Act of Will (28 page)

Earlier in the day, the two young women had celebrated Laurette’s engagement.

Audra had insisted on treating her sister-in-law to lunch on this very special occasion. Since they only ever went to Betty’s Café in Leeds, she had decided that a change was definitely in order, and she had been happy to splurge. It had been worth it just to see the look of surprise and delight on Laurette’s face when she had led her into Turkish Delight, the charming café with an oriental theme in Harte’s.

After lunch they had wandered around the elegant department store for a while, playing their favourite game of pretend shopping. They had looked at the exquisite couture dresses and evening gowns in the Model Room; exclaimed over fox and beaver and ermine coats in the Fur Salon; tried on chic hats in the Millinery Box; doused themselves with a variety of expensive French scents at the perfumery counter. And, all in all, they had enjoyed this harmless bit of fantasy, this brief escape from their everyday lives.

Later they had gone to Leeds Market in Kirkgate, as they usually did every Saturday afternoon. ‘Down to earth with a bang,’ Laurette had said with a wry laugh, as they had trudged around the produce stalls, looking for good buys.

Audra had also laughed as she had picked up a cauliflower and examined it. She had murmured, ‘Everyone’s looking at us, or I should say
sniffing
us. We must really and truly
pong
after all that perfume we sprayed on ourselves.’

‘We probably smell like a Chinese whore house, as our Vincent would say.’

Giggling and laughing like a couple of giddy, carefree schoolgirls, they had plunged through the throngs of shoppers, found their bargains and left the huge market with laden shopping bags, making their way to Upper Armley on the tram.

Now, as they headed along the darkening lane in the direction of the cottage, they were both shivering in the chill wind that had blown up. During the week it had rained a lot and the wind carried with it the pungent odour of dripping foliage, wet earth and mouldering leaves. There was a dampness on the air and a mist was coming down which presaged rain again.

‘These wet leaves are treacherous on the path,’ Audra exclaimed, ‘so do watch your step, Laurette.’

‘Yes, I will. Listen, Audra, thank you for a lovely day. I’ve really enjoyed myself, especially our lunch and browsing in Harte’s. Now I’m looking forward to a nice cup of tea. I suddenly feel jiggered.’

‘I’m a little tired myself,’ Audra confessed. ‘All those people in the Market, I’ve never seen it so busy.’

‘I’ve had enough of crowds for one day… I’m certainly relieved we’re not going dancing tonight, I don’t think I’d last very long.’

‘I know what you mean, my feet are killing me too,’ Audra said, as they went down the steps into the cul-de-sac.

Before they reached the end of the flagstone path, the door of number thirty-eight flew open and Maggie stood in a circle of light, peering out into the gloomy night. ‘
Audra? Laurette
?’

‘Yes, it’s us,’ Audra responded, hurrying forward. She had caught an odd note in the fourteen-year-old’s voice, and a warning signal went off in her head. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘It’s our Alfie,’ Maggie said tensely, opening the door wider, stepping aside to let them enter. ‘I think he’s right badly, Audra.’

Audra dumped her shopping bags on the floor and flew across the room without bothering to remove her coat. She bent over the bassinet in the corner of the kitchen, staring anxiously at Alfie.

She saw at once that her baby was not well. His eyes were glazed and he was obviously feverish. Her throat tightened. Pulling off her gloves, she reached out, touched his flushed cheek lightly with the tip of one finger. His little face was burning. Instantly, she became alarmed. But it was not in Audra’s nature to panic; also, because of her training as a nurse, plus Matron Lennox’s belief that she was a gifted healer, she felt confident, and certainly capable of looking after her own child when he was ill.

Straightening up, she struggled out of her coat, tossed it on a chair, hurried to the kitchen sink to wash her hands.

She said to Laurette, ‘Please get me the thermometer out of the medicine chest in the cupboard near the pantry. Then clear the tea things away and put a clean towel on the table, please. I want to examine Alfie under the light and sponge him down, to cool him. Could you also bring his toilet basket, oh, and dampen his flannel for me, would you please, whilst you’re at it?’

‘Right away.’ Laurette bustled around the kitchen, doing as Audra requested.

