Cain His Brother (12 page)

Hester looked for a bell rope to pull.

“Bell?” she asked sharply.

He indicated with his head to where the ornamental rope hung. No other staff had come because presumably they knew it was his duty to answer the door. She strode over and yanked the rope more roughly than she had intended.

Almost immediately a parlormaid appeared, saw the footman, then Enid, and her face went white.

“An accident?” she said with a slight stammer.

“Fever,” Hester answered, going towards her. “She should go straight to bed. I am a nurse. If Lord Ravensbrook is willing, I shall stay and look after her. Is he at home?”

“No ma'am.”

“I think you should send for him. She is very ill.”

“You should have brought her sooner,” the footman said critically. “You had no right to leave her till she was in this state.”

“It came on very suddenly.” Hester held her tongue with difficulty. She was too tired and too distressed for Enid to have patience to argue with anyone, least of all a footman. “For heaven's sake, don't stand there, take her upstairs, and show me where I can find clean water, a nightgown for her, and plenty of towels and cloths, and a basin-in fact, two basins. Get on with it, man!”

“I'll get Dingle,” the parlormaid said hastily. And without explaining who that was, she turned on her heel and left, going back through the green baize door and leaving it swinging. Hester followed the footman up the broad, curved staircase and across the landing to the door of Enid's bedroom. She opened it for him and he went inside and laid Enid on the bed.

It was a beautiful room, full of pinks and greens, and with several Chinese paintings of flowers on the walls.

But there was no time to observe anything but the necessities, the ewer of water on the dresser, the china bowl and two towels.

“Fill it with tepid water,” Hester ordered.

“We have hot-”

“I don't want hot! I'm trying to bring her fever down, not send it up. And another bowl. Any sort will do. And please hurry up.”

With a flash of irritation at her manner, he took the ewer and left with the door ajar behind him.

He had been gone only long enough for Hester to sit on the bed beside Enid and regard her anxiously as she began to toss and turn, when the door swung wide again and a woman of about forty came in. She was plain and dowdy, and wore a gray stuff dress of rigid design, but extremely well cut to show an upright and well-shaped figure. At the present she looked in a state of considerable distress.

“I am Dingle, Lady Ravensbrook's maid,” she announced, staring not at Hester but at Enid. “What has happened to her? Is it the typhoid?” “Yes, I'm afraid so. Can you help me to undress her and make her as comfortable as possible?”

They worked together, but it was not an easy task. Enid now ached all over, her bones, her joints, even her skin was painful to the touch, and she had such a headache she could not bear to open her eyes. She seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness, suffocatingly hot one moment and shivering the next.

There was nothing to be done for her except bathe her in cool water at regular intervals to moderate the fever at least to some degree. There were moments when she was aware of them, but much of the time she was not, as if the room swayed, ballooned, and disappeared like some ghastly vision in mirrors, distorted beyond reality.

It was nearly two hours before there was a knock at the door and a small and very frightened maid, standing well back, informed Hester that his lordship was home, and would miss please attend on him in the library straightaway.

Leaving Dingle with Enid until she returned, when it would be necessary to do the first laundry, Hester followed the maid as she was bid. The library was downstairs and at the far side of the hall, around a corner. It was a quiet room, comfortably furnished, lined with oak bookcases and with a large fire burning in the hearth. It took barely a glance to notice the polished wood, the warmth, the faint smell of lavender, beeswax and leather, to know its luxury.

Milo Ravensbrook was standing by the window, but he turned the moment he heard Hester's step.

“Close the door, Miss…”

“Latterly.”

“Yes, Miss Latterly.” He waited while she did so. He was a tall man, extraordinarily handsome in a dark, highly patrician way. His was a face in which both temper and charm were equally balanced. He might be an excellent friend, entertaining, intelligent and quick to understand, but also she judged he would be an implacable enemy. “I understand you brought Lady Ravensbrook home, having observed she was taken ill,” he said, allowing it to be half a question.

