The Victory (78 page)

*

The second meeting was not like the first. The hall was
crowded, and the faces looking up were not bored, or belliger
ent, but worried, even frightened. Their sins had come home
to them: one of the horsemen of the apocalypse had got loose,
and was galloping down on them, and they were eager now to
listen, wanting only to know what to do to propitiate him.

Mary Ann sat on the platform, lending her presence and
authority, but she could not concentrate on what was being
said. She felt flushed and strange, her heart-beat seemed
erratic, beating now too close and too loudly, thundering in
her ears, now too far off and faint, fluttering away from her
so that she felt weak and dizzy. Her eyes strayed again and
again to Father Rathbone's dark, vivid face as he harangued
the assembly. Why had he done it? What had he meant by it?
Why had she responded to him as she had? And, most of all,
how far had they been accomplices in the crime? Had she
really believed, as she had told herself all along, that he was a
priest and therefore not a man? Or had she followed him into
battle not as a soldier, but a camp-follower?
Her thoughts tumbled about chaotically, and the serried
faces below her seemed very clear and far off, as though seen
through a perspective-glass. It was so hot, she thought, and
she was so thirsty. She put her hands up to her cheeks and
they felt burning hot — or was it that her hands were cold? She thought longingly of her bed. If only the meeting were
over. Why did they have to go on talking and talking?
Her wish was answered. There was a disturbance at the
back of the hall, and the latest speaker faltered and then
stopped as heads began inexorably to turn; and then with a
sense of foreknowledge Mary Ann saw Simon, her father's
elderly manservant, advancing down the central aisle as fast
as his bowed legs would carry him, with Dakers, whom he
must have collected on his way in, scurrying behind him.

Mary Ann's legs got her to her feet without her knowledge,
and carried her to the steps and down from the platform.
Simon reached her first, turned his white-whiskered face up
to her and cried, ‘Missus, you're to come at once! Master's
sent me wi' coach for you. It's the little lad, missus — he's not
well.’

She met Dakers's eyes across his shoulder, heard her own
voice ask, 'What is it? Has the physician been sent for?' Simon's face wrinkled with vicarious pain. He's been ailing
all day, but now he's fluxin' and wraxin' something cruel,
missus. We sent for Doctor Foley. He should be there by now.'
Dakers's expression was unfathomable. 'You'd best come,
madam,' were her words, but Mary Ann felt as seared by
them as if she had said, 'It's a judgement on you.' She flung a
look backwards towards Father Rathbone, and hurried
behind the servants past the staring, whispering multitude
and out of the hall.

Outside the coach was waiting at the foot of the steps, and
Simon hobbled ahead to open the door and let down the
steps, and it was only when she faltered at the foot of them, as
though they were a steep hillside, that Dakers said in a voice
that mingled forgiveness and concern, 'Are you all right,
madam? You look so flushed and strange.'

‘
Yes, yes,' she muttered, climbing in with a great effort.
‘Only tired. Hurry! I must get to him.' There were many
things it could be. Children often had these little ailments. He
may have eaten something that disagreed with him. In this
hot weather, food turned more quickly, and the cook may
have given him something not quite right. Her mind offered
her these facile comforts, but the dark, atavistic instinct of
motherhood gripped her with sharp claws of dread.

The door was shut, the coach lurched forward, and she
sank back against the cushions and closed her eyes in exhaus
tion, and her head swam sickeningly. She hadn't realised she
was so tired. She could hear Dakers's voice talking to her, but
it was too far away for her to understand what she was
saying.

‘
It's all right, it's just fatigue,' she said, and her voice was
as small and clear as an ice crystal, and made no sound at all.
She turned to look at Father Rathbone, and he smiled and
brushed the beech leaves from her hair. They were in a boat,
floating down a river in the bright sunshine, and she knew
that a great deal of that didn't make any sense, but the float
ing sensation was so pleasant she didn't care.

‘
It will take us all the way to the sea,' he said. There were
ladies in white muslin dresses and white parasols strolling
along the bank, who waved to them as they drifted past.

 
There were lights shining out from the windows of Hobsbawn
House, and strange horses in the courtyard. Simon and
Dakers between them half-dragged, half-carried Mary Ann
into the hall. All the servants were there, the butler and
footman whispering together, the maids weeping, and the
cook wringing her hands and moaning.

They all surged towards Dakers. The footman, John, took
her place to support the mistress, while the maids cried out
like disturbed birds.

‘
Oh, Mrs Dakers, what's come of the mistress? Is she sick
too?'

‘Our little lad is so sick! Doctor's with him now.'

‘
Is it the plague? Do you think it's the plague? Lord save
us!'

