No Angel (Spoils of Time 01) (46 page)

‘Be quick now,’ said Sister, ‘and very quiet.’ She had met them at the night door of the hospital. ‘I could lose my job if this were to become known. You must be Barty. What a grown-up girl you are. I thought you would be much smaller, more like little Jay.’

‘How – how is he?’ asked Celia.

Sister looked at her. Imperceptibly, she shook her head. Then, ‘He’s holding on,’ she said briefly. ‘This way now. Up these steps. Now wait here one moment – just while I see—’

See if he’s still alive, Celia thought, see if it’s all right for us, specially for Barty, to go in. She closed her eyes, and prayed with a fervour which surprised her, to a God she did not believe in.

Jay was lying utterly still now. His breathing was no longer painful, it was too light and shallow for that. He had stopped calling for Barty, for his mother, stopped asking to go home. He seemed to have moved into another place altogether, LM thought, looking at him in despair; not death, not quite yet, but not life either.

She took the small hand; it was burning hot. She raised it to her lips and kissed it on the back and in the palm, and then laid it gently down again.

‘I’m sorry, Jay,’ she whispered, ‘So sorry.’

The door opened: Sister came in. She looked intently at Jay’s inert form, picked up his small wrist, checked the pulse; then put a finger to her lips.

‘Someone to see you,’ she said very quietly.

The doctor, LM thought; come for a final, useless check on Jay. Before he died. It had frightened her how little they had been able to do. She looked at him; he was quite peaceful now. She wasn’t sure she wanted him disturbed again, have the stethoscope applied to his painful chest, his mouth forced open to clear the sputum, the oxygen mask pushed on to his little face.

‘I don’t think—’ she began.

‘But you must be quiet. Absolutely quiet.’

Perhaps it was going to be painful. Unpleasant for Jay. Perhaps she was going to have to watch while he was tortured quite senselessly.

‘No,’ she said, ‘no really. I don’t want any more—’

Sister turned round, beckoned, then stood back; a small shadow slipped past her, stood by the side of the bed, looked down at Jay for a moment, and then spoke.

‘Hallo Jay,’ it said, very softly, right into his ear, ‘it’s Barty. I’ve come to read you a story.’

Later it passed into the folkore of
Meridian
that it had saved the life of a small boy; as he lay most dangerously ill, with a fever of a hundred and five and pneumonia choking both his small lungs. The nursing staff and the doctor in charge of his case said (as of course they would) that he reached the crisis of his illness at the same time, and would have recovered anyway. But LM and Celia only knew that as Barty’s soft rather husky voice read on and on through the long night, read the wonderful tale of the child-kingdom, with its oceans of clouds and underwater mountains, its flying fish and swimming beasts, its grown-up children and turned-back time, Jay became no longer torpid but calm, no longer burning with fever but drenched with sweat, struggled less to breathe and cried less with pain, and in the morning was to be found sleeping quite peacefully, propped up on his pillows with Barty’s thin arms held gently round him.

CHAPTER 18

‘I simply don’t believe it,’ said Robert, ‘where is all this filth coming from?’

‘What filth?’ said Maud. ‘I don’t see any.’ They were eating breakfast on the terrace at Sutton Place; Robert had to work through the weekend, said he couldn’t spare the time to go to Long Island. Maud didn’t actually mind; Jamie was coming to stay, and he’d said he’d take her to the zoo in Central Park. That would be wonderful fun.

‘What my darling? Oh – nothing.’

‘Daddy! Tell me. It can’t be – nothing.’

‘It is. Honestly.’

He folded the newspaper he had been reading, smiled at her. ‘When are you and Jamie off?’

‘Oh – not for a bit. He’s going to be sleeping late, he said. He went to a party last night. Without me,’ she added darkly.

‘When you’re grown up, darling, he’ll take you to lots of parties. Anyway, you won’t want to go with him then. With your brother. You’ll have lines of young men waiting to escort you.’

‘I’ll always want to go with Jamie,’ said Maud.

