Lady of Fortune (45 page)

‘But the treatments!'

‘The treatments!' said Prudence, scornfully. ‘Do you really believe they work? Well, do you? Wax's Sulfuretted Salts!
It's all nonsense. And all this talk of the tumour devouring itself. Either he's lying to make me feel better, or he's a witchdoctor.'

‘There's morphine.'

‘Yes,' said Prudence, more soberly. There's certainly morphine. A little something to ease the pain while I slowly waste away to nothing. I have three months, Effie, that's all. Twelve weeks of increasing agony. All I can hope for is that you'll decide to stay here and look after me.'

Effie touched Prudence's cheek. ‘Prudence, you know that I will.'

‘And Alisdair, you'll look after him?'

‘I promise.'

Prudence coughed two or three times, and then rested back on her pillow. ‘I had a terrible feeling that this would happen. Don't ask me why. I suppose you could call it an omen. But, somehow, I always knew that I would never see Alisdair grow up. I always believed that he would be an orphan.'

‘Prudence,' said Effie, ‘you're not going to die. We're going to do everything we can to make you well again.'

Prudence shook her head. ‘I suppose you're feeling guilty about insisting that Dr Henderson told me what was wrong with me in front of my face. Well, don't feel guilty, my love, because at least I know now why I'm suffering, and at least I know now how many months I've got left. I can't tell you how terrible it was to wake up in the middle of the night with that pain in my stomach, and feel that the whole world was coming to an end.'

Effie squeezed Prudence's hand tight, and kissed her. ‘How can you ever forgive us?' she asked.

‘You don't really want forgiveness, do you?'

Effie said, ‘I want you to know that I love you like a sister. I want you to know that I did my best to protect you.'

Prudence sipped some water from the King Edward VII Coronation mug beside her bed. Then she took Effie's hand again, and said, ‘If you're going to survive, Effie, you're going to have to find much more strength. Robert is far more powerful than you realise. You always think of him as your older brother, a little bit irascible, a little bit hard, but friendly and brotherly and good. Well, I can tell you from experience that he isn't good and he isn't brotherly, and he doesn't have any
friends at all. He's the most selfish, weak, bitter, brutal man I've ever come across. If I don't do exactly what he tells me, he hits me. He hit me two nights ago, when I was so sick that I could hardly get out of bed. He hit me when we went to the Highland Games at Braemar. He actually took me into the marquee that was reserved for special guests, and punched me in the ribs, because he caught me talking to Lord Lochalsh. I don't know what drives him, Effie. All he seems to care about is money, and influence; although he cares for Alisdair deeply. I know that. He spends all his spare time with Alisdair, teaching him about history, and ships, and all the Scottish battles. He bought Alisdair a sled when you were away in Germany, and spent a whole afternoon on the slopes of Princes Street Gardens, teaching him how to use it.'

Effie said, ‘I was going to leave Edinburgh, in a week or two.'

‘I guessed that,' said Prudence. ‘I didn't want to interfere. But now it seems that I
have
interfered, because of my weakness. Well, because of what's wrong with me. I'm sorry.'

‘It's not your fault,' said Effie. ‘I'll stay with you, Prudence, for as long as you need me. You know that.'

Prudence raised Effie's hand to her lips, and kissed it. ‘I love you, Effie. I don't know what I would have done without you.'

‘Just rest yourself,' said Effie. ‘I'll go and talk to the doctor now, and see what we can do to comfort your pain. And remember, too, that you mustn't give up hope. A tumour in your stomach isn't the end of the world. If medicine doesn't heal it up, we'll talk to Mr McLeish, and he's one of the best consultants in Edinburgh. He took all the veins out of father's legs, and eased his suffering no end.'

Prudence lay back on her pillow. Somewhere in the house, very distantly, someone had opened a musical-box, and it was playing
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
. Prudence, in a quiet quavery voice, began to sing, ‘La-la-la, la-la-la, la-la la-la la la-la …'

Effie sat and watched her, her mind tumbling over with thoughts of Germany, with fragments of memory so sweet and so impossible that they brought her close to crying.
Werd ich zum Augenblicke sagen, verweile doch; du bist so schön
.

