Chapter Four #2
‘And however did the doctor get it out without killing him?’
‘I don’t know that either; but he did.’
They were both quiet as they tried to fathom such a thing.
‘So, you are in safe hands.’
‘I certainly hope to be.’ Missy grinned. ‘Come again before Saturday – before I go to Shaftesbury to call upon my intended. Just in case we wed at once, and I don’t come back.’
‘Mind you follow doctor’s orders, now,’ Theo said.
‘No need to worry. I’d do whatever he told me.’
Theo didn’t go home directly, but walked slowly through the village.
She’d been avoiding Uncle Crudge because she knew he’d ask how the ritual had gone, and she hated to lie.
People always saw straight through her, and she couldn’t bear the shame of it.
It was a cooler day. A breeze pestered at her hair, and turned the poplar leaves silver side up.
With a start, she remembered that she still hadn’t returned Abrecan’s coin to the display case.
It had gone clean out of her head. Her heart thumped disproportionately.
But it was all right, she repeated to herself. Everything was going to be all right.
Passing the Meriwethers’ cottage, Theo saw Kit in the vegetable patch with a heap of newly dug weeds beside him. She toyed with the idea of calling in, but what on earth would she say? At that moment the door opened, and Mrs Meriwether came out with two doormats and a beater.
‘Miss Hallewell!’ she said. ‘You nearly gave me a turn, standing there.’
‘Sorry, Mrs Meriwether.’
There was a pause.
‘Are you well? And your mother?’
‘Oh, yes, thank you.’ Theo’s breath was too high in her chest. ‘And you? All of you?’
‘Well enough.’ Mona’s forehead creased. She draped the mats over the front wall and put her hands on her hips. ‘Though something’s worrying our Kit, and I wish I knew what.’
‘Is he . . . ill?’
‘Not that, exactly; but he’s sorrowful, and full of nerves.’ She shook her head. ‘He won’t tell me what the matter is, and Toby’s none the wiser.’
The ground tilted beneath Theo’s feet.
‘Oh! Dear me, you’ve gone as white as a sheet!’ Mona hurried over and took her by the arm. ‘Come inside and sit down.’
‘Oh, no, thank you. I’m perfectly—’
Mona lowered her voice. ‘Is it the curse? I was forever fainting when I was your age. Something sweet is what you need – a scone with honey, perhaps?’
Theo was desperate to sit down and be mothered. But what if Toby came home? He would feel intruded upon. And what if Kit burst into tears at the sight of her?
As politely as she could, Theo pulled her arm away. ‘You’re quite right, Mrs Meriwether – I think I do need a lie-down. I’ll carry on home and go up to my room. Thank you so much. You’re very kind. Good day to you.’
She sensed Mona’s gaze following her as she walked away.
Uncle Crudge waved, grinning his big, horsey grin, as she crossed their own lawn. ‘Ahoy there, young Theo!’
Theo knew she’d cry if she stopped to talk to him, or if she even looked at him, so she hurried inside, and didn’t need to see his face fall to hate herself for it.
Peterson had far too much to do, Diana declared, to be ferrying the likes of Missy Cartwright about the countryside.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Missy said, when Theo went down on Saturday to see her off. ‘I’d walk a hundred miles to see Dr Anscombe again, never mind five.’
Her prettiness was unearthly in the silver-green of the morning. She’d taken off her bandage, and the scab on her head was hidden by a frilled cotton cap, worn beneath her straw hat. It made her look younger.
‘But I should have liked to have gone with you, and saved you the walk,’ Theo said. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right? Is it still very painful?’
‘Hardly at all – don’t get in a stew. I’m following doctor’s orders, aren’t I? He’ll soon sort me out. And the Charitable Ladies are paying, after all.’ Missy thought about that for a second, then laughed. ‘Paying for me to try my luck with that heavenly man – there’s a turn-up!’
‘Missy, really!’
‘I might make a respectable marriage, Theo. Imagine that? Me.’
This time her smile was tentative, and betrayed the dreams she hid behind her brazen front.
‘Of course you might.’
‘Plenty of men like a simple country girl,’ Missy said, as though hearing an unspoken doubt. ‘A strong constitution and good hips for making lots of babies, that’s what Ma used to say. Not all of them’s after a dainty gentleman’s daughter.’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’
‘Wish me luck, then.’
They hugged goodbye. Missy’s hair smelled of rosemary, her skin of spring water.
‘How could he not fall in love with you?’ Theo said.
Five days came and went after midsummer, and neither of the Meriwether boys went up to the castle.
Kit stayed at home, and Toby stuck to his books.
