As Margot opened her mouth to protest, the old doctor raised his eyebrows, fixed her with his very sternest expression above the rims of his spectacles, and, to Lily’s astonishment, Margot instantly subsided. He was, after all, an old friend. She walked from the room, meek as a lamb, took the two sleeping tablets he prescribed, and slept right through till the next day.
Lily sat by Bertie’s side and silently wept. Was this all her fault?
She considered Hannah’s illness to be the work of providence. Few people remained healthy in The Cobbles. But to inflict disease on poor Bertie, simply because she’d been set on vengeance against his family, was another matter altogether. If the unthinkable happened, how could she ever make up to the Clermont-Reads for the loss of their beloved son? She’d never wanted Bertie to suffer. He was her husband and a kind, generous man against whom she had no complaints.
Admittedly, if she hadn’t been so set on justice for Dick she would never have married him, and he would never have come to live in The Cobbles. Margot was quite right. It was her fault, for he would never then have caught diphtheria.
But as Bertie’s fever broke, Selene’s began.
More blankets and disinfectant were prepared, yet more kettles boiled. Garlic was rubbed upon Selene’s throat, lemon juice and honey dribbled down it, but she went from bad to worse. Her neck was horribly swollen, her face white and blotched with yellow sores, voice so husky she could barely speak. Even her breathing rasped like an old woman’s.
Bertie began to sit up in bed and feed upon boiled onions, considered excellent for purifying the blood, or soft bread and milk served to him on a spoon by his fond mama, while Selene was left largely to the ministrations of the servants.
Guilt drove Lily to flit between the two Clermont-Read women, doing what she could for both and receiving thanks from neither.
It was on the second night of Selene’s fever, when Lily was sitting with her, that the nightmare began. Half nodding in her chair and near to exhaustion, Lily was jerked awake by a terrible choking sound. It vibrated in the back of Selene’s throat like a death rattle. Lily went quite cold with fear.
Running out on to the landing, she shouted for help through the silent, sleeping house. ‘For God’s sake, fetch the doctor!’
There was a moment of total silence then pandemonium broke out as feet came running from every direction, including Margot’s from Bertie’s room.
‘What have you done to her?’ she screamed. ‘Would you kill my daughter too?’
The accusation was so cruelly unexpected, Lily fell back gasping. By the time the doctor arrived Selene was clearly in serious difficulties with her breathing.
‘I’ll have to slit her throat,’ he said, and in his calmest voice launched into an explanation of how he needed to open the windpipe through Selene’s neck to enable him to insert a tube which would permit her to breathe.
‘You’ll take no knife to my daughter’s neck,’ Margot stormed, rearing at him with clenched fists.
‘It’s called a tracheotomy, and is perfectly safe. I don’t have time to argue with you, Margot. She’ll die if I don’t do it.’ He was already unpacking his bag while Margot railed and sobbed.
It took both the housekeeper’s and Lily’s combined strength to drag the demented woman from her daughter’s bedside. Only when she was firmly locked in her room did Lily feel she could leave her.
Moments later she was back at the doctor’s side, ready to obey his every instruction. What followed was the most terrifying time of her life. The minutes stretched out like hours, though it must have been no more than seconds. The doctor was amazingly quick and efficient and Lily marvelled at the steady sureness of his hands, particularly in view of Margot’s screams of rage still reverberating through the house.
When the tube was safely in place and Selene’s breathing normal again, they both gave a sigh of relief, able to breathe again themselves. Lily shuddered to think what might have happened if the doctor had not been so quick.
‘Will she be all right now?’