“Yes, my lord.” She waited for him to continue, watching his expression to see the fear or the pity in it. It was not a mobile face. There was a stiffness in him, both of nature and of a rigid upbringing of self-mastery, extending perhaps as far back as the nursery. She had known many such men before, both in the aristocracy and in the army. They were born into families used to power and its responsibilities as much as its privileges.

They took for granted the respect and obedience of others, and expected to pay for them in the self-discipline taught from the nursery onwards, the mastery of indulgence to the softer things, either emotional or physical.

He stood to attention, like a soldier, in the warm library, surrounded by the deep color of the old wood, velvet and leather, and she could judge nothing of him at all. If he was racked by pity for his wife, he masked it in front of her. If he was wary of hiring her, or afraid of catching the illness himself, it was too well hidden for her to see.

“My footman said you are a nurse. Is that correct?” He moved his lips so very slightly it was barely discernible, but there was an inflexion in his voice when he spoke the word nurse that betrayed his feelings. Nurses were generally women of the roughest sort; very often they were drunken, dishonest, and of a physical appearance where the more lucrative occupation of prostitute was not open to them. Their duties were largely those of scrubbing, emptying slops and on occasion disposing of dressings or rolling new bandages and tending to linen. Actual care of patients lay with doctors, and most certainly all decisions, attention to wounds or giving of medicines.

Of course, since Florence Nightingale's fame in the Crimea, many people were aware that a nurse could be much more, but it was very far from the normal case. Lord Ravensbrook was obviously among the skeptics. He would not be openly offensive without provocation, but his view of her was the same as his view would have been of Mary, or any of the other East End women who helped in the pesthouse. Hester found her body stiffening and her jaws tight with anger. For all her ignorance and dirt, Mary had a compassion which was eminently worthy of his respect.

She made an effort to stand even straighter.

“Yes, I am.” She did not add “sir.” “I learned my craft in the Crimea, with Miss Nightingale. My family did not approve, which was not unexpected. They considered I should remain at home and many someone suitable. But that was not the path I wished.” She saw in his face that he was not in the slightest interested in her life or the reasons for her choice, but reluctantly he had a certain respect. The mention of the Crimea held a credit he could not deny.

“I see. Presumably you have tended fever before, other than in Limehouse?”

“Regrettably-yes.”

He raised black eyebrows, straight and level above deep set eyes.

“Regrettably? Does that not give you an advantage of experience?”

“It is not pleasant. I saw too many men die who need not have.”

His expression closed over. “I am not concerned with your political opinions, Miss -er-Latterly. My only interest is in your ability to nurse my wife, and your willingness.”

“Of course I am willing. And I have as much ability as anyone.”

“Then it remains only to discuss your remuneration.”

“I consider Lady Ravensbrook my friend,” she said icily. “I do not require remuneration.” She could regret that later. She most assuredly required funds from somewhere, but she had enormous satisfaction in denying him now.

It would be worth a little chill or hunger.

He was taken aback. She could see it in his face. He regarded her soiled and crumpled clothes, of very mediocre quality, and her weary face and straggly hair, and a minuscule flicker of amusement crossed his mouth and vanished.

“I'm obliged to you,” he accepted. “Dingle will attend to any laundry that may be necessary and prepare and bring to you whatever food you desire, but since she will be in the company of other servants, she will not enter the sickroom. I have a responsibility to do what I can to keep the fever from spreading throughout the household, and then God knows where.”

“Of course,” she said levelly, wondering how much he was thinking of himself, whether he would visit the sickroom… or not.

“We will have a cot put into the dressing room where you may rest,” he went on. “May we send to your home for any change of clothes you require? If that is not suitable, I am sure Dingle could find you something. You look not dissimilar in build.”

Remembering Dingle's scrubbed, middle-aged face and meticulously plain clothes, Hester found it not a flattering thought, but then on the other hand, she was of a surprisingly comely figure for such a dour woman, so perhaps she should not be downhearted about it.

“Thank you,” she said briefly. “I am afraid I have little available at home. I have been in Limehouse for so many days I have had no opportunity to launder.”