He looked for Theo everywhere, to be sure of avoiding her; half expecting to bump into her in the lane, or to find her waiting on a wall in the village, kicking her heels, like when she was little.
His disappointment when no such meeting occurred weighed exactly the same as his relief.
On Sunday, as usual, they went to the service at St Mary’s.
Kit, who normally began to fidget after ten minutes, sat unnaturally still, with his head down.
Anyone looking closely would’ve seen his lips muttering silently, and a small muscle in his cheek twitching intermittently.
Toby saw it, and worried. He knew his mother did too.
‘Toby, you must know what’s up with him,’ Mona said, on the walk back. ‘He tells you everything.’
She chose her next words carefully.
‘I know you’re both of an age when . . . girls can . . . cause a distraction—’
‘Mum—’
‘There’s nothing you can’t say to me, Toby. I shan’t be embarrassed.’
‘But perhaps I might.’
‘Is that it, then? Is he lovesick?’ Mona shook her head. ‘I always knew it’d be hard for him when he got older. Not finding a sweetheart, never mind a wife.’
Toby clenched his teeth. The truth was, Kit couldn’t cope with unfairness. He hated secrets, too. What did you do that for? Missy had said. All the blame on Kit, just like that. As though he’d done it on purpose, out of mischief or malice. As though there were any malice in him whatsoever.
On Sunday afternoon, Theo caught a lift into Shaftesbury with Cook, who was visiting her elderly aunt.
Confusingly, the hospital was called the Westminster Memorial, after the Marquess of Westminster, a local bigwig whose widow had donated the land in his memory.
It was a charitable institution, which charged fees only to those who were able to pay.
Theo stood looking up at the place, clutching a paper bag and an entirely unnecessary shawl.
It was two storeys high and not twenty years old, built of stone in the Gothic style.
The central portico had an oriel window above it, and there were matching chimney stacks at either end of the roof.
Inside were beds for eight patients and sixteen nurses, and a small operating theatre.
Theo shuddered at the thought of it. There were books on surgery and anatomy in the Hallewell library.
Drawings of the sunken cheeks and eyes of cadavers, of gaping wounds, and saws biting into bone.
But then, the operating theatre must be a place of wonders too.
After all, it was where Dr Anscombe had retrieved the stone from that man’s kidney, saving him from an early grave.
A young nurse was at a desk. She’d been counting entries in a long, tabulated list, but hurried to her feet as Theo approached. ‘Good morning, miss,’ she said, in a soft local accent. ‘How may I help you?’
‘Good morning. I’ve come to visit Melissa Cartwright. She came in yesterday, from Hallewell?’
The nurse smiled. ‘Oh, yes. I’ve met Melissa.’
‘She was to be examined by Dr Anscombe, but then I heard she’d stayed overnight?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Only . . . well, it’s not visiting hours, you see.’
‘Oh.’
Theo was crestfallen. She hadn’t thought of that.
The nurse chewed her lip. ‘But since you’re here . . . It’s Matron’s afternoon off, by lucky chance. And it can’t do no harm, just for a minute.’
‘Oh, thank you! I’ve brought some oranges.’
The nurse took her along a corridor to some double doors with little windows, through which Theo glimpsed a row of tidy beds, each occupied by a prone figure. Then the view was blocked by Dr Anscombe, who gazed at Theo in incomprehension for a second before recognising her.
‘Miss Hallewell!’
‘Oh, Doctor,’ the nurse said, flustered. ‘I know it’s not visiting time, but I thought . . . The young miss has come all the way to see Melissa, and brought her some oranges. I didn’t think it would—’
‘I see.’ The doctor looked troubled. ‘Thank you, Nurse Webster.’
Wide-eyed, the nurse bobbed and left them.
‘Miss Hallewell, I wonder if I might perhaps have a word?’
He took Theo’s elbow and led her away from the door. Theo felt the strength of the hand that had guided her, and, standing close, noticed how tall he was.
‘I’m afraid I can’t allow you to see Missy just now,’ he said. ‘It’s very important that she be allowed to rest.’
‘But . . . isn’t she better?’
‘I’ve no wish to worry you unduly, but I do have some concerns. Her symptoms appear to be worsening by degrees, rather than improving. She complains of a headache again, and seems drowsy.’
Theo stiffened. ‘Oh.’
‘My fear is that the injury may not be as superficial as it first appeared.’
‘She seemed so well . . .’
‘Indeed. But the damage may be worse than we apprehend.’
‘But she . . . she will be all right?’
‘She will receive the best possible care, I assure you. Sometimes, with a head injury, an operation is required in order to . . . How best to explain it? Well, you saw, for example, that her head had swollen, at the point where she struck it?’
Theo nodded.