The Flight of Swallows Read online

  ‘Bring Rosie to me, Kizzie. She has a kind heart and, I believe, a number of younger brothers and sisters. And she’ll take orders from Aisling where the others wouldn’t.’

  And all the while Brooke Armstrong slept peacefully, slowly healing and totally unaware of what was happening in his home. Kizzie thought he wouldn’t mind, not with his wife holding him in arms that loved him.

  ‘Tha’ father might not like yer taking ’is child, Miss Charlotte,’ Kizzie told her as she tucked her, exhausted, into her little bed next to her husband who had not woken once, Nellie informed them proudly as though she were responsible.

  Rosie, blinking nervously, stared with wonder at her mistress reclining in the little bed next to the master and wondered, as the rest of the kitchen staff had, what the dickens she had done wrong to be summoned to the mistress’s bedside with the master sleeping next to her. She had not seen him since that awful day when he had been brought home on the gate but he certainly looked better now than he had then.

  ‘Ma’am?’ She ventured a small bob, wishing she had been told to take off her old pinny before coming up here but they had all been so astounded in the kitchen that it had gone unnoticed.

  Missis was very tired, you could see that and Rosie’s kind heart softened as she waited to be told she had got the sack or was to be demoted, though what to she had no idea for she was already the lowest of the low. When the mistress told her she nearly fainted.

  ‘We have another baby in the nursery, Rosie, and I believe you are the eldest of seven.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Rosie’s voice quavered, wondering if the mistress was out of her wits.

  ‘Good. Then I want you to work in the nursery as nursemaid to . . . to Aisling who is in charge.’

  ‘Very well, ma’am,’ Rosie whispered. The mistress, with Kizzie standing protectively beside her, spoke once more. She seemed ready to nod off.

  ‘Kizzie will show you what to wear and what to do. When I feel stronger I will come up and . . . thank you, Rosie. Now go with Kizzie.’

  Rosie bobbed and twittered and bobbed again, barely understanding, but Kizzie, who they all knew to be fair and honest with them, led her away, still in a daze.

  On the stairs Rosie turned in some agitation. ‘Miss Kizzie, wha’ about t’ kitchen? Cook won’t like me leavin’ ’er wi’out—’

  ‘That’ll be sorted out, Rosie. Another scullery-maid’ll be took on. Tha’ must be pleased Mrs Armstrong thinks yer capable of lookin’ after t’ babies. Wi’ Aisling in charge, of course,’ she added hastily.

  There was a buzz in the kitchen which died down as Rosie and Kizzie entered and when they were told coolly by Kizzie, who seemed to be running the house, the nursery, the sickroom and everything in the household at the moment, that another scullery-maid must be found at once they were all stupefied. When it transpired that Rosie, who they had all considered half-witted, was to be the new nursery-maid they were speechless. Not that they minded, for none of the girls wanted to work with the trollop from over the way and after all Rosie had the kindest, softest heart. She’d do well with a baby since she had helped her mam with hers!

  Kizzie returned to the sickroom after Rosie was installed in the nursery, ‘made up’ as she kept saying, in her new simple gown and snow-white apron and cap, to find the master and mistress lying side by side in their big bed, the mistress with her arm over the master’s chest, both fast asleep. They were smiling!

  Charlotte was young, strong and healthy and soon recovered from the ordeal of childbirth and the harrowing experience she had suffered with Brooke’s accident, but Brooke himself seemed unable to find it in himself, despite his own usual good health, to get over his dreadful injuries. The wound refused to heal properly and he was in constant pain which weakened him further. He became irritable. He was an active man and despite the almost constant presence of his wife did not recover as the doctor had hoped.

  Doctor Chapman called every day, doing his best to alleviate what he was beginning to believe was a recurring infection that dragged his patient even further down the slope of pain. Privately to Kizzie he said that he suspected some nasty substance from the bull’s horns or Emmerson’s farmyard was festering deep in the wound.

