‘Aunt Bella, please,’ said Abigail. ‘Please don’t blame Mirren. Mother and I were quarrelling. She was very upset and I did nothing to help calm her. If anything I made it worse. Don’t heap this on my poor child.’
So intent were they on jockeying for blame – and it struck me, and Alec too to judge from his expression, as a most peculiar way to be carrying on – that they did not notice the approach of a white-coated doctor who strode up to our little group with his stethoscope still attached to one ear and his spectacles pulled far down on his long nose so that he could look at us over the top of them.
‘Are you with Mrs Aitken?’ he said. Bella turned. ‘Ah, Mrs John!’
‘Dr Spencer!’ she said. ‘How is she? Please don’t tell me she’s gone.’
‘She’s resting,’ said Dr Spencer, with a slight frown (at the histrionics, I assumed; I suppose it is not the done thing to mention death so gratuitously to a doctor, who spends his days pitted against it). ‘We’ll ring Dr Hill to come in and see her now, but you did the right thing sending her to us without delay.’
‘Can I see her?’ said Abigail.
‘Certainly, Mrs Jack,’ said Dr Spencer. ‘If you would care to sit with her and hold her hand and talk gently.’
‘I need to apologise for something,’ said Abigail and the tears were beginning to flow again. ‘I must speak to her. In case it’s my only chance, you see.’
Dr Spencer frowned again. ‘She’s not to be upset though,’ he said. ‘And perhaps – after your recent… perhaps it would be better if Mrs John here were to step in. She will forgive me for saying it but she has lived longer than you and learned how to weather life’s storms.’ He gave Bella a tight smile.
‘It’s my mother,’ said Abigail. ‘I must go to her.’
‘A brief visit,’ said the doctor. ‘A quiet word.’ With some reluctance he tucked her arm under his and led her away.
‘Weather life’s storms!’ said Bella Aitken when they had gone. ‘I’m not so sure about that. It was ten years ago when my boys died. Three months apart, separate campaigns, separate battles, but three months apart. I couldn’t have faced a deathbed the next week, my own mother or no. Sickbed, I mean. Oh Lord, sickbed, let’s pray.’ Then with that utter lack of self-consciousness that had been behind the carpet slippers, the pinned curls and the mismatched stockings, she slid her back down the wall until she was resting on her haunches.
At least this indecorous display had the result that the volunteer summoned a porter who brought a chair and Bella sat down, unclasped the large black handbag which swung from one elbow and drew out a commodious flask, battered silver in a leather case. The porter looked back and scowled at the sound of the stopper popping out but did not come back to remonstrate with her. Bella took a long swig, wiped her lips and offered the flask to me.
I took it. It was whisky, but still I took it, helped myself to a good mouthful, and handed it to Alec. He took a goodly glug too and returned it to its owner. One final swig and Bella stowed the thing back in her bag again.
Then we all three turned at the sound of heels clopping briskly along one of the corridors which led off this foyer. A little nurse, even younger than the first and with her sleeves buttoned to the wrist – perhaps for this trip to front of house – came up and spoke diffidently.
‘Doctor sent me,’ she said. ‘Mrs Aitken is very distressed, trying to ask for someone, and Mrs Aitken wants Mrs Aitken,’ she stumbled a little now, ‘to come and calm her.’
‘Poor Mary,’ said Bella. She rose and followed the nurse.
‘Sit down, Dandy,’ said Alec and I was thankful to take the empty chair.
‘Poor Mary indeed,’ I said.
‘And what measure of guilt do you think you and I must bear for this?’
‘Oh, don’t you start!’ I said. ‘I won’t have this hysterical clamouring for responsibility.’
‘But we encouraged Abigail to tell Mirren’s secret to Mary. And we hinted to Mary that there was a secret to tell and sent her haring off to hear it.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Alec, you know I thought I was very clever and I worked out what the secret was?’ Alec nodded. ‘Well, can you believe that kind of news would have caused a collapse like Mary’s? And can you understand why the news would have caused her to strike Abigail? Strike her hard too. Her cheek is still flaming.’
‘It does seem a little odd,’ Alec said.
‘But we can hardly ask Abigail now, can we? I hope Mary can talk once she’s feeling better. We might have more luck with her.’
‘This case is changing you,’ Alec said, staring at me. ‘I thought as much this morning when you were talking to Jack. You sound as tough as buffalo hide.’
‘I don’t like all these secrets,’ I said. ‘Everyone playing games with everyone else, no one telling the whole plain truth. I have no patience with it. Do you realise, Alec, that silly little Lady Lawson is the only individual we have met in this case who wasn’t trying to hide something from us? And that was only after she was trying to hide and gave up because she was failing. If you ask me, despite all the talk of “our poor Mirren” and “our darling girl” half the time they’ve all forgotten what started the trouble. I should like to go around with a great big photograph of her pretty face and shove it at them when they start their games again.’
Alec had let me get all of this off my chest, bless him (perhaps he even delivered the opening insult to get me started), but now, hearing footsteps again, he shushed me, pressing downwards with a flattened hand. It was the little nurse again.
‘News?’ he asked her.
‘She’s trying to make herself understood,’ the nurse answered. ‘She’s not talking and she’s a bit woozy from some medicine she’s had, but she kept doing this.’ The nurse put her hand out as if to measure a short distance from the floor. ‘We thought she wanted to see a child – thought her mind had gone, because of course we know about poor Miss Aitken dying like that last week – and Mrs Aitken was saying who do you mean, Mother, and Sister said she might mean you, dear, if she’s wandered, she might be asking for her own little girl and not know you all grown up as you are. And that started young Mrs Aitken crying like anything and then the patient shook her head and went like this.’ The nurse put her hand down again but this time she moved it with a stroking motion. ‘And the other Mrs Aitken was saying, a dog, Mary? A cat? What do you mean? And the patient got all excited and nodding her head and then young Mrs Aitken said maybe she means Mrs Gilver – because of the dog – and the patient said yes, yes – nodding – and so Doctor has sent me to fetch you.’
‘Well, for heaven’s sake, after all that, let’s hurry,’ I said and set off.
The nurse sped up, overtook me and led us through a bewildering maze of corridors at top speed.
‘Where is Bunty, by the way?’ I asked Alec, as we followed her.
‘No idea,’ Alec said. ‘I left her in that bedroom. I expect the servants will take care of her.’
At last we stopped at one of the sets of enormous wood and glass doors which we had been rushing past and the nurse opened one side and ushered us through. ‘Quietly now,’ she said. ‘Last cubicle on the end there. On the left. Doctor’s in there.’
We moved as silently as we could along the broad corridor, past drawn curtains on either side. In here the bleach, disinfectant and soap were joined by the other hospital smell, the worst of all, illness and exhaustion and the unmistakable trace of death, nearby and waiting. At the end, I cleared my throat and drew the curtain open a little way.
Mary was lying propped up on a high, narrow bed looking almost as white as the snowy pillowcase behind her head. Her hair was undone into a plait and it lay along one shoulder. Her face, which had looked melted in Mirren’s bedroom, had set in some intangible kind of way, but it had set with that downwards drag to it and even now Abigail dabbed at her mouth with a swab of cotton. Bella, still swallowing, was just clasping her bag shut again. Dr Spencer stood at the end of the bed, writing on a piece of paper clipped to a stiff board. He turned, unsmiling, towards us.