When her father had gone out of the room, she picked up the paper, turned it carefully to the middle where she knew he had been reading, and studied it to see what might have upset him so much. It didn’t take long; she read remarkably fast for someone of seven.

‘Further trouble at Brewer Lytton,’ read an item half-way down the page. ‘The real estate firm of Brewer Lytton is rumoured to be laying off half its work force next week. The firm has just failed to win a contract to build a new department store on downtown Broadway. Hagman Betts, who have recently completed work on one of the new, smaller hotels on East 62nd, put in the winning bid. Brewer Lytton have also been seeking finance from several hitherto untapped sources, but all the institutions thus far approached have turned them down, presumably wary of an association with a firm which seems set on a downhill course. The bankers, Rea Goldberg, who had apparently expressed quite a firm intention to back another Brewer Lytton project, a housing development on the upper West Side, have now pulled out at the eleventh hour. No one was available for comment, either at Rea Goldberg or at Brewer Lytton.’

Maud wasn’t sure what some of the words meant, but she got the general idea; it gave her a very nasty feeling in her tummy.

Jamie woke up at about eleven, and she sat watching him while he ate his breakfast; it was an awful lot. Six rashers of bacon, five eggs, a heap of hash browns, and four waffles with maple syrup.

‘I have to build myself up,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘I’ve been picked to row in the Harvard Eight.’

‘Can I come and watch you?’ asked Maud.

‘Of course you can. But it’ll be very cold.’

‘I won’t mind. Can we go to the zoo now?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘That was so much fun,’ said Maud happily, ‘thank you for taking me, Jamie.’

‘My pleasure entirely. Now I wonder if you’d mind very much if we popped into Elliott House. I’ve left some books there that I really wanted to study from tomorrow—’

‘Um – well, no. I mean – will Laurence be there?’

‘Nope. He’s gone to Long Island for the weekend. With his latest girlfriend.’

‘Poor thing,’ said Maud with a shudder. ‘I feel sorry for her.’

She didn’t like Laurence; she had no idea of the full extent of his animosity to her father, but he certainly never talked to her, not even to say hallo. And he actually frightened her a bit with his ice-cold eyes and pulled-in mouth, and by the way he did everything so silently, suddenly appearing in rooms when you had no idea he was anywhere near. He was like one of the bad magicians in her fairy story books.

‘Right. I won’t be long, I promise. Come on, hop in.’

She hopped in: to his new car, a lovely dark green thing with an open roof called a Buick.

He had bought it the week before; ‘Not quite a Bugatti, like my dear brother has,’ he said to Robert, ‘but it gets me from A to B. Or rather from New York to Harvard. Goes like the wind, Robert. You should get one.’

Robert said rather shortly he wouldn’t be buying any kind of new car, or even a bicycle for the foreseeable future.

Elliott House was very quiet; only a couple of staff were about: the butler, who greeted them very warmly, and remarked how Maud had grown, and the housekeeper who asked her if she’d like some cookies and milk. Maud said she would, if they had time: Jamie said they had plenty, he had to find a few other things as well as his books.

‘Sports kit and so on. You’ll be all right Maud?’

Maud said she’d be fine, and followed the housekeeper into the kitchen.

Milk and cookies consumed, she wandered off in search of Jamie; he was nowhere to be seen. It was such a big house; she much preferred where they lived now. The only better thing about Elliott House was the indoor swimming pool – that was very special. She would like to have one of those at Sutton Place; maybe she could ask her father. There was lots of room. The dining-room was much too big and they hardly ever used it. She wandered out of the pool room and across the courtyard to where she had had her playroom. She wondered what it would be used for now. Nothing probably. It had been a lovely room. What a waste: all this house, just for Laurence.

The playroom was very much in use: Laurence had converted it into his own library and study. Books lined three of the walls, and a huge desk stood in the middle of the room, with – ‘Oh boy,’ said Maud aloud – a revolving leather chair in front of it. She sat in the chair, used the desk to push herself off, whizzed round and round, this way and that. It was fun.

