him into hospital, he’ll be all right if he’s sensible, if he takes care. He may complain of a little indigestion when he wakes up, but it’s of no consequence.’
‘Was it a coronary?’ Gina ventured, stumbling over the frightening word.
He gave her a shrewd glance. ‘A kind of coronary. A ‘silent’ coronary, we call it. No pain, you see, just the extreme shortness of breath.’
He spent a few minutes giving nursing instructions to Mrs Parkes. A sensible woman, Mrs Parkes, able to cope with emergencies. Dr Burnett had recommended her to Henry Mallinson himself several months earlier when a severe bout of influenza had confined the old man to bed for some weeks. Mallinson had developed an unemotional attachment to the nurse, had come to depend on her more than he cared to admit, had resisted the notion of her going when he had finally recovered his strength after the influenza.
There were many little tasks she could perform about the great old house, he’d convinced himself, she was useful to the housekeeper, useful to Gina Thorson, his secretary, he was well able to afford her salary, there was no reason why he should deprive himself of the comfort of a trained nurse about the establishment, at his age one never knew … And so she had stayed on, glad enough of the comfortable post, the handsome salary. A widow with one son, a steady young fellow living down south, married with a couple of small children.
‘How’s the family?’ Dr Burnett asked Mrs Parkes when she had indicated that she understood his instructions about his patient. ‘All well, I hope?’
He didn’t miss the little flicker of unhappiness that moved across her face.
‘Very well, thank you.’ She allowed the conversation to rest there, not inviting further questions. Burnett turned to the secretary.
‘I shall need the address and phone number of Mr Mallinson’s elder son, Kenneth,’ he said. ‘Could you look it up for me now, while I’m here? I promised Mr Mallinson I’d get in touch with Kenneth first thing in the morning and I won’t be looking in here again till lunchtime.’
‘Certainly, Dr Burnett.’ Pleasant and efficient as always, Gina Thorson smiled at the doctor and gestured along the passage towards the ground floor. ‘If you’d like to come down into the office, I’ll look it up in the files. I know we’ve got the address there. I’ll write it down for you.’
Mrs Parkes stood for a few moments watching the two of them walking away towards the flight of stairs, then she tiptoed along the corridor and stood listening outside Mr Mallinson’s door. No sound from within. She turned the handle with great gentleness and put her head round the door. The bedside lamp was still on, it shed a mellow glow over the peaceful features of the old man, deeply asleep now, breathing easily and naturally. Satisfied, she closed the door and went back to her own room.
It was no good, she knew she wouldn’t be able to go to sleep now for an hour or more. She switched on the electric fire and took a letter from her little bureau. She gave a deep sigh, opening the letter and reading it yet again, knowing by heart what it said … ‘We’ve talked it over a great deal recently,’ her son had written, ‘and we’ve finally decided our best opportunity lies in Australia. Without any capital the most I could hope for in this country is a position as a farm manager or a bailiff. It’ll be a terrible wrench of course. If there was any possibility of getting a farm of our own here we’d much prefer to stay, even if it was only a smallholding to start with, but even that takes more capital nowadays than we’d ever be likely to raise. I’ve written off for the emigration forms. It will all take some time but we hope to be on our way next year. Once you’ve made up your mind about a thing, there isn’t much point in hanging about.…’
Mrs Parkes sighed again, staring down at the glowing bars of the fire. Just a few thousand pounds, that was all that was needed to keep her son and his family within reach, a few thousand pounds between herself and the long years of loneliness, the gap bridged by air-letters, a solitary trip scrimped and saved for, a reunion with grandchildren grown into suntanned strangers. A few thousand pounds, so little when you said the words aloud, so impossibly large a sum to a widowed nurse with only her monthly pay-cheque … only the expectation of what a grateful patient might see fit to leave her.
Mrs Parkes sat up suddenly and pulled her dressing-gown more tightly around her. She turned her head in the direction of old Mr Mallinson’s room, held herself rigid while a multitude of thoughts ran through her brain. ‘Stay with me,’ the old man had said a few months ago. ‘I won’t forget you.’ She had paid little attention at the time. It had suited her to stay on, not to have to bother about looking for a new post, not to have to begin all over again the weary business of adapting herself to the ways of a strange household. In a few weeks, she’d thought, in a couple of months at most, Mr Mallinson will be himself again, he won’t need me any more, he’ll summon me one morning and say, ‘You’ve been very kind, Mrs Parkes, I’m very grateful, but I don’t really feel I can detain you here any longer.…’ In the meantime she’d been pleased to be able to take things easily for a while.
‘You look after me and I’ll look after you,’ Mr Mallinson had said. She’d thought little of it, they were all grateful when pain and misery swept over them, they didn’t always find it convenient to remember when health and strength flowed back.
And now Mr Mallinson was ill again. Just how serious was it? ‘Only a mild attack,’ Dr Burnett had said. ‘We must see he takes things easily from now on.’ But Mr Mallinson was an old man. Health and strength might flow back but never again with the strong spate of youth, never again in the full surge of virile manhood.
Perhaps he had meant what he’d said, perhaps he’d added a codicil to his will. She stood up and began to pace about the room.
She could easily find out. A methodical man, Mr Mallinson, there’d be a copy of his will downstairs in the office safe. Gina Thorson could be spoken to, a word at the right time and she could study the contents of the will.
Mrs Parkes paused in her progress and bit her lip in fierce thought. It might be best though to say nothing to Gina, it might be best to consult the will without Gina’s knowledge. She wasn’t all that fond of the girl, it might be better not to be under any kind of obligation to her. She resumed her silent pacing. Yes, she must think of some way of getting hold of the keys of the safe. Not much difficulty there. Next time Gina was out on one of her dates with young Dr Knight, Mrs Parkes could take the keys and open the safe at her leisure. Late in the evening, perhaps, when the rest of the household was at rest, when Gina and young Dr Knight were holding hands in some secluded moonlit spot, that would be the time.
She sat down abruptly by the fire and looked at the letter again. ‘On our way next year,’ her son had written. Just suppose old Mr Mallinson had added a codicil to his will, just suppose gratitude had prompted him to translate promise into reality, exactly how long might he be expected to last? Several years? Or only a year or two? … Or was it only a matter of months? … Of weeks? … Or even days? …
‘I’ll look after you.’ In terms of hard cash how much might that mean? Five hundred pounds? She shook her head sharply, dismissing the idea of such skinfllint generosity. A wealthy man, Mr Mallinson, a self-made wealthy man who’d come up the hard way. Not one of your soup-and-red-flannel-for-the-poor aristocrats, imagining a few hundred pounds spelled unimaginable luxury to an employee. He was a man who knew the value of money and what it might represent in terms of ease of mind and security. A few thousand at least. She stood up again. Her face wore a brighter, less anxious air. Yes, a few thousand at the very least, that was what he’d meant, surely, that was what he must have meant. And Mr Mallinson was a man of his word. Even after only a few months she was aware of that. A man who said a thing and meant it, a man who would carry out a promise.
