Bellman & Black (16 page)

“I suppose it might be my Uncle Jack.”

“What does he look like? Describe him to me.”

“About your height. Dark hair. He used to be bearded in the old days. I can’t say for sure now.”

“How would your Uncle Jack know my Uncle Paul?”

“I believe he lived in Whittingford as a young man.”

“Ah! So he’d have known my mother?”

“More than likely.”

He sounded better now. Her husband tossed in the bed once more, a definitive, once-and-for-all shifting. At last! Now, she thought, he will sleep.

And he did.

Rose waited for the night to bring her the same comfort. It didn’t. Her mother was dead, and she was in a strange bed with a strange man who was her husband. She was now too exhausted to sleep—and too heartbroken to weep.

O
pening her mail one morning at breakfast, Rose frowned.

“Trouble?”

“My uncle has died.”

William’s spoon paused over his porridge. “Which one?”

“Uncle Jack.”

William did not examine the surge of satisfaction that flared in him. “When is the funeral?”

“Thursday. But don’t feel you must go. You are so busy with this reservoir. I haven’t seen my uncle since I was a child; no one will think anything of it.”

William swallowed his porridge. “I can take half a day and go over.”

Enjoying the superiority of the living, William found himself rather looking forward to the funeral. His dislike of the man he had never spoken to faded now that he was dead, and he rode out to Upper Wychwood Church with a lightness of spirit that he didn’t associate with funerals.

At the church gates someone seemed to be waiting for him. It was the man in black. William felt a prickle of astonishment. The fellow’s eyes glanced over in William’s direction, and in them was an expression of amusement that William thought quite unsuitable for the occasion. He seemed simply entertained by William’s bewilderment, quite as though he knew of William’s mistake and had been waiting to be merry with him about it.

William was horrified when the fellow made toward him, as if to greet him. At the very moment he was expecting the man to open his mouth and speak—
Just the man I’ve been waiting for!
the words were written all over his face—some other funeral-goers arrived at the church. The man in black had to hop back out of the way to let them pass, and as they went he got swept up with them somehow, but not before turning his head and making a jaunty gesture in William’s direction.
Another time!
It seemed to indicate.
No hurry!

Anyone noticing would have said the gesture was filled with goodwill and fellowship.

William was incensed.

T
here is a story much older than this one in which two ravens—ravens being large cousins to rooks—were companions and advisers to the great God of the north. One bird was called Huginn, which in that place and time meant Thought, the other Muninn, which meant Memory. They lived in a magic ash tree where the borders of many worlds came together, and from its branches they flew blithely between worlds, gathering information for Odin. Other creatures could not cross the borders from one world to another, but Thought and Memory flew where they pleased, and came back laughing.

Thought and Memory had a great many offspring, all of whom were gifted with great mental powers allowing them to accumulate and pass on a good deal of knowledge from their ancestors.

The rooks that lived in Will Bellman’s oak tree were descendants of Thought and Memory. The rook that fell was one of their many-times-great-grandchildren.

On the day that Will Bellman was ten years and four days old these rooks did what needed to be done to mark their loss. Then they departed from that dangerous place. They never returned.

The tree still stands. Even now you can go and see it—yes, right now, in your time—but you will not see a single rook alight in its branches. They still know what happened. Rooks are made of thought and memory. They know everything and they do not forget.

·  ·  ·

Since we are on the topic of ravens, a collective noun for ravens is an
unkindness
. This is somewhat puzzling to Thought and Memory.

“L
ovely!”

Bellman and the chief constructor and the engineer were standing together watching the diverted water fill the reservoir. Where it entered it splashed and frothed in surprise at its new direction. At the farther end it was more settled, still, and tame. It was a magnificent sight. Thousands of gallons of water stored up against future drought, enabling the mill to stay productive no matter what the water level. It insured profits against chance, hazard, uncertainty.

A boy came running from the mill, out of breath.

“It’ll have to wait,” Bellman told him, “I’m busy here.”

Twenty minutes later the boy was back, apologetic. “Mrs. Bellman insists that you come straight away. She has told me not to return without you.”

Bellman frowned. He wanted to stay and watch this more than anything in the world. It was a dream he had cherished for many years. He had stood and watched the mill wheel turn, the very first time he had met the millwright, and known then what was needed. And now it was here!

But Rose wanted him. Knowing what was happening today, she wouldn’t have sent for him for no reason.

·  ·  ·

The moment he walked into the hall, an acrid, scorched smell filled his nostrils, and he pulled a face.

Before he could go in search of the source, an entirely altered Rose
ran down the stairs. Her hair had escaped from its pins and strayed wildly; her face was taut and white.

“Thank God you have come!” the strange Rose said, in a strange Rose voice. “Lucy has the fever.”

“Have you sent for the doctor?”

“He has just left. We are to isolate her,” Rose said, indignant. “We must keep the others apart from her.” So far she had mastered herself, but now, abruptly, tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, William! We have cut her hair and put it on the fire!”

So that was the dreadful smell.

Rose wiped the tears away with an angry sleeve and he consoled her briefly. “It will grow again. Where is she?”