Slightly dizzy, she sat still for a while, considering the desk itself. It was terribly neat: everything perfectly lined up. Pens and pencils in two parallel trays, a pad of pristine white paper, a telephone, at right angles to that, Laurence’s diary, a much bigger tray of letters, and yet another tray with an assortment of things in it, which Laurence obviously felt must be neatly contained: a few invitations, a circular about an art exhibition, and a catalogue of books. She took a pencil from the tray, and a piece of paper, did a drawing of some of the animals she and Jamie had seen that day. A shaggy goat and a tiny little pony, no bigger than a dog, called a Falabella. She’d like one of those: it could live in the house with them. She drew it a kennel: a pony kennel. Rather than a stable. That would be fun.

How awful if Laurence came back here now and found her. In his creepy silent way. She hoped Jamie was right, that he really was away. She stood up, half-scared, carefully re-straightened the paper and pencils – and then her arm caught the edge of one of the trays and it crashed to the floor. There was nothing in it that might break, thank goodness; she scrabbled about, picking everything up carefully, packing it back as neatly and carefully as she could. One of the things was a cheque book and it had fallen face downwards, with something on top of it, so that it was open, with the top cheque creased. That was serious. Laurence would surely notice. Maybe if she closed it, put some heavy books on it, it would flatten out again. She picked it up, turned it over, ready to fold it. The top cheque wasn’t blank though, it had something written on it. In Laurence’s very neat, black-inked handwriting, all the letters and numbers very upright and close together. She wouldn’t have noticed it even then, if the name on the cheque hadn’t been fixed in her head; a name from the article which had made her feel so horrid that morning and had upset her father. A funny name. Nathaniel Betts.

‘Daddy.’

‘Yes, darling.’

‘I can’t go to sleep. Can I come and sit with you for a bit?’

‘No, Maud, you can’t. I’m sorry. I’m busy and it’s late. Now go on upstairs again. Read if you can’t sleep, that’s what I always do.’

‘All right.’ She sighed, her voice resigned, turned to leave the room again. Robert looked up; she was drooping, as he had known she would be. Maud was very good at drooping; her neck and shoulders drooped, her head drooped, even her back, in some strange way, managed to droop. He smiled suddenly, amused out of his anxiety.

‘Come here, poppet. Sorry.’

‘No, it’s all right. You’re busy, I can see.’

‘Not too busy for you. Now you sit down there for just ten minutes while I finish this, and then we’ll read a story. How would that be?’

‘Good.’ She smiled at him, came over, gave him a hug. ‘I’ll be very quiet.’ She was good at that too; at sitting utterly still and silent, her large green eyes fixed on him. After a few minutes he threw down his pen.

‘You’re distracting me. You’re being too quiet.’

‘Miss Edwards says you can’t be too quiet.’

‘Well she’s right in a way. But – well anyway, go and get a story.’ She sat on his knee, sucking her thumb as she still did when he read to her, listening quietly.

When he had finished, he said, ‘Right. Do you think you’ll be able to go to sleep now?’

She sighed. ‘I’ll try.’

‘Is something the matter?’

She hesitated. Then, ‘Ye-es. A bit.’

‘What?’

‘I’m worried. About Laurence.’

‘About Laurence? Why on earth should you be worried about him?’

‘I – knocked over something in his study today.’

‘Oh dear. What on earth were you doing in his study? Not a good idea, poppet.’

‘No, I know. Jamie took me to the house.’

‘Well, he won’t know. He’s not psychic. And I’m sure you didn’t do any harm.’

‘But I did. And he might notice.’

‘Oh, Maud.’ Robert sighed. ‘What exactly did you knock over?’

‘A tray thing. His cheque book was on it, and a cheque got all bent.’

‘Uh-huh. And did you put it back?’

‘Yes. Well, sort of.’

‘Oh, he’ll think the housekeeper did it. Don’t worry.’