If I could only say to that moment, wait!
Wait
! You are so beautiful.

Throughout the spring of 1912, Prudence grew thinner and yellower, almost amber, as if she were suntanned, until in April, when the skies above Edinburgh were clear and bright, she lost her sight through malnutrition, and the bone of her left elbow broke through her papery, undernourished skin. The tumour that filled her stomach made it impossible for her to eat, and it was as much as she could do to drink water without being sick. Effie sat by her bedside night after night, watching her; but now she scarcely stirred, blind and mostly comatose, and it was plain that she was close to death.

On 16 April 1912, a Tuesday, Russell the chauffeur came into Prudence's bedroom and whispered into Effie's ear that the
Titanic
had been sunk by an ice-berg on her maiden voyage. The London papers were confident that all her passengers had been safely transferred to other vessels, but the ship herself was almost certainly lost.

Prudence, a skull named Prudence, turned blindly on her pillow and whispered, ‘What is it? Effie, What is it?'

Effie said, ‘It's nothing, my dearie. You mustn't fash yourself.'

‘Tell me. It's something important. Tell me.'

Effie hesitated for a moment, and then she said, ‘The
Titanic
has sunk.'

‘Sunk?' asked Prudence.

Effie held her dry, withered hand. But it seemed as if the news of the
Titanic
was the omen for which Prudence had been waiting. In front of Effie's eyes, as gently and as gracefully as a ship sliding beneath the waters of a still and silent ocean, she slid into death, and by five past one o'clock that day she breathed a last irregular breath, and then sighed with a peculiarly regretful sound, and died.

Effie stood up, and stared at Prudence for a long time, almost five minutes. Then she drew up the sheet, and covered her face, and said a small prayer for her. ‘Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.'

Downstairs, she telephoned Robert at the bank. She told the telephonist that it was urgent, and that it concerned his wife, but the telephonist said that Mr Robert was in a meeting with officers of the Admiralty, and was not to be disturbed under any circumstances whatsoever.

‘His wife is dead,' said Effie, desperately.

‘I'm sorry, he said that he wasn't to be disturbed, not for anything at all. Not even for news about his wife.'

‘She's
dead
. Can you at least write that down on a piece of paper, and push it in front of his nose?'

‘I don't know. I'll try.'

Effie closed her eyes. ‘Yes, please. Try.'

She hung up the phone. She looked across the hallway, the same hallway in which Mrs McNab had dropped the Sunday gigot. The same hallway in which she had laughed and played hide-and-go-seek as a young girl. The light filtered in from the fanlight over the front door, and brightened the vase of daffodils by the ha' Bible; but Effie felt that it was more than just the sun of another spring. It was time to move, time to go on. It was time to leave old beginnings behind, and make a new start. She had to leave Edinburgh, and seek her own way in life, the way that she had lost when Henry Baeklander had sailed off to the Mediterranean; the way that she had lost when Karl von Ahlbeck had been betrayed by Robert over the Turkish arrangement. Prudence was dead now. There was no other reason for her to stay in Edinburgh.

The telephone rang, making her jump. She picked up the earpiece, and said, ‘Edinburgh 43. Who's speaking, please?'

‘Effie? It's Robert. I got your message that Prudence died.'

‘About fifteen minutes ago,' said Effie.

‘She wasn't in pain?'

‘No. No, she wasn't. It was peaceful. She just sort of …'

‘Good. You can call Dr Henderson, can you? He'll have to make out a death certificate. And why don't you call Murdoch and Rann, the undertakers? There shouldn't be any reason for delaying the funeral, should there?'

‘Robert,' put in Effie. ‘I think you should understand that I'll be leaving Edinburgh now.'

‘Well, let's talk about that later,' said Robert. ‘This isn't exactly the moment, is it, to be talking about ourselves? Besides, I expect you to take care of Alisdair now, with his mother departed, and all. There's nobody else to look after
him, is there, with his daddy so busily occupied at work and his granny rocking her every day away in St Vigeans? It'll have to be sister Effie, at least until he's old enough to go to board.'

