‘Wild animals,’ Edwards said.
‘Won’t do her any good,’ said Hignam’s man.
‘Well, that’s a shocking thing,’ Thomson said, ‘if anything were to happen to Miss Fellowes, why my young lady wouldn’t half take on, you know, soft ‘earted.’
‘Death’s a bloody awful thing,’ said Edwards, ‘but it isn’t as easy as all that, it takes time to die. She couldn’t have been well enough to come all that way here if she was going to die this minute. Depend upon it she’s all right, or will be.’
‘Well,’ said Thomson, ‘I reckon if what he says is right it will put paid to this party, they’ll all be off ‘ome and we’ll get no thanks for it.’
Edwards remarked Miss Fellowes had been acting very extraordinary before, very extraordinary, but that did not mean anything except she had come over queer.
‘And shall I take these things?’ this strange man said.
‘Where’s a copper?’
‘Who are you talking to, young feller?’
‘Go on and get off,’ said Edwards, ‘we’ve had enough of you and now you’ve bloody well upset me with your talk. Who’d you think is going to give you his luggage, now get on, go off.’
He went and Thomson said some people did have strange ideas. Now who would imagine he would try to go through all that mob with valuable luggage, just so as Miss Julia could see it was still there, when she hadn’t even said she wanted to. But it did seem this man knew something about them and it was rotten about Miss Fellowes. If she was ill why they’d none of them start, they’d put it off as sure as anything.
Edwards said not to be too sure, she was no relation of theirs, meaning Mr Adey’s and Miss Wray’s. He’d known worse happen without his gentleman turning back.
‘Well, it wouldn’t be right, not to start like that, not with that behind you,’ said Thomson. ‘And if she did die why you’d never be the same, none of them would, not for three days at all events.’
‘And I thought you wanted your tea so bad you’d have given all this away for sixpence.’
‘Oh, that was different,’ said Thomson, meaning his Emily.
‘But then would you go, you,’ he went on, ‘if anything of that kind was to happen?’
‘No, I would not,’ said Edwards, ‘but then they’re different.’
‘It’s all the old same, excuse me,’ Thomson said, ‘death’s death, if you understand me.’
‘Let’s get this straight. No one except that loony said she was going to die, did they?’
‘Well, it’s the same if she was really bad, they’d never go.’
‘Mr Adey would.’
‘And my young lady wouldn’t.’
‘Don’t you be so sure, my lad. I fancy she’d follow him all over, or she’d like to.’
‘I won’t speak about that if you don’t mind,’ said Thomson, ‘I don’t hold with following what anyone’s after or saying this or that about them. What they do is none of my concern. No, I don’t like it,’ he said and probably did not know what he really meant. Anyway they both of them dropped it.
But this was what Claire was talking about with Evelyn. Max was in her bedroom with those two old nannies and they were standing in the corridor outside.
‘What do you think?’ Claire said to her.
‘I know,’ said Evelyn, ‘it’s very worrying isn’t it?’
‘What would you do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You see what so upsets me is when one of them in there says, and I don’t know which of the old things it was, mine or the other, did you hear it, she said “oh no, dearie, why you couldn’t go now, not with your own aunt lying there.” When she calls me dearie it makes me feel like a street woman. And that when the doctor said it was nothing, or anyway if it wasn’t nothing that it wasn’t serious. Evelyn, my dear, when anyone is as drunk as that they sleep it off, don’t they, I mean they don’t lie there unconscious and after all she has passed out now hasn’t she, that is she lies there breathing in that awful way she’s not asleep is she? I don’t know, if we could get hold of another doctor he might be able to tell us something, but then I don’t want to seem nasty and I hate to say it but supposing he said she was very bad, well then, it would not help her if we went or stayed, would it? Oh, can you tell me why that idiot Robert doesn’t do something?’
Evelyn did not reply. Claire seemed to ponder for a moment. ‘D’you think it would do any good if we tried to make her sick again?’
‘Oh, no, I shouldn’t.’
‘Well, after all, that’s what the doctor said was the matter, didn’t he? But then it’s so impossible, Evelyn darling, why I’ve known Auntie May all my life, she couldn’t be like this because of that. And I couldn’t tell my own nanny about what the doctor said about mother’s sister, could I? You do agree, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’
‘But then you see I can’t help feeling they may be right. After all, what could that doctor know about poor Auntie May, he may have just said to himself here’s another old lady who likes port too much. And we can’t get her out of here, and any minute just because Julia’s uncle or guardian is a director of the railway they may come and tell us we must go. D’you think I ought to stay, behind and perhaps come on afterwards?’
‘Well, she lives alone, doesn’t she, I mean she hasn’t got anybody.’
‘Those nannies could look after her, they’ve got absolutely nothing to do, you know, they are pensioned off, mine just lives at home, at number nine I mean and drinks tea all day. Besides she nursed me through several very serious illnesses and with all that experience and being so fond of the family she would be better than any trained nurse, they never care whether you live or die.’
‘You mean there’s no one else to look after her.’
‘No, there’s absolutely no one. There’s her maid and I don’t know why we didn’t make her come round when it first started, you remember I rang her up telling her to stay away. I can’t imagine why but of course she has fits, no, absolutely everyone else is dead and mother’s abroad as you know. It’s rather touching, that’s why she came to see us off really, it’s her only link. No, but it’s not touching actually because she goes and gets ill. Oh, Evelyn, it’s so unfair, isn’t it?’
And as she said this surprisingly she began to cry, not sobbing or that free flow out of a contorted face, but it was as though some miracle had occurred, as though tears were gently one by one rolling down graven image features which had stayed dry under cover for centuries, carved out of hard wood, so that these tears threatened to crack a polished surface it looked so unused to being wetted, only creamed.
‘Oh, my dear,’ said Evelyn, ‘you mustn’t let yourself get upset about this business and besides I think you’ve been perfectly wonderful about it all the way through, you’ve hardly left her for an instant.’
‘It’s not that,’ she said, and she spoke as though she were not crying, her tears seemed to be quite separate from her, only a phenomenon, ‘it’s that I feel the whole thing is so unfair. I do know Julia is rather counting on having me with her this trip and now that Amabel has dropped out of the sky I do deeply feel I can’t let her down.’ This was untrue. She went on and as people will when they have just lied she began to speak out genuinely for once what she did really feel. ‘What I’m so afraid of is that doctor had no idea what he was talking about, that Aunt May is very bad and that I ought to get her to hospital and I am doing nothing about it. I ought not to be here,’ she said, ‘but you know how it is, I thought it was just a faint and that she would come round and that after a bit of rest she would be able to go home. One thing you can be quite sure of is that she’s not drunk, poor darling, she probably felt it coming over her whatever it is and took something to keep it off.’ Her tears had stopped now. ‘But then you see,’ she went on, ‘there’s no way of getting her out of here though if she was really bad of course the hotel would manage it somehow you know how they are.’