On being told that even he was not to have contact with his infant daughter, Bellman put the ladder up against the wall and climbed to the level of the nursery window. Inside, Mrs. Lane, who had offered to nurse so that Rose could look after the other children, was leaning over the cot.

He rapped his nails on the window, and Mrs. Lane turned.

The child in the bed was not the Lucy he knew. The whiteness of her skull took him by surprise, and she seemed thinner, but surely that was not possible: he had seen her only yesterday. Her willingness to take pleasure in the world was still strong enough to make her stare at her father in astounded delight, but when she realized he would not come in and the pain in her head reasserted itself, she screwed up her face and wailed again.

It was a good, loud wail. He and Rose had made robust children with strong hearts and big lungs. She would pull through. Good girl!

He took a step down the ladder, forced himself to take his eyes from her imploring face, and returned to the ground.

Rose shuddered. “I cannot bear her to suffer so. I must go to her.”

“Let us do just what the doctor said. Lucy is a strong little girl. Mrs. Lane is a good nurse. Everything will be all right.”

“Will it?”

He took Rose’s hands in his and looked—calm, steady—into her face until her trembling anxiety diminished.

“Yes,” she said, with a deep breath and a faint smile. “Of course it will.”

·  ·  ·

Doctor Sanderson returned that evening. He visited the patient and spoke to Mrs. Lane. He came to William and Rose in the drawing room.

“I have done everything possible. I am sorry I can do no more. There is still prayer.”

Now Rose would not be dissuaded and went to her child.

William was taken aback. He had always thought Sanderson a good doctor. He had the best reputation of all the Whittingford doctors. He immediately sent a messenger for one of the others, but a note came back: there were many in the town with fever, and the doctor would be busy with them all night long. He would not be able to attend Lucy before tomorrow morning.

While William was reading this, his housekeeper’s daughter came in. She had clearly been crying, though she was making efforts to contain her tears. “Mrs. Bellman says that it won’t be long now. It is time to pray.”

He nodded curtly and walked with her to the sickroom. “Why did not Susie or Meg come to tell me?”

“They have gone, sir. They are afraid of the fever.”

The moment he was in the room, William embarked upon an interrogation of Mrs. Lane. Had she done this, and had she done that, and how often and for how long . . . “I do not suggest that you have failed in anything,” he explained, “on the contrary, I am quite sure your care has been everything it needs to be. It is only so that I may know what the treatment has been.”

His questions were involved and Mrs. Lane was hard-pressed to answer them and see to the dying child.

“William,” Rose chided, in a murmur, and when this had no effect, “
William!”

He looked at his wife in surprise.

“All we can do now is help her to pass. Stop distracting Mrs. Lane and kneel with me. Let us pray for her everlasting life.”

He had never heard his wife speak with such authority, and he knelt at her side, put his hands together, and joined her in prayer.

All the while he watched. It was scarcely his Lucy anymore. The fever had melted the flesh off her. What remained was a scrawny, pallid creature, with sunken eyes, that was racked with convulsions and knew nothing of their presence. He observed every detail.

His wife did not remove her eyes from their child either, he saw. But her gaze was doing something other than look. She barely blinked, and in her eyes was a power that went far beyond mere observation. He understood that something was happening in the intensity of that unwavering stare, but he did not know what it was.

The child died.

William—bewildered—rose and left the room. In the drawing room he paced. An unendurable restlessness possessed him. He could not rid himself of the feeling that there was something he had to do. Lucy was gone, he kept thinking, and he must go and fetch her. She could not have gone far, she was only an hour away. He must saddle his horse immediately! A hundred times he suppressed the instinct to go to the stable, a hundred times it reasserted itself. And when it wasn’t the stable it was this: Lucy was broken. Some part of her had failed, wanted mending. He had tried the expert, and the man had been no good. He must do the job himself. When had he ever failed? Where were his tools? I will soon have her working again, good as new.

She is dead, he told himself over and over, but his brain persisted.
Nothing is impossible. All things are retrievable. Broken things can be mended. If there is a way to make the sun shine all night, William Bellman will be the one to find it.

He paced and paced, looking for a solution. He did not find one, but he could not stop looking until it was morning—when there was a new problem. Paul and Phillip were sick.

Now he could be of use.

William rode to Oxford to consult the doctors there. When he came home he brought niter and borax and salts and acetate of ammonia and nitrate of silver with him. He unrolled camel hair brushes from a roll of paper. He had oil of lemon and oil of persimmon. He had a waxy balsam that made everything smell of cloves. He instructed Rose and Mrs. Lane in the mixing and measuring and application of these preparations.

“Shave the head entirely,” he instructed. “We did not shave the baby close enough. The head must be kept elevated, wrapped in silk that is first soaked in lemon oil. The feet are to be warmed by application of the clove pomade and covered in warm water cloths. No leaches, no bleeding. Feed them only on barley water and rice water for the first three days. After three days only meat broth and chicken, and the chicken to be sealed dry in a jar and boiled. Their bladders to be opened every six hours and the bowels every twenty-four. Every evening, nitrate of silver to be brushed onto the throat ulcers . . .”