into the gloomy kitchen. Time had rushed on, and she had not marked it. Next birthday she would be thirty-one. One day her footsteps would be as hesitant and fumbling.
She hefted the laden tray through the drawing room to the terrace, where the two men had been joined by Freddie. All three were being polite. The latter had thrown himself gallantly into the fray and was regaling the other two with ‘the business deals of my prime’, a topic that united both men in a glassy expression.
Agnes smiled. Freddie was so sweet and understood far more than he ever let on. She was handing a cup of tea to him when a scream issued from the first floor, followed by another.
Agnes started and the tea slopped. ‘My God, the aunts!’ Followed by the men, she fled through the drawing room and up the stairs.
At the top they found a groaning Maud collapsed in an unnatural heap outside her bedroom.
‘Don’t touch me,’ she managed, as Agnes knelt down beside her.
‘Where does it hurt?’
‘My hip.’ Maud closed her eyes. ‘I think it’s broken. It’s bound to be broken.’
Julian touched Agnes on the shoulder. ‘Where’s the phone?’ In shock, she stared at his blue shirt with its pearl buttons. ‘The phone?’ he repeated, and gave her a little shake. She told him and he disappeared.
Agnes chafed Maud’s hand. ‘Do you hurt anywhere else? Did you hit your head?’
‘I tripped on the floorboard…’ Maud ground out, between grimaces. ‘The one you said you’d get mended but never did.’
It was true. Maud had been going on about one of the oak planks, which had worked free of its mooring, adding double danger to an already uneven floor. ‘Oh, Maud,’ she stammered guiltily. ‘How dreadful.’ Panicked, she peered closer. Maud’s breathing was both rapid and shallow, and shock had stretched her skin tightly across her jaw.
Julian took the stairs two at a time. ‘The ambulance is on its way. They won’t be long.’ He knelt down beside Maud, and his expression gentled. ‘Would you like me to find your sister, Mrs Campion?’
Tears spilling from her eyes, Maud whispered, ‘Yes.’
Agnes said she was the best person to find Bea and Freddie offered as well, which left Julian and Andrew to deal with Maud.
‘How can I help?’ asked Andrew, pushing back the open cuffs of his sleeves.
Julian gestured towards the open bedroom door. ‘She would be easier with a pillow.’
Andrew disappeared and emerged with a pillow and a rug, and the two endeavoured to make Maud more comfortable. ‘Agnes’s fault…’ whispered Maud. ‘She promised. She’s…’
‘Now,’ said Julian, ‘I’m going to hold your hand while your sister is being found.’
Looking sweet and fresh in an embroidered blouse and her favourite cardigan, Bea was in the laundry room folding the washing. As she had been taking it down from the line, the commotion had bypassed her. When Agnes broke the news, she turned as white as a sheet. Just in time, Agnes swooped forward and caught her as her knees buckled.
‘I’m so sorry, so sorry,’ she murmured as, with difficulty, Agnes manhandled her to a chair. ‘It’s the shock.’ For a while, she sat clutching Agnes. ‘I don’t think my new pills quite suit me.’
Agnes dashed into the hall and called to Freddie for help. Moving with the speed of a much younger man, Freddie reached the laundry room within seconds, at which point the ambulance arrived and Agnes left him to it.
The paramedics took one look at Maud and transferred her to the gurney, during which time Bea, who had struggled upstairs on Freddie’s arm, fainted properly. It was suggested that she, too, went into hospital, which Agnes, alarmed by Bea’s reference to her pills, urged. Eventually, the gurney was carried down the stairs with its burden. Maud clung to Freddie’s hand. ‘I knew Flagge House would kill me. I kept saying.’
‘Well, it hasn’t, dear one, has it? Just a knock.’
‘Don’t leave me, Freddie. Don’t leave me.’
‘Now, now,’ said one of the paramedics, with practised patience, ‘we’re going to make you better, not eat you.’
The ambulance with Bea and Maud drove off. Andrew, Julian, Freddie and Agnes were left in the drive.
Agnes turned to them. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I must pack a few things for Maud and lock up.’
‘Of course.’ Freddie extracted his car keys. ‘If you need help, just ask…’ He tapped a finger to his nose. ‘Just ask, dear lady.’
Andrew shot a thunderous look at Julian. ‘If you’re sure, Agnes, I must get back to relieve Jim.’
‘Sure.’ She nodded. ‘Thank you for Cromwell.’
‘Any time.’ As he took her hand, she felt the uneven shape of his broken fingers, and the scar tissue on the cut one. Then he inserted his thin form into the van. He looked at Julian and said, in a voice which, technically, was intended for Agnes’s ears but reached Julian, ‘I’ll see you very soon.’
18
Julian watched Andrew’s van lumber down the drive until it was out of sight. ‘Agnes, it wasn’t your fault. Your aunt lashed out because she was in pain.’
She shook her head. ‘I
‘One always should have done something,’ he said lightly. ‘King Alfred should have checked the oven and Bluebeard should have gone into therapy’ He made it sound so easy, so forgivable and explicable. ‘I’ll lock up while you pack,’ he finished. ‘Tell me what to do.’
She looked at him in a way that his mother had sometimes, with tolerance and a slight suggestion of impatience, and he wanted to shake her and tell her not to underestimate him. Then he took in the pallor, and an uncontrollable tenderness washed through him. ‘Get moving,’ he said.
Fifteen minutes later, the house was closed and shuttered, and they were back in the drive. Softly, evening was stealing in. Cloaking reason and principle and substituting yearning, the dying light tracing a different horizon to the day. The swifts were calling and the wood pigeons’ fractiousness had stilled. A ring of darkness gathered and waited.
‘Will you be all right?’ He was now concerned by how pale she was and searched his memory for how to treat shock. ‘Maud is in the best hands. It could have happened at any time.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She picked up her rucksack and Bea’s bag. ‘Thank you.’
He fingered his car keys. ‘Agnes, I’m driving you to the hospital.’
‘What about – wherever you were going?’
‘I’ll get up early.’
‘I’m fine. I can cope. I can cope absolutely. I’ve coped with far worse.’
‘Of course.’ He put his hands on her shoulders. ‘I have an awful feeling I’m always lecturing you, but self- 0001reliance becomes ridiculous if it means you can’t accept the offer of a lift when you need one. Furthermore, it doesn’t mean you’re making a claim on me. Or ruining Kitty’s life.’
‘No,’ she said stubbornly. ‘It’s
‘Agnes,’ he said, and startled by the pressure on her shoulders, she looked up at him. He said quietly, ‘Just get in the car.’
At the hospital the wait was long. Casualty smelt of blood and alcohol; it was noisy with cries of distress and impatience; it was overheated, airless, and overflowing. The doctors were weary. Maud’s fracture turned out to be more serious than had been suspected, the consultant was unavailable and operating theatres were full. To complicate matters, it was decided that Bea should stay in overnight for observation.
It was after nine o’clock before a heavily sedated Maud was wheeled away and Bea finally settled in the twenty-four-hour ward. Agnes reeled out into the car park, fatigued to the bone.
Julian was waiting. He had made phone calls, dispensed cups of coffee, waylaid one set of nurses while Agnes dealt with the other, and even managed to procure toothbrush and toothpaste from the hospital shop. She got into the car and slumped into the seat.
‘Don’t talk.’ He started up the engine.
