the maltese angel (44 page)

"Mr. Ramsmore, this ... this is our business. She is my

responsibility."

"I am aware of that, Miss Jessie. But I repeat, she is to be given the freedom due to a child."

"Sir, you are interfering in something that is none of your

business."

"It may not have been in the past, but I can inform you that it certainly will be in the future."

"My father is the head of this household and he can do what he likes."

"To my knowledge, your father ignores the child, and if I am to go by rumour, he cursed the day she was born. So your father wouldn't care if she roamed the country and was picked up by the gypsies or run down by a horse."

"Sir! You are taking advantage." She choked on her next words but brought out, "You have no right at all."

"I think I have, Miss Jessie. Remember I found her mother and I helped to carry her back into this house. And it is that very mother who has denied this child her rights to a mother and who, I would imagine, made an attempt to kill her. Look at her." He now turned about and pointed down to the still and apparently sleeping figure of the child, then said, "Whether or not you like it, I have been forced through circumstance to take an interest in the child. Today isn't the first time we've met. And if I don't happen to meet her in the near future then I shall know that you have continued to incarcerate her. That might seem a strong word, but the child is of a very lively nature and to be locked up in this' he looked from one side to the other, as if encompassing the whole room 'rabbit hutch, can be described as nothing else but incarceration." And almost bouncing his head towards her, he turned about and stamped from the cottage, leaving her gasping, one hand clutching her throat, the other her bodice.

A movement from the bed brought her attention back to the child, who had raised heavy lids to look at her for a moment before she brought out slowly, "I'm sorry, Auntie Jessie." And with only the plight of the child filling her mind now, Jessie said, "It's all right, dear, it's all right. Lie quiet, the doctor's coming."

But when presently Janie said, "Where's the nice man?" Jessie had to force herself to say, "He ... he has gone home."

"Will he come back?"

"Er ... perhaps. Go to sleep now."

"Auntie Jessie?"

"Yes, dear?"

"I know now why you didn't want me to see her. She isn't nice, is she?"

Jessie didn't question who wasn't nice, but after biting down on her lip she said, "Lie quiet now, dear." Then bending closer to janie face, she asked, "What did you say?" and almost a look of horror came on her own as she heard the child say, "She was in disorder like the bull."

When, last year, they had to shoot the bull that had suddenly gone mad, the child had been a witness to the men's efforts with pitchforks to corner it in the barn, and she herself had explained that it was some disorder in its mind and it would have done serious harm if it hadn't been destroyed. And now she had likened her mother to the bull.

She hadn't said mad, just disordered, yet she must have heard the men in the yard discussing the animal as mad. She turned away from the bed, saying to herself, "Hurry up. Doctor, please, so I can get her cleaned and into bed."

It was a good hour later when Doctor Philip Patten arrived. And he stood looking down where the child lay fully dressed and just as Gerald had brought her in. Then turning to Jessie, he remarked, "Well, this should clinch the matter, shouldn't it? whatever your father decides.

I shall want a bowl of warm water." Then turning to the bed again, he said softly, "How do you feel, Janie?"

"Very tired, Doctor; and my hand is paining."

"We'll soon put that right, dear. Now this might hurt just a

little."

He lifted her hand and moved his finger in between the blood stains, and each time she winced so his eyes met hers. And then he said, "Ah, well now, you have four splinters in there, Janie, and I'll have to take them out, won't I?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"Well, now, I'll be as gentle as I possibly can, but in the meantime we will get it nicely cleaned up. Ah, here is your aunt with a dish of nice warm water. Now I want you to put your hand into it and keep it there while I look at your neck. Ah, that's right. Now can you move it backwards and forwards? Oh, that's a clever girl."

After examining her neck, he said, "Just a long scratch, no glass here." Then he turned and pointed to his bag, saying briefly, "Cotton wool." And after Jessie had handed it to him he showed it to Janie, saying, "I'm just going to wipe your hand very gently;' and as he did so she did not wince.

As he extracted the first sliver of glass she cried, "Oh! Oh dear!"