After Audra had washed and dried her hands, she rinsed the thermometer in cold water, placed it on the kitchen table, then went to get her child. She lifted him out of his bassinet carefully and carried him to the table, where she slipped off his cardigan and romper suit, and
removed his vest and his nappy. There was gentleness and tenderness in her every movement as she handled the infant.

She took Alfie’s temperature, looked up at Laurette and shook her head. ‘It’s a hundred and four, but I’m not really surprised, he’s awfully feverish. Give me the flannel would you please, Laurette?’

‘What do you think he’s got?’ Laurette asked, sounding worried as she brought the face cloth to Audra.

‘I don’t know, it could be any one of a number of children’s ailments—measles, chicken pox, scarlet fever. On the other hand, I don’t see any sign of a rash or spots…’ She let her sentence trail off, finished sponging his fat little legs, his plump little feet, then dusted him down with Fuller’s Earth Powder. As she began to dress him again, she said to Laurette, without looking up, ‘But he does have such a high temperature. I wonder if I ought to give him a Fenning’s Fever Powder? Or some gripe water? No, I’d better not. I think I have to send for the doctor.’

Laurette nodded. ‘Yes, perhaps you should.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘If only Mike were here he could examine Alfie. I can’t imagine what’s keeping him and Vincent.’

‘I can run down for Doctor Stalkley,’ Maggie volunteered, her voice shrill and anxious.

‘Yes, I think you’d better,’ Audra murmured, lifting Alfie in her arms, taking him back to his bassinet. Turning to face Maggie, she said, ‘But before you do, tell me everything you can about the way Alfie acted this afternoon, what time you realized he wasn’t well, and any symptoms you noticed—anything odd about him.’

Maggie had been worried out of her wits for hours. She had been afraid to take Alfie to the doctor’s surgery, for
fear of endangering him further; for the same reason, she had not dared to leave him alone whilst she went to fetch the doctor. Now she was not only nervous but on the verge of tears.

She said, with a tremor, ‘Vincent and Mike went off to the football match at about one. Just after that, our Alfie started to cry, and he kept crying off an’ on for ages, and he was ever so fratchy and that’s not like him, he’s allus so good. I kept going to check on him, Audra, honest I did, to see if he was all right, to see if he was wet. But his nappy was dry and there was no pin sticking in him. Then a bit later, it must’ve been three or so, I saw how red he was getting. It was ever so hot in here and I took him into the sitting room to cool him down. We sat there a bit. I was nursing him on my lap, singing to him, and he started to vomit, and in ever such a funny way, Aud—’

‘Describe the vomiting,’ Audra interjected, stiffening.

‘I don’t know how to, it’s difficult to describe,’ Maggie wailed and looked at Audra, conscious of the sudden change in her sister-in-law. Audra’s acute anxiety had instantly transmitted itself to Maggie.

‘
Try
.’

Maggie gulped, remained mute, wracking her brains for the right words.

‘Please try.’

Maggie nodded. She took a deep breath, said, ‘The vomit sort of came straight out of him. It was like somebody gave him a big
thump
on his back and knocked it out. I don’t know how to explain it proper like, Audra, I don’t really. What was funny was that Alfie didn’t heave, or do owt like that.’

Maggie shook her head. ‘It must sound ever so strange, and it
was
queer, but that’s what happened. Oh the
poor little mite, whatever can be the matter with him?’

Projectile vomiting, Audra thought, with a stab of dread. That is what Maggie had tried so hard to describe. Oh my God.
Meningitis
. It simply can’t be. Audra stood very still, knowing that it was imperative she keep a firm hold on herself, that she stay absolutely calm and clear-headed. For her baby’s sake she must not permit emotion to cloud intelligence and judgement.

Swallowing her apprehension, Audra turned to the crib and peered down at Alfie. He looked so listless, and he was as flushed as before.

‘Hurry to the doctor’s, Maggie,’ Audra instructed. ‘Tell Doctor Stalkley that Alfie is ill, and that he must come immediately.’

Maggie shot across the kitchen and snatched her coat from the cupboard. ‘What do you think’s wrong with our little ‘un then, Audra? It’s not summat serious, is it?’

‘I can’t be certain, but the vomiting and the high fever do worry me.’

‘I’ll tell t’doctor about both them things,’ Maggie said, pivoting at the front door. ‘And I’ll run all the way there, and as fast as me legs’ll carry me, so don’t you worry.’

