was held a few days after Lucia’s death, with the Mayor and the town council processing slowly through the streets, following the horse-drawn hearse with her coffin to its final resting place in the churchyard. At Mr Wyse’s suggestion, it was Elizabeth Mapp-Flint who, as Lucia’s former Lady Mayoress, took pride of place behind Georgie and Olga. She clung tightly to the arm of Major Benjy, who walked with sombre military bearing and wore his exotic Northwest Frontier campaign medals for the occasion.
Some months later Georgie, by now Sir George Pillson, and Olga arranged a memorial service, which was attended not only by Lucia’s old friends from Tilling and Riseholme but also by lots of smart people from London, including John Gielgud, who read the lesson. As they left the church, with Lucia’s organ playing an arrangement of the slow movement from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, they stood outside while Georgie uncovered a simple yet elegant memorial stone.
Emmeline Pillson,
formerly Lucas
‘Lucia’
Wife of Sir George Pillson, Bart.
Mayor and Patroness of Tilling
A friend to all
There were no dates on the stone, which was Georgie’s idea. When asked about it in the months and years to come, he would smile and reply quietly that Lucia had been ageless.
Presiding over the memorial service was almost the Reverend Kenneth Bartlett’s last official duty in Tilling. Some weeks later he retired from the ministry and returned with Evie to his native Birmingham. It is not recorded whether his Scottish accent survived the encounter.
Georgie tried hard to carry on at Mallards as though nothing had happened but found it impossible. The memory of Lucia haunted the place and he kept waiting to hear her voice or listening for her to play the piano. For a while he kept the house open but went on long trips with Olga to her various performances around the world. Then he rented it out to various tenants, one of whom was a glamorous lady author whose books were made into films. Eventually, however, he donated it to the National Trust, under whose auspices it can be visited to this day.
He and Olga went to live in Capri, taking the servants with them. The Wyses, who were beginning to find the English winters too much to deal with and who already wintered in Capri, finally sold their house in Tilling and moved there permanently too.
Quaint Irene was of course by now already a senior and well-respected figure in the world of art, and continued to be eagerly courted by Mayfair galleries for the privilege of holding her annual exhibition. She sold Taormina, using some of her new-found wealth to buy the Wyses’s house, where she held summer schools annually for aspiring painters. So for a few weeks each year the streets of Tilling were full of Irene Coles look-alikes, with all her female students calling each other ‘sister’ or ‘comrade’, smoking pipes and adopting schoolboy haircuts and plus-fours.
Diva Plaistow died quietly in her armchair one spring morning. Her servant had long since been let go and it was Elizabeth Mapp-Flint who found her (Diva’s door of course left on the latch in the best Tilling tradition), having entered the house to complain about something or other. She left hurriedly, shrieking for Major Benjy, who then went in, took his hat off and came out again looking very grave.
The Major for his own part passed away more energetically, subsiding one day by the fairway of the sixteenth hole. He was brought into the clubhouse on a hurdle, whereupon his fellow members clustered around, raised a valedictory glass and agreed to suspend play for the rest of the day as a mark of respect. He left a faded tiger skin rug, an impressive collection of firearms and an equally impressive unpaid bar bill.
Elizabeth Mapp-Flint aged badly and quickly following the Major’s departure and spent her final months in a nursing home in Bournemouth, enjoying herself by being insufferably rude to the staff and fellow inmates. Her funeral was attended only by the proprietor of the nursing home and three fellow guests, who had to be bribed to do so by the p
romise of a knickerbocker glory at a cafe on the promenade on the way home.
Georgie and Olga ended up sharing a house in Capri, regularly wandering into town in the evening to sip negronis and observe the passegiata before dinner, with everyone making a great fuss of the famous diva and her gentleman companion whom the locals – who never really came to grips with the niceties of English titles – insisted on calling ‘milord’.
Olga gave up first opera and then lieder and so they came gradually to stop travelling around the world and instead spent their time entirely in Capri, playing bridge with the Wyses, performing Schubert together and reading three-day-old English newspapers brought by ferry from Naples.
Some years after moving to Capri, Georgie saw Lucia one last time, seated at her piano in The Hurst at Riseholme and looking young and beautiful as he always remembered her. A book of Mozart duets lay open and inviting on the music stand, as she beckoned him to join her on their double piano stool.
‘Lucia!’ he gasped in wonder. ‘Is it really you, my darling?’
She smiled that special smile of hers, the smile that could charm duchesses and light up a whole room, and held out her hand to him as he advanced towards her.
In the morning Cadman came running into the room when he heard Foljambe scream. He found Georgie lying on his stomach with a faint smile on his face and both arms stretched out before him, as though he had been reaching for something which would always lie just beyond his grasp.
First published 2014 by Elliott and Thompson Limited
27 John Street, London WC1N 2BX
www.eandtbooks.com
epub: 978-1-90965-355-9
MOBI: 978-1-90965-356-6
Text © Guy Fraser-Sampson 2014
The Author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this Work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
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