And by the time he had extracted the fourth sliver she was lying

gasping, and her face was wet with perspiration.

After he had carried out the cleansing of her neck, he put his hand on her forehead before taking her pulse;

then patting her cheek, he said, "The quicker you get into your nightie and into bed the better, eh?"

When, a few minutes later, he was standing in the other room facing Jessie, his tone had an edge to it as he said, "She has a

temperature.

It is some time since this morning when this incident occurred I

understand Mr. Ramsmore found her lying in his wood. Well, the result of that delay, if not of the shock, will likely result in a fever. I will leave a mild draught to settle her down, but I'll be back first thing in the morning. "

He sighed deeply as if he were tired of the happenings that called for his attention in this household; and when he left without bidding her goodbye, she had much the same feeling as when Gerald Ramsmore had departed, and she muttered to herself, ThenI Arrogant men! " And lining up with these two was the figure of her father ... but not Carl.

No;

not Carl. Carl was the only male in her life whose tone had never been other than kind.

It was four days later. Janie had developed pneumonia, and Jessie's and Patsy's time was taken up attending her. And every spare moment Carl had would be spent assisting them. A steam tent was erected and this necessitated a continuous supply of kettles full of steaming

Friar's Balsam.

Ward was left almost entirely on his own to see to the needs of his daughter, which however were now very simple: the draught the doctor was giving her was keeping her quietly subdued. In fact, she seemed to sleep all the time; only when her father would raise her head and say,

"Drink this, dear," which might be milk or tea, did she rouse herself.

At first she had protested, but he had put one strong arm around her, so pinning her hands, and forced her to gulp at the liquid. But now on the fourth day she was making no effort to refuse;

the only effort she made was when she was sick. And it was on this fourth day that Philip Patten came into the room unannounced and to witness her vomiting.

' How long has she been like this? I mean, is she often sick? "

"No, not often," Ward replied.

"I made her eat some dinner. It was cold food as usual, for you can imagine we have no attention from downstairs, and I think that's what she's bringing up."

When Ward took the dish from the bed, Philip Patten noticed the colour of it, and it wasn't, he thought, much like the eruption of cold

mutton. It had a dark greeny tinge, which could very well be bile.

After taking hold of her wrist he turned for a moment and looked at Ward as if he was about to say something. Instead, he first laid the hand back on the coverlet and paused for a moment before announcing,

"I'm going to stop the draughts. I think she's had enough; she should come round now. And may I ask what you have decided to do?"

"Yes. Yes." Ward was washing his hands in the basin on the wash-hand stand, his back to the doctor, and he repeated, "Yes. Yes, I have decided. We'll get someone in."

"Good. Good. I'm glad of that. Well now' Philip Patten gave a half smile " I've no need to open my bag tonight. By the way, there's a good nursing agency in Newcastle.

It's just off Northumberland Street. I've forgotten exactly the name of the street. "

"Oh, I know it. It's Cranwell Place; at least, so I found out yesterday. I looked it up. It was advertised in the paper. I'll go in today and make arrangements."

The doctor turned and looked at the bed.

"She'll still be quiet I think. Yes. Yes. What time did you give her the dose last night?"

"Oh, not till rather late, about eleven, just before I lay down myself."

"Oh well, I suppose that will do it." He did not add, "I must go and see your granddaughter," for he knew what would make this man happy was the thought that the child could die. And so he left the room saying simply, "I'll see you tomorrow."

Half an hour later Ward once again lifted his daughter up from the pillows and, forcing her head back, poured most of a glass of milk down her throat, then put the glass on the side table before he wiped her mouth and arranged her hair. Finally, bending over her, he kissed her twice and, his head deep on his chest, he muttered, "Goodbye, my darling." Then he went out of the room. He entered the kitchen to see Patsy scurrying around. She was throwing roughly-cut vegetables into a pot in which already there was a piece of lamb. As she pushed it on to the hob she remarked, "You'll have a hot meal by dinner time."

"I won't be in to dinner. You'll be pleased to hear I'm going into town to engage help ... nursing help, for both night and day."

