No Wings to Fly (66 page)

‘It’s me, my darling,’ she said as she hurried to his side, and saw at once that he had been sick, the vomit having spilt down the front of his nightshirt. She cleaned it off and then sat on the bed and held him. He was shivering.

‘Oh, my dear, are you cold?’ she said.

He gave a little sighing groan and nestled against her, his head lolling as if he was weary. ‘My head, Lily. My head hurts so.’

‘Oh, darling . . .’ With one arm around him, she laid a hand on his forehead. He was burning up, the perspiration was damp on his brow. ‘You’ve got a fever,’ she said. She should never have taken him out to the aquarium, but he
had so wanted to go, to see the fish, and he had so enjoyed the little outing. ‘Here, my darling, get under the covers again.’ Gently she urged him down onto the mattress. ‘You must keep warm.’

She pulled the blankets up over him, and he lay back on the pillow, looking up at her, frowning. ‘My head, Lily,’ he said in a little whine, putting a hand up to his temple. ‘My head hurts.’

‘Poor old head,’ she said, and kissed his hot clammy forehead. ‘I’ll get you some more of your medicine. The doctor left a little valerian too. I’ll get you some of that.’

In the kitchen she took up the small bottle of valerian and measured three drops into a glass and added a little water. Then she picked up his medicine and a spoon. Back upstairs, she lifted him up a little from the pillow. ‘Now, dear, drink this. This will be good for that silly old headache.’ Supporting his head, she held the glass to his lips and watched as he drank down the water and drops. Then she measured out some of the medicine, and he swallowed it without protest.

‘There, now. You lie down and close your eyes, and you’ll feel better soon. Perhaps later you’d like a little milk or some hot chocolate, would you? We’ll ask Millie to go out and get you some.’

He shook his head, and his eyes filled with tears that spilt over and ran down into the damp hair at his temples. The sight tightened her throat and brought tears pricking. Perhaps she should send for the doctor again, she thought. But no, it was only the chill that had come back, and the doctor was busy with serious illnesses. He wouldn’t thank her for bringing him out when it wasn’t warranted.

‘It’s all right, my love,’ she said, controlling her voice. ‘I’ll look after you, and you’ll feel better soon.’

‘I want my mama,’ he said plaintively. ‘I want my mama.’

She nodded, catching at her breath. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know.’

A while later she brought up a little kindling and some coal and lit a fire in the small grate. Throughout her busy-ness the boy lay back in the bed, making no sound.

Come midday, he had not improved at all. If anything, she had to admit to herself, he was worse. From the feel of his brow she was sure that his temperature had risen even further, and he was complaining again of pain in the small of his back. Pulling back the bedcovers, she turned him onto his stomach, lifted his nightshirt and gently massaged his back. His body was so small under her hands. She felt totally ineffectual, and simply did not know what to do for the best. When he complained of thirst she brought him some water. She tried to persuade him to eat a little, too, and prepared for him a small bowl of bread-and-milk, adding a spoonful of sugar. He ate a little of it, then lay back on the pillow as if exhausted.

When Millie came round in the afternoon she was shocked to see him so poorly. Lily said at once, repeating her line like someone whistling in the dark, ‘It’s that nasty chill of his, that’s what it is, but he’ll be all right soon. He’ll be fine, you’ll see, and I’ll take him home again tomorrow.’

Millie went out to the shops later, and brought back with her some few things that Lily required, and then stayed a short while to talk. When she had gone, Lily went back upstairs into the bedroom.

The child was lying as she had left him thirty minutes before, his eyes heavy-lidded, half-closed, a dull expression on his face. She moved to his side and bent over him.

‘How are you, my dear?’

He did not answer, but just looked up at her. His lips were slightly apart as he lay breathing through his mouth.
Then, as she looked at him, he gave a little cry and tried to raise himself on the pillow.

‘What is it –? Oh, my darling –’ She bent lower to help him, and put her arm around his shoulders as he struggled to sit up. His eyes were screwed tight-shut and his mouth was suddenly contorted, lips drawn back over his teeth. He gave a heave, and vomited a dark bile over her hand and the white sheet. Then, with a little sighing groan, he sank back against her supporting arm.