‘Do you really think so?’

‘Of course.’

‘Oh good. Daddy—’

‘Yes.’

‘There was writing on the cheque. It was filled in, you know, like you do them. Money and a name.’

‘So—’

‘I noticed the name. It was the same as in that article today, the one you folded into the paper.’

‘The one what? Maud what are you talking about?’

‘The name on the cheque. It was something Betts.’

‘Hagman Betts?’

‘Not exactly. Nathaniel Betts. And anyway—’

‘Just a minute, Maud. Laurence had made out a cheque to Nathaniel Betts?’ Robert swallowed. ‘Maud, darling, I don’t suppose you noticed what it said.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘I did notice. Well, there were too many noughts in the number place to work it out. But I could read the words bit. It said fifty thousand dollars.’

‘Oliver. Good morning to you.’

It was Jack, smiling, fit-looking, still somehow unsuited to his civilian clothes.

‘I – missed you at the house.’

‘Yes, well, we take breakfast a little earlier than you do,’ said Oliver mildly.

‘I know, I know. I’m a layabed. I’m just indulging myself after all those years in the army.’

‘Well,’ said Oliver wearily, ‘you’ve probably earned it.’

‘I don’t know about that. But I intend to start getting up again much earlier soon.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes. I clearly need to get a job. My army pension isn’t very large and I’ve only the small amount of capital Father left me. Worth a lot less than it was.’

Especially as he’d gambled away quite a bit of it, Oliver thought; and wasted quite a bit more on actresses and their needs – needs like jewellery and champagne. Still, even before France, he had been out in the stifling heat of India, helping defend the Empire. He deserved some self-indulgence.

‘I expect that’s true,’ he said.

‘Anyway, I’ve got a proposition for you.’

‘A proposition?’

‘Yes. I’d like to join the family firm.’

‘Join Lyttons! But Jack—’

‘I know, I know. Only ever read four books. Five now, enjoyed the children’s story by that Brooke chap a lot. But – well, it does all begin to seem rather more interesting than I thought. And my idea was something you’re not doing. Something you should be doing.’

‘Oh really?’ Oliver smiled. Jack must have been taking more of an interest in Lyttons than he thought. ‘And what would that be?’

‘Military books. Military history. The stories of the great regiments, the great battles. How we won the empire, how we won the war. All that sort of stuff.’

‘Ye-es. And you think people would like to read it, do you? All that sort of stuff ?’

‘I certainly do. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Well – no,’ said Oliver truthfully. Having come through four years of hell with the military life, he wanted only to escape from it.

‘Oh rubbish. Look how fascinated people are by the great battles. Waterloo. Trafalgar. The Khyber Pass . . .’

‘Well—’

‘Look, ask Celia. I’m sure she’d think it was a good idea. I was in a bookshop yesterday, looking at the military books. Some of them are awfully jolly, lots of coloured pictures, and all that sort of thing. And I know plenty of people who could write the books for you, Teddy Grosvenor for a start, he’d love to do the Mutiny, I was talking to him about it, he brings it all to life just with a few words.’

‘Really?’ Oliver thought of General Edward Grosvenor, with his bluff manner and his fondness for port. Anything he wrote would be fairly brief. His vocabulary was extremely limited.

‘Yes. And think of old Beckenham, full of wonderful stories. Bet he’d like to get going on something. And Lady B’s grandfather’s journals, young Barty was telling me about them; fascinating they sound.’

‘Well—’

‘Good man. I knew you’d agree.’

‘Jack, I haven’t agreed.’

‘Well – say you’ll think about it. I’d really love to do it. And I’d work terribly hard. I swear.’

‘All right,’ said Oliver, ‘I’ll think about it. And thank you. Where are you off to now?’

‘Oh, going to a matinee. See a friend who’s in it. Awfully jolly girl called Stella. You’d like her. I might bring her to meet you some time.’

‘I’m sure Stella wouldn’t want to meet me,’ said Oliver wearily.