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A look of surprise and indeed faint satisfaction crossed his face, as if he were pleased at her knowledge. ‘The infection is irrelevant when the patient has died from blood loss,’ he retorted. ‘And no operation is going to cure the white blood disease. But I am glad you are interested in such things.’ The anger was gone from his voice and the enthusiasm was there again. ‘You cannot help yourself, Mrs Monk. You are going to participate in one of the great moments in medicine, a discovery that will save lives when the soldiers and statesmen of the world are forgotten. Come!’ He waved his hand forward impatiently, urging her to keep up with him.
He came to a door off what had once been used as a sitting room, but now was devoid of most of its furniture. The aspect was sunny and would have been pleasant in other circumstances. He opened the door without knocking and held it briefly until Hester came through.
The room was spacious, and the central place was taken up by a large bed with iron head and foot pieces. Bryson Radnor lay propped up on pillows, sheets and blankets drawn up to cover all of him but the top of his chest and shoulders, although the room was warm.
His skin was damp and pale, and there were marked shadows around his eyes, blue, like bruises.
Adrienne Radnor stood beside him, a glass of water in her hands and a small towel over her arm, and she wore a white apron half-covering her plain brown dress. She was tense and did not hide her distress. She ignored Hester. There was neither surprise to see her nor recognition in her face. She looked straight at Rand.
‘Come!’ Rand jerked his arm to have Hester follow him to Radnor’s bed.
‘Can you hear me, Mr Radnor?’ she asked clearly, standing beside the sick man and looking intently at his face. ‘I am going to take your pulse, and then your temperature.’
He half-opened his eyes. ‘Are you asking my damn permission, woman? Do what you need to.’ His voice was weak and even anger could not return its timbre.
‘No, I’m not asking your permission,’ she answered, taking his wrist in her hand and feeling for the beat of blood in the veins close to the skin. They were blue, a little ropey and very easy to see – even more so across the back of his hand.
His flesh was cold and clammy to the touch. His pulse was weak, but regular. She felt it for another minute, but it did not change. She put her hand to his brow.
‘Do something!’ Adrienne’s voice was sharp with panic.
‘Not until I know what to do,’ Hester replied more calmly than she felt.
‘Not you!’ Adrienne snapped. ‘Mr Rand! Help him . . . please.’
It was only then that Hester remembered with a surge of fear that Hamilton Rand was a brilliant chemist, possibly even a genius, but he was not a doctor of medicine. He understood chemicals rather than living people, while she knew plenty of medicine. This gave her an immense power, and he did not know that she would not use it to bargain for her freedom. She was not a doctor, but it was certainly not the first time she had been alone with a patient with no one else to turn to, and no time for indecision.
‘When did you last give him anything more than water?’ she asked.
Adrienne was silent.
Hester turned round to look at her. ‘Don’t just stand there! When did you last give him anything better than water? If you want me to do something, then tell me the truth.’
‘I gave him a little beef tea, about an hour ago,’ Adrienne told her.
‘And before that? Do you even know how long we’ve been here? Or how long since he left the hospital?’
‘About three hours, I think.’ Adrienne’s voice was strained as if her throat were tight with fear. ‘And an hour here. Was it too soon for him to have some nourishment? He was asking for it.’
‘Possibly not soon enough,’ Hester replied. She had no idea if she was right, but both Adrienne and Radnor himself needed to believe in her. Hope was sometimes the only medicine that kept people alive between one moment of crisis and then relief the next. ‘What have you been eating?’
‘I haven’t . . . just . . . a little bread. But he can’t take that . . . can he?’
‘Probably not. But you must eat too. You are no use to him if you start fainting. Do we have a cook here?’
‘No, just the gardener. Please, Mrs Monk . . .’
Hester felt a twist of sorrow for the other woman. She understood her fear, her grief, even her sense of guilt that she was healthy herself and could do nothing but watch as her father’s life slipped out of his grasp. It had driven her to collude in what amounted to a kidnap. Did she even think about what price that could cost her in the future?
‘Then you must be the cook,’ Hester said far more gently. ‘Just work carefully. Everything must be cooked lightly, with very little salt, no pepper, no mustard or any other sharp seasoning. Keep the goodness in it. Vegetable soup, a little light chicken, or beef broth. Do the best you can, and do it quickly. If there’s anything you can bring up straight away, then get it now. Even tea with a little sugar would be good.’
Adrienne hesitated only a moment, reluctant to leave her father, then she accepted the inevitability of it and was gone.
Hester turned to Rand. ‘It’s only temporary,’ she said very quietly. ‘You shouldn’t have left the hospital. The blood transfusion was working!’
‘I know it was,’ Rand agreed. ‘And it will again.’
‘Can you store the blood? How? Blood clots if you leave it, even for a short time.’ She knew that from the countless men she had seen bleed. The clothes soaked in the blood of the dead went stiff quite soon.
