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‘Someone needs to hold your nightshirt up for you,’ she retorted. ‘If you try it you’ll fall over. You might even spend the night on the floor, or worse than that, break a hip. Or both.’
Adrienne stifled a sob and shot a glance at Hester filled with both loathing and despair. ‘I’ll help you,’ she whispered to her father, then to Hester: ‘Please go. You leave him no dignity at all! How can you be so . . . cruel?’
Hester lost her patience, not with frailty or the fear of indignity, but with the mixture of love, hate and dependence that each of them seemed to have for the other.
‘There is no indignity in being human,’ she said, anger at the stupidity of it making her voice sharp. ‘We are all born naked and screaming. We all function essentially the same way. We all need each other from time to time, dressed in robes and bleeding inside, or naked and weeping. Nobody takes your dignity away. Either you keep it, or you give it up yourself by behaving like a fool.’ She turned to Radnor. ‘You are no different from any other man. For goodness’ sake stop making such a performance out of relieving yourself. Nobody cares!’
Adrienne gasped.
Radnor seemed to consider for a moment whether he would retaliate or not, and decided against it.
Five minutes later he was back in bed, ready for the night. Adrienne, exhausted, was sitting by his side with a book in her hands, quietly reading to him while he appeared to be falling asleep.
Hester awoke in the morning with a moment of fear. As she remembered where she was, a sense of loss overcame her. She lay still, thinking of Monk, and of Scuff. Did they know yet what had happened to her? What had Magnus Rand said to them?
Then she heard sounds below her, footsteps. What she felt was unimportant. What mattered were the three children and the promises she had made them.
She swung her legs out of bed and stood up. She was stiff, and still tired, but there was nothing wrong with her. She had a battle to fight every hour, every minute. If Radnor could be saved, well and good, but she must keep the children alive until she could find a way for all of them to escape.
She washed and dressed in the same clothes as before. She had nothing else to wear. Then she went down to the kitchen. It was dark outside still, with just a paling in the east to say that dawn was coming. Then she realised what the sound was that she had heard. The gardener was cleaning out the kitchen grate and rebuilding the fire. He snapped the front of it shut and stood up slowly, facing her, half a foot taller than she, and powerful, even without his gun.
‘You’d best not even think of it,’ he said quietly as she glanced at the back door. ‘I could bring you down in a moment, and then what would those little ones do, eh? Miss Radnor in’t going to look after ’em. She’s too busy with ’er father.’ He gave a twisted half-smile. ‘Cooker’ll be hot in five minutes. There’s oatmeal in the wooden bin over there, and plenty o’ good milk. An’ there’s eggs.’
Hester looked at his bony face and his big knuckled hands. He’d probably killed chickens and rabbits with them, with a quick twist, and thought nothing of it. He would do whatever Rand told him to. There was no imagination in his eyes, and no pity.
‘A good idea,’
she agreed. ‘Thank you for getting the fire going.’
He grunted and turned away. He had been prepared for anger, or pleading. Agreement caught him off balance.
She made plenty of porridge, sufficient for all of them, including Rand himself. Then she left it simmering while she went to get the children up, washed and dressed, and then brought them back to the kitchen.
She served them porridge with plenty of milk. They were all sitting at the wooden table eating when Rand came in.
‘And what do you think you are doing in here?’ he demanded when he saw them. ‘You eat in your own place! Mrs Monk, I will not have this . . .’
She stared straight back at him. ‘If you do not allow them fresh air and as much food as they need, what you will have is sick children whose blood is no use to you,’ she answered him tartly. ‘I presume you have not gone this far in order to fail over such an obvious detail?’
For an instant there was surprise in his face, and something that could even have been appreciation. Then it vanished. ‘See that they are finished and in their room in one hour. I shall require you to assist in taking their blood. Radnor is still failing.’
She stared at him, at his clever eyes whose colour she could never be sure of, then back at his precise mouth, which seemed to have no curves in it, no passion.
She found herself agreeing obediently. She could not afford his anger.
The porridge had lost its flavour, but she finished it anyway, and took the children back to their room, locking the door behind her as she left. Her mind was racing all the time, seeking ways of escape, and finding nothing.
Rand came back when he had said he would. He was exact in everything. He never made an unnecessary gesture, never mind an ill-thought act.
‘We will begin, Mrs Monk,’ he told her. ‘Watch me and do exactly as I tell you. You are an intelligent woman and a very good nurse. Please do not waste both our time by pretending not to understand.’ He met her eyes for a moment, as if making certain he had her attention. ‘We are going to draw blood from the older two children, about three-quarters of a pint from each,’ he continued. ‘I shall mix the lemon juice and the potash with it in exact proportions, and you will observe. Please do not be stupid enough to affect displays of emotion. If you do, I shall be obliged to hurt you. If harm comes to the children it will be the result of your stupidity.’
He looked at her steadily and there was a degree of respect in his face. ‘I know something about you, Mrs Monk. I did not choose you at random among the nurses. You have seen surgical operations; indeed, you have performed some yourself when there was no one else. You do not lack either skill or nerve. Do not fritter away these people’s lives with moral histrionics. Do you understand me?’
She understood him perfectly. He saw it in her face and turned away without waiting for a verbal answer.
First she watched him make a mixture of lemon juice squeezed and refined until it was absolutely clear, then mixed with potash, to exact measurements. He put it in a small glass jar and sealed it.
Next she followed him to collect Maggie and bring her back to the room upstairs where they would draw three-quarters of a pint of her blood.