The moment they were alone, Laurette asked anxiously, ‘Audra, whatever is it? You’ve turned as white as a sheet. What on earth
is
wrong with Alfie? You must have some idea.’

‘I’m not sure, really I’m not,’ Audra replied, striving to keep her voice steady, not daring to say the name of that most ghastly illness. She had seen two children die of it when she had been a nurse at the Fever Hospital and their suffering had been pitiful to witness.

Laurette stood up. ‘Well, you look awful, and I’m going to make us a pot of tea.’ She hurried to the sink to fill the kettle, glad to keep busy. She wished Mike were
here. His presence was always comforting; Audra trusted him, had faith in his judgement.

Audra sat up slightly in the easy chair, thinking hard. She had committed a great deal of medical information to memory in the past. Suddenly, in her mind’s eye, she pictured the page of her hospital text book which dealt with meningitis. She sat staring into space, saw every word on that page quite clearly, as though someone held the book in front of her.
Meningitis: Acute inflammation of the membranes of the brain and spinal cord, or both. Also called ‘spotted fever’, due to extensive spotting of the skin in severe cases. Symptoms: Severe headache, high fever, frequently neck and back rigidity; also twitching or convulsions. Severe vomiting is common; known as projectile vomiting due to sudden ejection of vomit to some distance; spotting of skin in severe cases; delirium, coma
.

Once more, Audra leapt to her feet and rushed over to the bassinet. Her eyes flicked over Alfie, seeking signs of the symptoms she now so clearly recalled. But she saw nothing unusual. The child remained flushed, but there was no evidence of twitching or convulsions, or neck rigidity, and certainly there had been no rash on his body when she had examined him a few minutes earlier.

She let out a sigh of relief. Of course it’s not meningitis, she told herself. How could it be? Anyway, Alfie’s probably coming down with a winter cold, or influenza at the worst.
But his high fever, what about his high fever
? a small voice nagged at the back of her mind.

Alfie began to cry, wiping this thought right out of her head. She bent over the bassinet, reaching for him.

‘Hush, sweetheart, hush, my little darling,’ she murmured, holding him tenderly against her breast. She smoothed her hand over his dark head and across his small back, hushing him softly. Immediately, Alfie
stopped crying and nestled into her. Audra walked up and down, soothing him, murmuring to him gently, and she was filled with such love for her child she thought her heart was going to burst.

And as she continued to pace back and forth in front of the fire, desperately trying to give comfort to her tiny son, she began to pray.
Oh please, God, don’t let anything happen to my baby. Protect my little Alfie, please keep him safe and make him well again
, she entreated silently. And she kept repeating the words over and over again as she waited for the doctor to come.

Alfie died.

His death was so unexpected, so swift, that everyone was stunned and disbelieving. One minute he was a healthy, robust baby, laughing and gurgling in his crib, the next he was gone from them.

On that fateful Saturday evening, Doctor Stalkley had come to the cottage at once, following sharply on the heels of Vincent and Mike, who had walked in from the football match a few minutes before.

After examining Alfie, neither the doctor nor Mike believed that he had meningitis. Despite the peculiar vomiting in the afternoon, which had not recurred, his only symptoms were the feverishness and the high temperature. ‘Not enough to go on,’ Doctor Stalkley had said. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow morning, but meanwhile keep a close eye on him, Audra.’ Picking up his Gladstone bag, striding to the coat closet, he had motioned to Maggie. ‘Now, lassie,’ the old Scotsman had said, ‘you’d best be coming back to my surgery with me, and I’ll give you a drop of medicine for the wee bairn.’

Because the doctor and Mike had been so hopeful for Alfie’s recovery from whatever it was that ailed him, Audra and Vincent had taken heart. Following the doctor’s instructions explicitly, they had watched over Alfie all weekend, had not left him alone for one moment.

Audra had sponged him down frequently, to keep him cool and refreshed; she had given him the fever medicine at the prescribed times and had generally tended to him with all the skills of the professional nurse that she was. And she had hardly closed her eyes during that time.

But Audra did not care about sleep. Alfie was the only thing that mattered to her and Vincent. By Sunday night the entire Crowther family believed that Alfie was over the worst of his mysterious ailment. The febrile look had vanished from his eyes and the scarlet flush had disappeared from his plump cheeks.