A new wave of panic rose in her, engulfing her. She lowered him back onto the mattress. He was shivering now, his body caught in a sudden rigor, and when he opened his mouth she heard his teeth begin to chatter. The faint sound, brief and small, was terrifying in the silence.
Oh, dear God, what is it? What is wrong?
‘Mama,’ he said in a small voice. ‘Mama.’

‘Soon,’ she said. She was trembling now in her fear. ‘Soon. I’ll take you to your mama soon. I promise.’ This was nothing to do with a chill, she thought. She must send for the doctor again without delay.

‘Lie down and rest a minute, my darling,’ she murmured. ‘I must leave you for a second, but I’ll be right back. I must just run next door and see Millie.’ She was straightening, stepping away. ‘I’ll be right back, my love.’

She hurried down the stairs and a moment later was knocking on the door of Mrs Tanner’s house. Millie opened it, and Lily said to her at once, ‘Oh, Millie, I’ve only got a second. I’ve come to ask if you could please run for the doctor. Joshua’s condition is so much worse.’

‘I’ll get my hat and coat and go at once,’ the girl said. ‘You go on back to him, miss. I’ll call in and see you later.’

Lily went back indoors. The vomit was still on her sleeve, and she took a damp cloth and dabbed it off as best she could. A glance at her watch told her it was almost seven o’clock. She was aware of an empty feeling in her stomach,
and realised that she had not eaten all day. It did not matter; she would get something later.

Upstairs, she bent beside the bed. She saw now, with relief, that he was sleeping. Through his open mouth his breath came a little harsh, a little rapid. He had pushed the bedcovers low on his body, exposing the vomit stain on the yoke of his nightshirt. She had no other shirt for him to change into. Gently she pulled up the bedclothes, and under their light movement he shifted and sighed. ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered to him. It was her answer to everything. ‘It’s all right.’

Millie came knocking at the door a while later. She had come straight from the doctor’s house. He was out on a visit to a patient when she had called, she said, but she had left a message with his wife, asking that he come as soon as possible.

‘Did his wife say when he would be back?’ Lily asked.

‘No, she didn’t. She said he had several calls to make, and it might be some time.’

When Millie had gone again, Lily went back upstairs. The boy was awake again now, his eyes half open as he looked off into the shadowed corners of the room. The fire was burning low in the grate, and Lily decided to take him down into the kitchen. She could keep him warmer there, she thought, and it would be easier to keep an eye on him.

‘Come, Joshie, I’m taking you downstairs,’ she said. ‘You’ll be just as comfortable there, and I can look after you better.’ Pulling back the bedclothes she lifted him up in her arms, where he sagged heavily against her. With his head on her shoulder she carried him from the room and down the stairs. In the warm kitchen she laid him on the sofa, and he settled back with a pillow under his head and the blankets over him. Bunny lay at his side. After making sure that enough water had been brought in from the well, and
that there was enough fuel for the stove, Lily pulled the old grandfather chair nearer to the kitchen table and, in the light of the oil lamp and a candle, settled down to wait for the doctor.

Her watch, which she had placed on the table, ticked away the minutes, and eventually the hours. And still the doctor did not come.

Every so often she got up from her seat and moved to the sofa where the boy lay. He was asleep again now, but his mouth hung open as he breathed harshly into the quiet. In the soft light she could see how the perspiration flattened his curls to his head, and she watched him screw up his eyelids, and twitch agitatedly as if he was disturbed in his sleep. On the fabric of the blanket his little fingers drummed, and he clutched at the rough material as if in fear.

When the watch showed eleven o’clock she knew that the doctor would not come that night. From the bedroom she brought down another blanket, then she banked up the fire. The boy had not wakened and, although he should have taken his medicine, she would not disturb him. She lit a nightlight which she placed in a saucer, and it cast a pale light in the room. She drew her chair closer to the sofa, and leant back in it, and closed her eyes.

She got little sleep, and when it came it was in brief periods. For most of the time she lay awake, watching and listening. The child, lying so close on the sofa, was restless all night long, frequently waking, murmuring unintelligible words in his fitful sleep, or crying out as he awoke, calling for his mother. Through the long hours Lily did what she could do soothe him, to comfort him. He vomited again in the early hours, and she wiped off the vomit from his nightshirt and held him in her arms. Later she bathed his hot, damp brow with a flannel wrung out in cold water, and gave him sips
of water and valerian for the aches in his head and back. Nothing seemed to help him, though.