She stood looking at him for some seconds; then she nodded once,

saying, "Yes. Yes, master. I'm pleased to hear that."

As he turned to go back into the hall, he remarked, "I'll have a bite in town; and she won't need anything, she's still under the doctor's draught."

3&5

"Very good." Patsy nodded towards his back. The kitchen to herself again, she thought, none too pleasantly that'll mean two of them, night and day I suppose. Well, they won't have me waiting on them.

Meals, yes:

but that's all. And this decision made, she left the kitchen by the back door that took her into the yard, there to see her master mounting the trap. Carl was standing to the side of it and the master was

saying something to him. And she watched her husband wait until the trap had disappeared into the lane beyond the farm gates before he turned towards her, and she to him, and her first words were, "He's going to get help, night and day people."

"Yes." He nodded at her, then enquired, "How's the youngster?"

"Oh, we won't know until tonight, I suppose, but she's holding her own.

You know, I think Miss Jessie will go as daft as her sister up there'

she thumbed towards the house 'if anything happens to that child. You know, she looks upon her as if she had given birth to her."

"Well, she might as well have; she's seen to her since the minute she was born."

She looked at him closely now, saying, "What's the matter? Something wrong?"

"No. No, nothing."

"You look more thoughtful than usual."

He smiled at her now, saying, "Do I? Well, I've got a lot to think about."

"Yes," she said somewhat tardy, 'about this bloomin' place. It's never about us, ourselves. "

"Oh, that isn't fair, Patsy. You know it isn't."

She folded her arms tightly now before saying, "I get tired of it at times, Carl. We have no life of our own. And I'm at the beck and call of that one up there."

"Well, you won't be any longer, will you, if he's getting help?"

"No; but I'll have other work. I'll have more cooking, won't I? And Mrs. McNabb can only do the rough."

"But, you know, dear, we took it on, and we will be half owners of the place"

She turned quickly to interrupt him, saying, "Yes, but when? When?

When he dies, the master? He could live for another twenty years. And so could she. But just imagine if he went and we're left with her. I know what I would do with her, and I've heard the doctor say the same on the quiet. Perhaps not in so many words, but I know what he thinks.

"

"Yes. Yes, you're right, Patsy. But that's the last thing the master would do. He'd never let her be put away, you know that. He'd go to any lengths, yes, any lengths' he nodded now as he looked to the side

'before he'd put her in an asylum."

"Well, if she has another turn like she had the other morning, that's where she'll end, because she could have killed the child. Her poor little hand is swollen up twice the size, and it was only a scratch on her neck, so Doctor Patten said, but it's going to leave a mark. It started to ooze blood again yesterday. To my mind it should have been stitched."

"Well, I suppose the doctor knew what he was doing," and then as if to dismiss the matter, he said further:

"I've got to get on now." But as he went to walk away, she called after him, "Carl, the master said he wouldn't be in for dinner he's going to have a bite in town and that she would sleep. But I can't leave her all day up there by herself, can I? And yet, at the same time, I'm not going to go in that room by myself. I've never ventured in, unless the master's been there, for some time now. So will you come on up with me?"

"Yes. Yes, of course. But she'll likely scream the place down when she sees me."

"I don't suppose so; she's been under those sleeping draughts for days now. But I must warn you, you'll see a difference in her. Since you last saw her she's become like an old woman."

"I could never imagine her looking like an old woman."

"Just wait till you see her. She's a vixen of an old woman at that."

"Well, give me a shout when you need me." And with that he went across the yard, and she made her way to the cottage ..

It was almost three o'clock when she called to him as he was weighing out the meal in the corn room: "I'm going up now," she said.

"Righto." He left what he was doing and walked towards her, clapping his hands and dusting down his clothes. And as he crossed the yard he smiled at her as he said, "I don't suppose she'll notice I'm not spruced up."

"I don't suppose she'll notice you're even there. But, of course, you never know; I haven't seen her for days. I really don't know how the master can stand looking after her day and night. He's even been