Читать книгу Ultimate Prizes - Susan Howatch - Страница 34

Norman’s condition showed no improvement the next morning. Grace – perfect as always – had remembered to bring a thermometer, and when we discovered he had a high fever I trekked to the nearby village in search of a doctor. Influenza was diagnosed. Grace was obliged to spend most of her time caring for the invalid. The weather was not only wet but cold. The younger children quickly became fractious.

It was on the fifth day after our arrival, just as Norman’s condition began to improve, that Grace fainted. Rushing upstairs in response to Norman’s frightened yell for help, I found she had collapsed on the bedroom floor.

‘I haven’t felt well for some time,’ she whispered later, ‘but I was afraid you’d think it was the last straw if I couldn’t cope.’

When the doctor returned he ordered her sternly to stay in bed. Afterwards he told me that she had probably made matters worse by ignoring all the signs that she had caught Norman’s influenza.

But Grace did not have influenza. She had caught a chill after being soaked on a shopping expedition – it could never have happened in Devon where the village shop stood next door to our cottage – and now she was suffering from pneumonia.

At eleven o’clock that night she began to have difficulty with her breathing. On arrival the doctor took one look at her and said: ‘She must go to hospital at once.’ He made no attempt to summon an ambulance. He drove us to the hospital at Keswick in his own car. I remember thinking what a blessing it was that Christian was old enough to be left in charge at the cottage.

Soon after she was admitted to hospital she became delirious and the pneumonia was finally diagnosed. I telephoned her sister Winifred in Manchester. To my great relief she at once offered to come to my rescue. I was unable to leave the hospital, and although Christian was capable of taking charge of four children for a short time I could hardly leave him without assistance for more than twenty-four hours.

The day passed. Winifred arrived and could barely bring herself to leave the hospital. I had to remind her sharply that if she wanted to help her sister she should attend to the children. Winifred cried but left. More time passed. The sympathetic nurses offered me cups of tea but I could hardly drink. Eating proved quite impossible.

For some time Grace was unconscious but in the evening when the sun was setting far away in the other world beyond the hospital walls, she opened her eyes and said clearly: ‘I can’t go on. But I must. She’d never care for the children.’

For a long moment I was so appalled, so overpowered by my guilt and my shame that I was unable to speak. Then leaning forward I clumsily clasped her hands as if I could somehow infuse her with strength, and stammered: ‘You mustn’t say such things. You mustn’t even think them. I love you and no one else but you and you’re going to live.’

She died a minute later.