‘Robert –' Effie began.

‘Och, I know,' said Robert. ‘You're as modest as always. It's too much of a responsibility for you, taking care of the Watson heir. You're not good enough to bring him up right, that's what you're thinking. Well, you're wrong. I trust you, Effie. No matter what quarrels you and I have had in the past, I trust you implicitly. I want you to bring up my son as your own, like the true Watson he is, and I want him to think of you as much as his mother. You'd not refuse me that?'

‘Robert,' said Effie, ‘Prudence is dead. She died less than half an hour ago.'

There was a crackly silence on the other end of the phone. Then Robert said, ‘Aye. You told me that.'

‘She's dead, Robert. Your loving wife is dead. Haven't you anything to say, if only something blasphemous?'

‘She's been ebbing a good few months, Effie. I don't see why blasphemy is called for. She'll be more than happy now, up above with the angels.'

‘Robert, I'm trying to tell you something. I'm trying to tell you that Prudence is dead. Doesn't that make you feel like
anything?
'

Robert was quiet for another few seconds. Then he said, ‘I'm upset, yes. Of course I am. But she was very ill.'

‘Robert, she was your
wife
. Didn't you love her?'

Robert ignored the question. He said, abruptly, ‘Where's Alisdair now?'

‘He's having his violin lesson with Signor Corso.'

‘Well, don't tell him about his mother. Lock her door and make sure that he doesn't see her. I want to explain this to him myself. Do you understand me?'

‘I wish I did.'

‘Effie, I don't have time for fatuous remarks. Will you do as I tell you?'

‘Yes, Robert.'

‘Effie, will you do as I tell you?'

Effie took a breath, and then said, ‘Yes.'

Robert hung up, and there was nothing on the line but a faint and irritating fizzing sound. The operator said, ‘Did you
wish to make another call, Miss Watson?'

Effie said, ‘No.'

She never knew exactly what Robert told Alisdair about his mother, but later that night, when she was lying sleeplessly in her room, Alisdair came in to her, in his long blue and white striped nightshirt, his face a chaos of tears and distress. He climbed into bed with her, and lay close to her, shuddering and crying, while she soothed him and shushed him, and did everything she could to make him feel that he was still cared for, and still loved, and not abandoned.

He slept for two or three hours, but he woke just before five o'clock, and stared at her with sticky eyes.

‘Is she really in heaven?' he asked her.

Effie nodded. ‘I think so.'

‘What's it like, heaven?'

‘What do you think it's like?'

‘I don't know,' Alisdair ventured. ‘Clouds, and sunshine. Being happy, I suppose.'

Effie kissed him. ‘What you think it is, that's what it is.'

Alisdair was silent for a while, his tousled blond hair lying on the pillow next to her. Then he said, ‘Did it hurt her very much, being ill?'

‘Hardly at all. She died as if she were falling asleep, and that's the truth, because I was there.'

‘Daddy said it hurt her very much.'

‘It did, early on. But she hasn't felt any pain for two or three months. Didn't feel any, I mean.'

There was an even longer silence. Then Alisdair said, ‘May I see her?'

Effie looked at him, so bright and young and alive; and so much like Dougal. ‘Your father says you shouldn't.'

‘My
father
says I shouldn't?'

Another difficult pause. Then Effie said, ‘What did you mean by that?'

Alisdair tried to look innocent. ‘What did I mean by what?'

‘What did you mean by saying my
father
says I shouldn't?'

He shrugged. ‘I meant, did my
father
say I shouldn't, or did my adopted father say I shouldn't?'

Effie said, ‘You know?'

Alisdair nodded. ‘Mummy told me, about a month ago. When she was very ill, but before she was blind. She said that my real daddy was Uncle Dougal, and that daddy only
married mummy so that I could have somebody to look after me.'

‘It's true,' whispered Effie.

Alisdair reached out with his boyish hand, chewed nails, ink-stained palms, middle finger calloused by the shaft of a pen, and touched the lace lapels of Effie's nightdress. He said, in a hollow, hoarse, appealing voice, ‘May I see my mother please, Auntie Effie?'