  ‘I might have to open him up again, Kizzie, and put a drain in the groin. He is not doing really well at all and I suppose you have noticed how much weight he has lost, and muscle tone too. And you know how he looked forward to his daughter’s visits. Now he can scarce be bothered to look at her though I know he tries to . . . well, for Mrs Armstrong’s sake he . . . he . . .’

  Kizzie put a hand on his arm. ‘I know, Doctor. Tha’ did talk about a professional nurse at beginnin’. Dost’ think . . .’

  ‘No, I don’t. There is nothing more healing to him than to have his own wife with him. He watches for her – or did – but now I’m beginning to think he just wants to be left alone.’

  ‘Yes. Dear God, if ’e gives up ’ope . . .’

  The doctor shook his head, turning to look back at his patient who lay passively in his bed staring sightlessly at the window. Mrs Armstrong was up in the nursery spending a few minutes with the two babies who at least were thriving and he knew from Kizzie that she had not gone near the Dower House since the accident. He himself often looked in to check on the inmates but Jenny, supervised daily by Kizzie, was coping very well and had even taken over buying the shoddy for the rugs. Given the right leadership it would make a thriving little business. There were five girls there now, nearly all brought in by himself, and six babies, all well looked after and happy in their new environment, although the rugs they made were piling up uselessly, it seemed, in the storeroom at the back of the workroom. He had even bought one for his own wife, a beautiful landscape of primroses spreading beneath the greening ash trees in the bit of woodland at the side of the house.

  There had been a double christening at the small local church several weeks ago, that of Lucy Jean Armstrong and Ellen Drummond, the latter name wrung out of her father on the telephone by Charlotte.

  ‘I don’t care what she is called, Charlotte,’ he had told her after he had reluctantly been brought to the telephone by Mrs Banks soon after Charlotte had fetched the child back to King’s Meadow. Neither did he care that she had removed his daughter from his house when she was born. His wife had been buried quickly and none of his children had even been told of the funeral, for which Doctor Chapman had been truly grateful since knowing Charlotte she would have struggled to go.

  ‘But what are we to call her, Father?’ Charlotte had asked diffidently.

  ‘Elizabeth had talked of Ellen after her mother but I leave it to you, my dear. I’m far too busy at the moment to consider—’

  ‘She is your daughter, Father,’ Charlotte said sharply.

  ‘As you are, Charlotte, and since you are related I leave it to you,’ just as though they were discussing naming a new puppy the Armstrong family had acquired. ‘Now I really must go. I have guests . . .’ and Charlotte could clearly hear the sound of laughter in the background.

  ‘Father, will you not want to see her or . . .’ She meant to ask if he wanted his new baby at home.

  ‘I’ll let you know, my dear. You can manage for the moment can’t you?’

  ‘You have a new granddaughter, Father.’

  ‘So I believe. Now I really must go.’

  Charlotte was far too harassed with the care of her husband and the time she spent in the nursery with Lucy and Ellie, as she was now increasingly being called, to argue with her father. The babies were strangely alike, which was not surprising as they were related. Charlotte was driven into Wakefield to the newly opened baby shop where she bought a handsome perambulator big enough for two. It was high with big wheels but very elegant in a lovely shade of maroon lined in grey. Fittings, like the jointed stays that kept the hood up, were made of brass and the grip on the handle was of porcelain. Aisling and Rosie thought they were the last word in fashion as they strolled round the
extensive grounds with the babies and even down to the village where everyone stopped to stare. The two little faces, rosy now with rounded cheeks, one with blue eyes, the other with green, lay side by side on their lacy pillows and the gardeners and outdoor men, even from the stable at the back of the house, hung over the perambulator making those strange sounds men and women all over the world make when confronted with babies.

  It was the end of February when Doctor Chapman first voiced the idea that he considered it might be better for Mr Armstrong to go into the Clayton Hospital where there was an up-to-date operating theatre where a deeper look at his groin might be attempted.

  ‘I myself will help perform the operation. I’m sorry, Mrs Armstrong, but he is not doing well and it is affecting him. He seems to sink deeper into what I can only call depression as though he believes he will never get out of that bed. Something is holding him back and unless we find what it is he might . . .’

