‘Thank you for being so kind to a boat full of women who are old enough to be your grandmothers. I hope it was not too trying a day for you.’ She offers each of them a small pouch. They stare slack-jawed at the coins, murmuring their thanks.
The water laps against the hulls of the boats as the men push off and the horses lean into the first big pull away from the bank. A final wave sends them off into the night, enriched by both healthier pockets and wealthier spirits.
A carriage for Percy, horses for the men, cabs for the maids, the business of travelling home for all those who helped is attended to until, finally, the exhausted women of Lawless House sit in a pile of disarray in the drawing room. They are aching to fall into the beds that await them, made splendidly fresh with new linen by the day maids. They yawn and stretch and feel as if they cannot bring themselves to rise to climb another floor to their bedrooms. Rafe is holding court in his new cradle. The boy is wide awake and chattering to innumerable invisible listeners. Bertie begins to place one tired, leaden leg in front of the other to go to him, but Constance stops her.
‘Bertie, you look like death. Go to bed this instant.’
‘I will not argue with you this time.’
‘You are a treasure. Thank you for everything,’ Verity says.
Bertie waves off the remarks and slowly makes her way to the second floor.
Verity lifts Rafe from his cradle and carries him to the windows. Now that he has someone’s attention his babbling lecture continues.
‘Look down upon the lovely garden, Rafe. This is your little plot of land. We will play on nice days and wave when the boats pass. We will watch storms in blowy weather and marvel at the snowfall.’
Below, his body concealed behind the garden wall of the neighbouring villa, Benedikt places his telescope back into his coat pocket. They are safely home. He rests his eyes for a moment and leans against the wall. On this cold night he wipes the sweat from his face with a handkerchief, replaces his hat, climbs the wall, and with a stealth that has become second nature to him now, he retreats along the towpath.
Verity turns from the window eager now to put Rafe to bed. He squirms and whimpers. She dips soaked bread into a small bowl of milk, but he turns away.
‘Rafe? What is the matter poor boy? He is very restless, Constance,’ she says.
‘I see he is. Here, I’ll have him for a while. Go to bed.’
But Constance cannot calm him either. Rafe’s chatter has turned to fussing, his legs kick out and his arms fight the air.
‘He is very warm, sister.’ Constance places the back of her hand on his face.
‘Oh good great God, Constance. He’s pink all over.’
‘And he’s sweating now, it’s pouring off him.’
‘I’ll fetch Bertie.’
‘No, let her sleep, the poor dear looked dreadful.’
‘I’ll make cool cloths then. Yes? Yes, that’s what I shall do.’
Constance removes the baby’s outer blanket and gasps. His nightclothes are dripping.
‘And bring a change of nightclothes, Verity.’
‘I have no idea where they are. They could be in any one of these baskets.’
‘A blanket then, anything, he’s drenched.’
Verity rummages through the baskets and boxes, tossing cushions and clothing until she pauses, exasperated.
‘We should have had the priest here to bless the house before the move. I begged you to allow it,’ she snaps at Constance, who ignores her. ‘I fail to understand why you preferred to wait until … This would not be happening if … He would not be ill if only the house had been blessed.’
Constance closes her eyes, one of which is throbbing, and sighs from weariness.
‘Verity. Rafe is not ill because the house has not yet been blessed. Please. Find something to cover him.’
As Constance pats him down his sweat dampens her sleeves, until they cling to her arms. She lifts him to her cheek and his hands reach out for her face. When his arms flail and brush against her bruised eye she winces.
‘Let me have him now,’ Verity says. ‘My God, you are soaked through, too. Constance!’
She places cool cloths all over Rafe’s body, but he only screams louder. She quickly removes them and he calms a bit.
‘He does not like them, Constance.’
‘Then just hold him and I shall dig around in the baskets for his clean nightclothes.’
Moments later Verity too is drenched with Rafe’s perspiration.
‘This is not normal. He needs a man of medicine or … do we know where the nearest apothecary may be? The time. What time is it? Oh, sister, what should we do?’
‘We shall keep him as comfortable as possible. There is nothing else we can do until morning.’ Her voice wavers.
‘I have never seen such a fever.’
They cannot locate his bedclothes and instead improvise with their shifts, which he promptly leaves sodden, and which irritate him. Not until he is left naked and free to squirm on a blanket on the floor does he begin to show signs of relief.
In the early hours of the morning Rafe lies perfectly still. Verity lumbers from the sofa.
‘Constance, come here.’
Constance stands at the window where first light climbs across the garden, too terrified to turn her attention to the boy.
‘Is he dead?’ she asks.
Verity clamours to the floor and kneels beside him. She looks up at her sister and smiles.
‘It is gone. The fever is gone.’
She lifts the naked baby and turns him to face Constance. He opens his arms to her and exercises his fingers.
Constance takes him, holds him to her bosom and again faces the window.
‘Look Rafe, the sun is risen.’
The boy’s sweat has turned them. The doting women will never be the same.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
On any good map of London may be found the evil-looking starfish that appears as if it might actually slither across the paper. Spread like a
