Читать книгу Waiting for Deborah - Бетти Нилс - Страница 9

A MONTH passed before Dr Benson judged it was time to consult Sir James again. Mrs Vernon was sitting propped up in bed now with quite a lot of movement in her arms and hands and dangling her legs over the side of the bed under Deborah’s anxious eye. There had been talk of a physiotherapist coming twice a week, but it had come to nothing, so she had followed Dr Benson’s instructions and massaged and rubbed and encouraged the old lady. Her speech was returning too, slurred and almost unintelligible, and each day she laboriously wrote little messages in a shaky hand, and all these little miracles were ignored by her niece, who visited her each morning, asked how she was and went away again.

Deborah, asking for a half-day so that she might go to Lechlade and do some necessary shopping, had been treated to a tirade concerning the pleasant life she led with almost nothing to do, her tiresome habit of asking for this and that that the old lady needed when everyone knew that they were quite unnecessary, but she stuck to her guns in her quiet way and got her afternoon off.