  Charlotte felt the painful sinking in her chest that came so frequently now. Every morning when she woke after a restless night it attacked her, for she was beginning to believe, though she did not voice it, let alone allow it to fell her, that her husband, whom she had only just discovered, if that was not too fanciful, was fast slipping away from her. He did his best, she knew that, not to let her see his pain and despair, but she who slept at his side and spent every spare moment with him that she could, knew he was fighting something, not just infection, but the loss of his will to live, to be as he once had been, to ride, to walk, to make love to her, to play with the child he had so longed for.

  ‘Have you discussed it with him, Doctor? He is—’

  ‘He is a sensible man and he knows he is not doing as he should. I think he will take any chance there is to . . . to repair himself. I have done all I can here and quite honestly unless I get him into a properly equipped operating theatre I fear that . . .’

  Charlotte felt her heart thudding in her chest and she wanted to scream at him: Do something; do something, anything, for this man is my life and I will have none if he dies. But instead she coolly nodded her head.

  ‘Very well. When will you . . .?’

  ‘Now that I have told you I will telephone the hospital and send for a private ambulance. He will be transferred there later today.’

  ‘I will come with him.’

  ‘Mrs Armstrong, there is no need for you to—’

  She lifted her head and straightened her back and that stubborn chin of hers, which he was getting to know so well, jutted beneath her firmed lips. ‘If you imagine I will allow my husband to fight this . . . this thing on his own you do not know me, Doctor, and by God, you should do by now. I will go to him at once. Kizzie will look after everything until I, until we return. Thank God for her, what would I do . . .?’

  The servants were all in a terrible state, for the master was much loved and, if they were honest and this time they were, so was the mistress. They had never known anyone go into hospital and it was their belief that those who did never came out again! They watched, unchecked even by Kizzie who knew how they felt, as Mr Armstrong was brought down the stairs on a stretcher, his poor thin face white and rigid with the pain of being moved until, with an oath, Doctor Chapman stopped the men who carried him and stuck a needle in his arm, muttering to himself that he should have thought of it first. At once the master went to sleep and was lifted again on the stretcher and into the waiting ambulance. The mistress went with him and, with tears of sadness, for would they ever see him again, they watched the ambulance doors close and the vehicle drive off.

  20

  Wallace Chapman, since his time in Africa treating Boer women who had been dispossessed of their men and their homes by the war, had become more and more interested in the complexities that often occurred during childbirth, with obstetrics and gynaecology, and though his early training at Guy’s Hospital in London had included some surgery, he did not feel able to operate on Brooke Armstrong alone. However he knew a doctor who could. Doctor Preston worked at the Clayton Hospital and was renowned for his success in the most delicate of surgery. A quick telephone call to him from King’s Meadow had ensured that Doctor Preston was available, or would be later in the afternoon, and a private room was booked for Mr Armstrong along with the up-to-date operating theatre. Doctor Chapman would assist and Charlotte felt her heart lift a little when she was told. She was sure, if Doctor Chapman recommended him, the surgeon could only be the best and the thought of the doctor, who had done so much for her and her girls, the man who took such care and felt such compassion even for street-walkers, was of great comfort to her.

  She rode in the ambulance, holding Brooke’s hand, bending over him, stroking his face, trying to make sense of his words, for he was beginning to ramble. His face was skull-like and the gunmetal grey of his eyes, those that had once been like soft velvet, stared at nothing but at the same time seemed now and again to see her, to recognise her.

  ‘Sweetheart . . . my lovely girl . . . don’t . . .’

  ‘I’m here, darling. Don’t what? Tell me . . . tell me, what do you want?’

  His pain was punishing her, crucifying her, his fever rising by the minute and she marvelled at this enormous thing, this love, this enchantment, that had come on her so suddenly that the very thought of this man’s death racked her, cut her to the bone with a knife that twisted cruelly and even pierced her heart. There was no doubt in her mind that if he did not live, neither would she. She might still walk about, eat, sleep, be with her baby but she would, nevertheless, be dead. A ghost haunting the earth searching for peace; no, not for peace but for oblivion.