‘
It is, I know it is!' the cook wailed abandonedly. 'We shall
all catch it now! We're all going to die!'

‘
Nobody's going to die,' Dakers said sharply, cutting across
the clamour, 'but plenty of people are going to get smacked
heads if they don't stop their noise and look to their duties.' A
quick glance had told her that the butler, pale and shaking,
was not going to take charge of the situation, and the mistress
was already beyond giving orders. 'Hannah, run up ahead
and turn down my mistress's bed, and you, Becky, go with
cook and fill hot water bottles and bring them up. Now John,
Simon, take her upstairs, gently now! Mr Bowles, where is the master?'

‘He's with the doctor, and the little boy,' the butler replied
quaveringly. 'Eh, he's so sick, poor little mite! I don't know
what's coming to us! I never saw such carryings-on in all my
days. It's a judgement on us, that's what it is!'

‘
Never mind that now, Mr Bowles. Just run upstairs and
tell the doctor the mistress is sick, and he must come and see
her at once.’

Between them, she and Hannah got Mary Ann undressed
and into bed. The mistress's face was pinched and wan, and
her eyes seemed sunken, their orbits darkened. As soon as
they had got her into bed, nausea overcame her, and Dakers
had to hold the bedroom basin while she vomited. Dakers had no doubt what the sickness was, and when she turned to hand Hannah the clothes she had taken off Mary Ann, she saw that
Hannah had no doubts either. The woman shrank back wide-eyed from the clothing, putting her hands behind her defens
ively, and said in a whisper, 'It's the plague! She brought it
home with her! Now we shall all catch it. Oh, dear God!’

Dakers advanced on her fiercely. 'Shut your mouth! And
take these clothes away!'

‘
I dursn't! I dursn't! Nay, Missus Dakers, I dursn't come
near you! You've been with them sick folk all day.’

Dakers's mouth turned down bitterly. 'Then get out of
here!' she snapped. 'I'll tend her myself, you ignorant,
ungrateful slut!’

Hannah turned and ran, collided with the doctor in the
doorway, recoiled from him, and scuttered away down the
passage, batting off the walls like a panicking bird.

Mr Hobsbawn came in hard on the doctor's heels. His
fleshy, high-coloured face seemed to have been stretched flat
and drained of colour. His eyes met Dakers's, but he had
nothing to say. Horror had taken his voice away.

The doctor came quickly to the bedside and reached for
Mary Ann's wrist, laying his other hand on her forehead. Her
eyes opened and stared at him. 'Doctor Foley?' she whispered.

‘How do you feel?' he asked her.

‘
Thirsty. So thirsty,' she whispered, and the tip of a dry
tongue came out in a vain attempt to moisten her lips. Water.'

‘
I'll get it,' Mr Hobsbawn said, his voice cracking with
anxiety, and he stumbled round the bed to the table where
the bedroom jug stood, and filled a glass. Dakers took it from
him and supported Mary Ann's head while she drank. Mary
Ann looked at her father across the rim, and love and sympa
thy passed between them.

‘I'm sorry, Papa,' she whispered.

‘
Eh, love,' he said miserably. 'You'll be better soon. You're
just tired.'

‘Yes. Just tired,' she said. A spasm racked her, and she
turned pleadingly to Dakers and the doctor, her eyes suddenly
wide with urgency.

‘
You'll have to go out for a minute or two, Mr Hobsbawn,' the doctor said calmly. 'Quickly, please,' he added, as the old
man hesitated. Dakers abandoned etiquette and took his arm
and hustled him to the door, propelled him gently out into the
passage, and closed it behind him. He turned outside and
stood facing the door, his head a little tilted, his large, work-
hardened hands hanging useless by his side. After a while, Bowles appeared beside him, and they watched the door in
numb silence, like two old dogs shut out from the fire.

It was a long time before the doctor came out. Beyond him
they could see Dakers by the bedside, a black shape cut out from the nimbus-light of the candles. Already the room had
the smell of sickness about it. The doctor halted before them, and they looked at him with pathetic hope, wanting a miracle,
wanting him to tell them it was not what they knew it was.
Their dependence irritated him.

‘
Well, it's the plague all right,' he said sharply. 'She and
the boy must be isolated, and you had better send the
servants away. Mrs Dakers is willing to do the nursing. You
had better go away yourself. The fewer people who are
exposed to this thing the better.'

‘
Go away?' Mr Hobsbawn cried, as if that were the only
part he had understood.

‘It's very infectious,' Doctor Foley said irritably. 'Can't you understand that?'

‘
Aye, I understand all right,' Mr Hobsbawn said, his voice
regaining some of its normal boom. 'All them as wants to can
go, but nothing will take me from my daughter's side or my
little grandson's. What sort of a man you take me for?'