“Just so.” At the mention of Limehouse his face tightened, and his disapproval of Enid's participation was plain enough not to need words, not that he would have spoken them in front of her. “Then it is agreed? You will remain here as long as it is required.” It was an assumption, and as far as he was concerned, the matter was finished.

“She may need nursing all the time,” she pointed out. “Night as well as day, when the crisis comes.”

“Is that more than you can cope with, Miss-Latterly?”

She dimly heard someone's footsteps crossing the hall behind her and fading away as they went into another room.

“Yes it is,” she said decisively. “Especially since I still have some moral commitment to the hospital in Limehouse. I cannot leave Lady Callandra totally without experienced assistance.”

A flash of temper crossed his face and he drew in his breath sharply. “My wife is a great deal more important to me, Miss Latterly, than a score of paupers in the East End who will almost assuredly die anyway, if not of this, then of something else. If you require some remuneration, then please say so. It is not dishonorable to be rewarded for one's labor.”

She curbed the answer that rose to her lips, although with difficulty. She was too tired to be bothered with such trivialities of arrogance and misjudgment.

“She is also personally more important to me, my lord.” She met his eyes very levelly. “But matters of duty can exceed one's own emotional ties and certainly one's individual wishes. I imagine you believe that as thoroughly as I do? I am a nurse, and I do not abandon one patient for another, no matter what my personal feelings might be.”

A dull color flushed up his face and his eyes looked hot and angry. But she had shamed him, and they both knew it.

“Have you some friend or relative who could watch while I am absent?” she asked quietly. “I can show them what is to be done.”

He thought for a moment. “I imagine that will be possible. I will not have Dingle coming and going, spreading it through the house. But Genevieve may be willing to spend the necessary time here. She can bring her children with her, and they can be cared for by the staff. That will serve very well. It will benefit her for the time being, and she will know she is of service, and not feel obliged. She is a very proud woman.”

“Genevieve?” It did not really matter who he was referring to, but she would like to know.

“A relative,” he replied coldly. “By marriage. An agreeable young woman who is presently in a difficult circumstance. It is an excellent solution. I shall attend to it.”

And so it was that by that evening Hester was established in Ravensbrook House, with the promised cot in the dressing room, and changes of clothes from Dingle which fitted adequately.

Enid was extremely ill. Her entire body ached so se verely it was painful to the touch. She was running so high a fever she seemed unsure of where she was and did not recognize Hester even when she spoke to her gently, held a cool cloth on her brow and called her by name. She was perpetually thirsty, and so weak she could not sit up suffi ciently to drink without assistance, but she did manage to keep on her stomach the boiled water mixed with honey and salt which Hester gave her. From her face it was obvious that the taste of it was most unpleasant, but Hester knew from experience that plain water did not give the body some element it needed, and so she insisted in spite of Enid's whispered protest.

At about half past nine in the evening there was a knock on the bedroom door, and when she went to open it, she found on the threshold a woman perhaps a year or two older than herself but with a face she knew to be far prettier than her own, with a frank and earthy openness to it which she could not but like.

“Yes?” she inquired. The woman was plainly dressed, but both the cut and fabric were excellent, and the style was more flattering than any servant would be permitted. She knew before she spoke that this must be the relative Lord Ravensbrook had promised.

“I'm Genevieve Stonefield,” the woman introduced herself. “I've come to help you nurse Aunt Enid. I hear she is dreadfully ill.”

Hester opened the doors wider. “Yes, I'm afraid she is. I'm very grateful you have come, Mrs.-Stonefield, did you say?” The name was familiar, but for the moment she could not place it.

“Yes.” She came in through the door nervously, almost immediately glancing across to the big bed where Enid lay, white-faced, her hair wet and straggling over her brow. The room was lit only by the gas bracket on the farther wall, hissing gently, casting long shadows from the bedside chair and the jug on the table. “What can I do to help?” she asked. “I-I've never nursed anyone before, except my own children, and that was only for colds and chillsnothing like this. Robert once had tonsillitis, but that is hardly the same.”