  She hovered by the side of the stretcher that carried her love, her life, her heart to the room where he was lifted gently on to a high bed. A nurse in a starched uniform tried physically to remove her when she refused to leave, but she fought her silently until Doctor Chapman shook his head.

  ‘Leave her, Nurse.’

  ‘But, Doctor, I cannot allow her to hang over my patient,’ who was muttering and clutching for something which proved, to her amazement, to be his wife’s hand, when he calmed somewhat.

  Doctor Preston was younger than Doctor Chapman, brisk, quick, wasting no time in having his patient stripped down to a short gown and then removing the dressings that covered Brooke’s wound.

  ‘Yes,’ was all he said, beckoning to the nurse who pushed past Charlotte, standing no nonsense now and with force but gentleness Doctor Chapman took her by the shoulders.

  ‘Remove this lady, if you please,’ Doctor Preston told him.

  ‘She is his wife, Charlie.’

  ‘I don’t care if she is Queen Alexandra herself, she must leave and this patient must be taken at once to the operating theatre. ‘See to it, Nurse.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’

  ‘I’ll be there in five minutes, so look sharp.’

  ‘Please . . . please, Doctor, may I not come?’ Charlotte began and it was then he turned and really looked at her, his face softening.

  ‘No, madam, I’m afraid you can’t.’

  ‘But I love him so and . . .’

  ‘Do you want to hinder me in my effort to save your husband’s life, Mrs . . . er?’

  ‘Armstrong,’ Doctor Chapman told him.

  ‘Mrs Armstrong, an operating theatre is no place for anyone except those who are working there.’ He put out a hand and placed it on her arm. ‘I will save him for you, really I will. Now go and wait in the waiting room and when I have finished I will come and tell you exactly what I have done and what you are to do to bring him back to health.’

  It took two hours to open the wound in Brooke’s thigh and to drain the abscess that had formed and would have spread its poison – in fact had already begun – to the rest of his body if not treated. With a drainage tube still protruding from the restitched wound he was wheeled back to his room where his wife waited. There were several cold cups of tea standing on the table to the side of his bed and again the nurse had physically to re
strain what she saw as his hysterical wife from throwing herself across the patient.

  ‘Charlotte,’ a stern voice almost shouted in her ear and a strong hand dragged her quite literally to the far corner of the room.

  ‘Get off me, you fool,’ she hissed. Her face was like putty. She was totally, utterly disorientated. She fought him like a demon and it was not until a porter appeared to help Doctor Chapman and the nurse, that she could be dragged from the room. He slapped her across the face, much to the nurse’s satisfaction – who had never loved a man nor had a man love her – and slowly she came out of her demented state. Her eyes cleared and the tears that streamed from them slowly stopped.

  ‘I’m sorry. Please, please forgive me,’ turning to the nurse. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I promise to behave. I’ll sit down here’ – indicating a row of chairs against the wall – ‘and bother no one, but please . . . please, Doctor Chapman, tell me that my husband will recover, that the operation was a success; that you . . . that the doctor who performed it has removed whatever . . .’

  Waving away the nurse and the porter who were both inclined to hang about to make sure the patient’s wife did not overcome Doctor Chapman and rush back into the patient’s bedroom where a nurse could be seen bending over his bed, Wallace Chapman sat beside Charlotte, holding her hand though he was not aware of it. He felt a great wave of sympathy wash over him for this plucky woman who was doing what most women of her class avoided in horror, that is to care for others less fortunate than herself. She had worked hard to house, feed and find work for the six girls who had washed up at the Dower House, fighting her husband all the way. Like all gentlemen of his class he had objected strongly to what she did but she had stood firm and given five young women a fresh start in life, even putting the sixth in the nursery to care for her own child. She had given birth to her own daughter and then seen her husband badly injured. She was still not recovered from the birth of that child and the consequent loss of blood and her dedicated nursing of her terribly injured husband whom she appeared to love to distraction was to be admired, which was a pathetic description of her feelings for him.