The cold daylight of Sunday morning lit up the comfortless surroundings and found her sitting in the chair weary and red-eyed through lack of sleep. On the sofa the boy lay on his back, breathing through his mouth, the perspiration drenching his brow and matting his hair. His eyes were closed, but she doubted that he was asleep. The doctor must come soon, she said to herself.

Doctor Trinshaw arrived just after eleven, his sharp rap with the iron knocker heavy on the thin door, and ringing through the narrow hall. Lily, who had been waiting for that very sound, rose from her seat and hurried along the passage. As she opened the door to him he stepped through without hesitation, one hand taking off his hat. He was sorry he had not been able to come the night before, he said, but he had been so busy with his other patients.

She closed the front door behind him and followed him into the kitchen.

‘So, how is he?’ he said as he put his bag and hat down on the table and took off his coat. ‘The girl you sent left the message that he was not improving.’

No, he was not, Lily said, and told how the child had vomited more than once, and that he was perspiring constantly and complaining of aches in his head and his back. He had a fever, and at times he was shivering. ‘I thought it was his chill come back,’ she said, ‘but then I thought it might be the flu.’

The doctor hitched up his trousers at the knees and lowered himself onto the rug before the sofa. He smiled at the boy and spoke softly to him. ‘How are you, my little fellow? Not so well today, I understand. Oh, dear, that’s not good to hear, is it? We shall have to do something about that, shan’t we?’

He took his watch from his waistcoat pocket, opened it
and placed it on the sofa seat. Then he held the child’s wrist in his practised fingers and took his pulse. He nodded slightly as he made his count, and then patted the boy’s hand and laid it back on his small form. Opening his bag, the doctor took out the case holding his thermometer, shook the instrument vigorously then said, ‘Open your mouth, my little man, will you? This won’t hurt.’ And the boy opened his mouth and the thermometer was slipped under his tongue. When the doctor removed it shortly afterwards he looked at it and gave a grave nod. ‘It’s a hundred and three degrees,’ he said, ‘and his pulse is very rapid.’ He turned and smiled at the boy, and pulled the blanket up around his shoulders. ‘Good boy,’ he said. ‘That’s a very good boy.’

He gently patted Joshua on the head and rose a little stiffly to his feet again. He stood looking down at the child, then moved to the table, pulled out one of the hard-back chairs and sat down. He gestured to another chair at the table and said to Lily, ‘Sit down. Sit down a moment.’

She did so, clasping her hands before her.

‘You’re the boy’s nurse, you say. Isn’t that what you told me?’

‘Yes. Well – yes. In a manner of speaking.’

He was frowning. ‘Where are his parents now?’

‘In Scotland. Edinburgh.’

‘Yes, so you said. Do they know their son is ill?’

She felt her heart give a little lurch at his words. ‘No, sir, they don’t, but I was hoping to take him back to his home tomorrow – in Happerfell.’

He put an elbow on the table and put his fingers to his chin, his eyes downcast. His brow was deeply furrowed. ‘You were right to call me out again,’ he said. ‘I’m not easy about this. I’m not easy about this at all. You say he’s been shivering, and has had a fever, and is perspiring.’

‘Yes.’

‘With bad headaches and aches in his back?’

‘Yes.’

‘The small of his back?’

‘Yes. I gave him a little valerian.’

‘What about a thirst? Does he have a thirst?’

‘Oh, yes, indeed.’

‘Constipation. Is he constipated?’

‘Yes, he seems to be.’

The doctor nodded, his frown constant, his mouth a grim line.

She felt that the answers she had given to his questions were making up for him a picture, one that he recognised only too well. ‘Is it not his chill that has just got worse?’ she said. ‘Or perhaps – the flu?’

‘No, it’s not the flu. It’s not the chill either – though it
was
a chill that he had. I’ve no doubt about that.’ He turned and looked over at the child where he lay under the blankets. ‘It’s not a chill now, I’m afraid.’ He looked back at Lily, his gaze fixed upon her. Then he said, ‘Say – going back ten days or a fortnight ago – was the child taken anywhere where he might have been – exposed to anything?’

‘He hasn’t been anywhere,’ Lily said. ‘Up until a week ago he was still at his home, in Happerfell. Till last Sunday. We came here then on that day. We came straight here.’