‘Get a pillow and blanket from the bed,’ I said to Abigail. ‘And a handkerchief for her.’ Abigail shook her head.
‘It’s Mirren’s room,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to move her things.’
‘Get a blanket!’ I shouted at her. ‘Mirren is dead and your mother is alive. Help her.’ Abigail stumbled to her feet and dragged the coverlet off the bed, dropping it on top of Mary. I tucked it in around her, my heart sinking to feel the leaden slump of her body on the hard floor. Her breathing was growing laboured and once or twice there came a choking sound from her throat. I remembered a snippet of my training from the early months of volunteer work when it was thought that I might make a nurse one day, and steadying her with my knee I hauled her onto her side and bent one of her legs up in front of her. It was like moving a sack of grain, like setting sandbags in place.
‘Pillows!’ I said to Abigail and as she threw them down to me I used them to prop Mary, front and back, until she was balanced and I could take my knee away.
Again I wiped her mouth and then for a moment just watched her and listened. Abigail went over to a chest of drawers and opened the top one. She gazed into it and put her hand to her mouth, shaking her head, then she rummaged inside her own sleeve, drew out a handkerchief and came back to kneel beside her mother, holding it out to me. I stared at her and she bowed her head and began dabbing at her mother’s mouth herself. Her cheek was still glowing and was beginning to swell.
Mary’s breathing was worse than ever and so I set to and began unfastening the scores of tiny hooks and eyes holding shut her bodice down her back. By the time I had them undone and had loosened the stays she wore underneath them, there were two servant girls in the room and I could see Trusslove and Alec hovering outside.
‘I’ve rung for help, Mrs Gilver,’ Trusslove called in to me. ‘Oh, my poor mistress. Is she holding on?’
I took Mary’s wrist and found her pulse, slow and sluggish, but steady enough. I looked at my wristwatch, but truth be told I had never known what it was one was supposed to tell from a pulse and watch together and so I just sat there feeling the steady beat, trying to tell if it were slowing, weakening or growing perhaps just a little bit stronger.
‘She’s still with us, Mr Trusslove,’ I said. ‘How far away is the doctor?’
‘It’s the ambulance men I’ve sent for,’ he said.
‘Not the fever wagon,’ said Abby, turning terrified eyes on him. ‘She’s not going to that place.’
‘No, no, the St Andrew’s men,’ said Trusslove. ‘The volunteers, Miss Abby. They’ll take her to the cottage hospital.’
‘And where is it?’ I asked.
‘Not even a mile,’ said one of the servant girls.
‘And is someone downstairs at the front door to tell the men where to come?’ I said. ‘Alec?’ But he was already gone.
Abigail was shivering now, rocking back and forwards and hugging herself and it was then that Bunty came into the room. She whined at me, gave Mary a long hard stare and then shuffled up beside Abigail again. Abby put one arm round her neck.
‘She’s warm,’ she said to me in a voice reduced to a croak from her yelling.
I frowned and felt Mary’s head. It was clammy, if anything.
‘The dog,’ Abigail said.
I reached over and put my hand on one of hers, feeling the icy chill of deep shock.
‘Hug her,’ I said. ‘She’ll warm you up. And you, girl?’ I looked at one of the servants. ‘Get a blanket for Mrs Jack, please. And a cup of tea if there’s a kettle hot. Plenty of sugar.’
‘Very good, madam,’ said one of the girls and they scattered.
‘What happened?’ I said to Abigail once they had gone. She was hanging onto Bunty’s neck like a drowning woman and Bunty was shifting a little, paddling her front paws in mild protest at being squeezed so. I clicked my tongue to placate her.
‘If she dies, I will have-’
‘Never mind that,’ I said, thinking that never was there such a family for claiming to have killed their loved ones. ‘She slapped you, didn’t she? Because of what you told her?’
Abigail put one hand up to her cheek and stroked it.
‘And pulled my hair too,’ she said. ‘Pulled me round the room by my hair, just as she used to do last time. When she wasn’t herself, before.’
Mary groaned, a dreadful aching sound, and shifted her body, hauling her shoulder over so that she could look up at us from one half-open eye.
‘Ssh,’ I said to her. ‘Shush now, Mrs Aitken. Rest. Lie still.’ I took one of her hands and held it. I flashed a look at Abigail and mouthed shushing her too. If Mary Aitken were conscious, and it seemed she was, we must not say anything to cause her further suffering as she lay there.
‘Where’s Bella?’ I said. ‘Has someone been to her?’
‘Out,’ said Abigail. ‘She went to thank the staff for everything. The last week, you know, and the police questions. She said they should be rewarded for their conduct. A little something in their pay-packets. It’s pay-day today.’
‘And Jack?’ I said. In truth, I had no interest in his whereabouts, but talking had calmed Abigail down and so I thought I should encourage more.
‘Out too,’ said Trusslove, reappearing in the hallway. ‘He went off in one of the cars after he spoke to you. Ah, here’s some hot tea for you, Miss Abby. This’ll help you.’
As the servant girl aided Abigail up onto her feet and took her to sit on the dressing chair, sounds came to us of the front door far below, quick footsteps on the stairway and then two St Andrew’s ambulance men were in the room in their blessed smart dark uniforms, looking mercifully calm and competent as they eased me out of the way. They lifted Mary effortlessly onto a stretcher, one tucking a red blanket around her and one measuring her pulse against his fob watch, then the first deftly removing her shoes, chafing her feet and talking all the while to her in a bright, kindly voice.
‘Right then,’ said the other, putting his fob away. ‘Who laid her down then and loosened her dress?’
‘That was me,’ I said, hunching a little in case he were about to scold me.
‘Well, there’s a good sensible girl,’ he said. ‘Well done. Are you coming in the ambulance with us or following on?’ He was looking at me, but I turned to Abigail. Unbelievably she was sipping at her cup of tea, staring straight ahead.
‘Mrs Jack?’ I said. ‘Abby? Are you going with your mother or would you rather the chauffeur drove you?’
‘Both cars are out, madam,’ said Trusslove.
‘Not in the ambulance,’ said Abigail, shrinking into the back of her chair. ‘What if she dies?’
‘Alone?’ I said.
The St Andrew’s men had Mary out of the room and halfway down the first flight of stairs, not waiting on our decisions.
‘I couldn’t,’ said Abigail.
‘You go, Dan,’ said Alec. ‘I’ll bring Mrs Jack along.’
I had never been terribly keen on hospitals even before the war years when day after day I willed myself to drive over to that godforsaken officers’ convalescent home for another seven hours of severed limbs, oozing stitches and shot nerves, but I sent up prayers of thankfulness when the ambulance stilled its siren and drew up beside the large double doors of the emergency entrance at the Dunfermline Cottage Hospital, not least because the name was a misnomer if ever there were one; the hospital was as grand and imposing as every other of Dunfermline’s many public buildings and it was a great comfort to be arriving there. Running like an automaton in Mirren’s bedroom, I had without thinking done the right things and had perhaps helped a little, even if I could wish to have been less harsh to poor Abigail about the blanket and pillows, but crouched in the ambulance all competence deserted me and I turned fluttery and tearful, dreading that indeed Mary Aitken would die as we swung around the roads at top speed, for she had sunk into a deep torpor and the ambulance man who sat beside her was frowning hard and had stopped all his kindly banter.