‘Thanks to you, young woman, yes, she will. But she’ll need careful nursing. See the tube is not disturbed. We don’t want infection setting in.’ As the doctor washed his instruments in the hot soapy water she provided, he spoke kindly to Lily. ‘Had you not spotted the difficulty and called me at once we would most certainly have lost her.’ He glanced back at his death-pale patient, carefully dried and put away his instruments, then snapped shut his bag. ‘Don’t fret about Mrs Clermont-Read. Many women suffer hysteria when their children are threatened. It’s not uncommon.’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’
He nodded, satisfied Selene was in good hands. ‘I’ll call again in the morning.’ And almost fainting from exhaustion, Lily made no protest as he called a maid to sit with the patient for a while, insisting she needed rest herself.
Returning, exhausted, to her room, Lily would have liked to take her own sleeping child into bed with her, and breathe in the sweet baby smell of her. But she’d left her safely in Betty’s care. And just as well.
When Edward returned home the following Friday he sent at once for Lily.
‘I cannot tell you how much in your debt I am. My wife too.’ Lily said nothing to this, for Margot had certainly given no indication of gratitude during the whole week since the frightening occurrence. But looking into Edward’s face, Lily saw that he at least was sincere. Perhaps she had underestimated her father-in-law.
Both patients made a slow but steady recovery. But while Bertie regained his lively spirits and was soon joking with the maids and Lily, Selene took quite the opposite course. She blamed her sister-in-law entirely for the illness, a fact which Lily found hard to deny.
‘Were it not for your vindictiveness in marrying Bertie, I would not now be permanently scarred,’ was the accusation she repeated daily.
As the invalids settled in for a long convalescence, Lily’s time in the sickroom became ever more restricted. She was permitted to sit with her husband for half an hour a day only, almost sure that Margot stood outside the room with her pocket watch, checking off the minutes.
Though she found such behaviour unsurprising, even understandable, Lily found it hard to have all her offers to be of service refused. She spent hours in her room playing with her adored Amy, who seemed the only sane thing in this mad house. Then one day Margot came to see her there. The rustle of her satin gown and the creak of her corsets warned Lily of her mother-in-law’s approach so that she was standing waiting when Margot flung open the door.
‘I thought you might be skulking in here.’
Lily could think of no polite response to this unfair accusation, so waited for whatever might come next.
‘I’ve been considering your position.’
‘I would’ve thought my position was quite clear.’ Lily had long ago resolved not to be dominated by this unpleasant woman. Though her heart might be hammering in her chest like a trapped pigeon, she meant to stand by that pledge.
Margot folded her hands at her waist and fixed Lily with a narrow glare. ‘I’ve spoken with my son about you, and Bertie has no wish for you to leave him.’ More’s the pity, her expression clearly stated.
‘Leave Bertie?’ Lily snatched Amy up from where she sat on the carpet and held her close. Though whether it was the baby or herself she was attempting to protect, wasn’t quite clear. ‘Why on earth should I leave him? He’s my husband, the father of my child, your grandchild.’
Margot’s lip curled with contempt. ‘So you say. We’ve only your word for that.’
Lily gasped. ‘Bertie knows that she is. And odd though it may sound to you, we’re happy as bugs in a rug together.’
Margot shuddered. ‘Such common expressions! Wife or not it is time you earned your keep.’
‘My keep?’ What was the woman suggesting? Lily possessed nothing but the clothes on her back. How could she pay for her keep? ‘I haven’t worked on the fish stall for weeks. I’ve no money to give you for my keep.’ She wanted to add, Even if you needed it, which you surely don’t.
‘Quite.’ Margot’s dark eyes gleamed. ‘You are, however, accustomed to work. Therefore, I have decided that you can pay your debt in kind.’
‘What sort of debt?’
‘For the damage you’ve done to my darling children. Don’t pretend to deny it.’
Lily remained silent.
‘I’m sure you’ll agree that class is the bedrock of civilised society. The class you are born in is quite unalterable. It would be cruel to attempt it. Quite against nature.’
‘D’you reckon you can pretend our marriage never took place? Bertie’ll never permit it.’
‘Bertie will do as he’s told.’ The words sounded like the crack of a whip. ‘As he always has. Marriages can be ended, my dear, quite as easily as they are begun. It may take me a little time to persuade him, but I’m quite sure he will agree in the end.’ She almost smiled at Lily. ‘He may, perhaps, wish you to continue to occupy his bed. You will not find me too censorious on that score. It is not uncommon for a gentleman to take a mistress from among the serving classes, so long as she doesn’t harbour ambitions above her station or get herself into trouble.
‘Mrs Greenholme, our cook-housekeeper, will instruct you in your duties. Pray report to the kitchen along with the other servants at five-thirty.’ Margot swirled away in a bustle of skirts, her task complete.
‘What are you talking about? Servants?’
‘Pray do not be late. Unpunctuality is considered bad form in this household. Good day to you.’ And Lily watched her go in stunned silence.
Barwick House was a solid, lime-stoned mansion, well furnished with Corinthian pillars, porches, conservatories, and bay windows whence could be viewed the magnificence of the lake. The elegant gardens, stocked with rhododendron, laurel, azalea and similar trouble-free plants, stretched for a good hundred yards down to the shore where from a small stone jetty could be launched the steam yacht,
Faith.
From her pink and white bedchamber, Margot could sit and enjoy the beauties of Coniston Old Man, Crinkle Crags and Bowfell, rimed with morning sunlight or hazy with the
afternoon heat, without ever setting foot upon any of them. She learned these and other mountain names like a litany so that later she could impress her guests with her knowledge as they took luncheon or tea in the fine drawing rooms, panelled library or elegant dining room.
Her current obsession was not, however, the mountains, but a life devoted to the care and nurture of her two darling invalids. Not for a moment would she admit to it but Margot felt perfectly satisfied with the way things had turned out.
Dear Bertie’s illness, from which he showed no lasting ill effects beyond a natural weakness, had in her eyes proved most propitious. Though he still insisted on having Lily sit with him each afternoon for an hour, Margot used every excuse she could think of to have these sessions curtailed, or even cancelled altogether.
Fortunately, Lily showed some degree of common sense in the matter and made no mention of her new status to him. Clearly she was too proud. As for his part Bertie showed little concern for what his wife did with the rest of her time - a happy state of affairs which Margot meant to encourage until she had succeeded in ousting Lily from his life altogether.
If she had to tie her son to his bed, she simply would not permit him to return to
that
woman.
Selene was a different matter entirely.
‘The poor girl has suffered terribly,’ Margot mourned to her guests. ‘But then, I only just managed to snatch her from the jaws of death.’ Embroidering the truth so she could feed upon their ready sympathy, as if she personally were responsible for Selene’s miraculous recovery.
‘Her dear papa is purchasing an entire new wardrobe for her, naturally. Guaranteed to bring a gel out of the doldrums, eh?’
She forbore to mention how carefully it must be designed in order to conceal the unsightly scar upon the once perfect white throat. Despite the good doctor’s assurances that it would fade to nothing, given time, Selene had become prone to daily hysterics on the subject. Margot resolved that not a soul must know of the disfigurement, in case it should further jeopardise her increasingly slim chances of matrimony.
If Lily had expected or hoped for Bertie to notice her changed circumstances, she was not at all surprised when he did not. She could well understand Margot’s complete domination over him. The woman was fearsome.
‘Since I’m to act like a servant, then I’ll live like one,’ Lily announced, and despite Margot’s half-hearted protests that she might stay in the blue room, she moved in with Betty. The girl seemed friendly enough for all she complained constantly of bad legs and chilblains on her feet, due largely, Lily guessed, to the unheated attic room.
Apart from their initial surprise, none of the servants remarked upon the strangeness of the set-up. Or certainly not to Lily, even if privately they whispered behind their hands. She supposed this was partly due to their having long since grown used to the eccentricities of their mistress and the class she represented. They were also far too anxious about their own jobs to dare comment upon a situation which was really none of their concern. Lily was friendly and a hard worker, one of their own sort in fact. So they accepted her without comment.