Saddle the Wind (26 page)

‘Well, what do you want?’ the woman asked.

‘Please, ma’am – I hope you don’t mind – I was waiting for the doctor.’ Still breathless from her running, Agnes’s words were punctuated by gasps for breath. Half
turning, she gestured, indicating the phaeton. ‘This is – Dr Kelsey’s carriage, isn’t it, ma’am?’

‘Yes, it is. But this isn’t the doctor’s surgery, you know.’ The woman’s tone was imperious. ‘If you want him I suggest you go to his house like everyone else.’

‘Oh, but – ma’am, we need him and I wanted to –’

The woman broke in: ‘I told you, go to his house – as other people have to. I’m sorry you’ve got illness, but so have many others in the village. And I doubt that your need is any greater than anyone else’s.’

‘Oh, but, please, I –’

‘No.’ Then, as Agnes opened her mouth to speak again, the woman added sharply: ‘Now – be off. Be off with you.’

Agnes hesitated still, as if unable to comprehend the woman’s words, then, slowly, she began to back away. After she had gone a few paces the woman spoke again.

‘Go on. Get away from here. I don’t want you loitering about the house.’

Turning with tears of pain and frustration welling in her eyes, Agnes walked back across the forecourt and up the drive. When she reached the gates she turned and looked back. The woman was still standing in the doorway. Quickly Agnes averted her gaze, turned back and stepped out onto the road.

She walked back up Lowbridge Hill away from the house until, when she turned back, the gates of the house were no longer in sight. She came to a stop. It didn’t matter about not being able to wait for him there, she told herself; Dr Kelsey would be leaving the house soon anyway. She panicked for a moment as the thought came to her that he might turn left at the gates and return to the village by Crop Row, but then she remembered that he was going on to Forge Lane to the Dillons. She relaxed again; if he went straight to Forge Lane then he
would come back up the hill. So, she would wait for him here and catch him as he drove by; this was as good a place as any, now that she knew where he was. And perhaps, she thought, he would let her ride back with him. Her legs felt so weak that she was afraid they would not carry her much further. She coughed and spat out more of the rusty-brown stuff. It left an unpleasant taste in her mouth and she spat again, trying to rid her mouth of it. Close to the hedge were the remains of a fallen tree trunk and she moved to it, brushed off the snow and sat down, not caring about the damp coldness, only grateful for the relief it afforded. She closed her eyes and instantly inside her eyelids little shapes began to dance in ragged patterns and her head began to swim. She opened her eyes again and tried to concentrate on the things she saw. Up in the top of a nearby oak tree pigeons were sitting, plump, motionless, swelling out their feathers against the cold. A robin flew down and alighted on a twig of the hedgerow, stayed for a few moments then took off again, winging away over the cheerless fields. To help the time pass she began to count the seconds, marking them off into minutes one by one until, after six minutes had gone by she lost count and gave up. A sharp, biting wind swept down the hill towards the river and she pulled the coat more closely about her. She realized then that the air was growing colder. Inside her thin boots she could hardly feel her feet anymore. The doctor must come by soon.

After a little while longer she got up from the log, staggering slightly as she put her weight onto her weak legs. She stood still for a moment clenching her hands, willing herself to keep her balance, then, recovered a little, she turned and began to make her way back down the hill.

The walls of Woodseaves House came in sight after
a short distance and, keeping close to the hedge, she walked towards it. She came at last to the gates and there, after hesitating for a moment, she leaned forward, put her head around the gate post and looked up the drive.

Dr Kelsey’s phaeton was not there.

No longer caring whether or not anyone saw her, she stepped out into the centre of the drive and stared up towards the house. No, there was no sign anywhere of the carriage. Then, her eyes moving to the ground beneath her feet, she saw in the hardening snow the marks of the carriage and horse as they had come back down the drive and turned onto the road – turning left, moving away towards the north. Agnes stared at the prints in the snow and groaned with weariness and despair. He had not gone in the direction of Forge Lane, but in another direction.

Shoulders bowed, she turned and began to walk slowly back the way she had come. After she had gone a few yards she quickened her steps and began to run again. Dr Kelsey might have gone to some other house right now, but he would be going to Forge Lane at some time. And, if she hurried, she might get there in time to catch him. Her breath sobbing in her throat she hurried on up the hill towards the village.

The last reserves of strength that had taken her to Woodseaves House were failing quickly as she reached Green Street. She had run most of the way, though covering the last few hundred yards in little bursts of running between pauses for breath. Now, with Forge Lane just ahead of her she was gasping for breath, snatching at the cold air with her mouth gaping. Her course was erratic and her footprints in the freezing snow showed the irregular pattern of a staggering gait.

Forge Lane was a narrow little way connecting Green Street and Church Row. Although she had sometimes played with one of the Dillon girls when she was at school she didn’t know which of the terraced cottages was occupied by the family. Now, entering the lane, she saw no sign of Dr Kelsey’s carriage. She didn’t know what to do. She could wait, but for all she knew he might already have been and left again. She couldn’t take the chance of waiting; she must find out where the Dillons lived and then whether or not the doctor had been.

She was just moving to the front door of the nearest cottage when she heard the sound of a horse and carriage and, turning, she saw Dr Kelsey’s phaeton enter the lane from the other end. A great surge of relief swept over her, and with tears springing to her eyes she ran towards it as it came to a stop outside one of the far cottages.

‘Doctor …Dr Kelsey …’

She called out to him as he stepped down into the freezing snow, and he turned at the sound of her voice. She got to his side a few moments later.

‘Oh, Doctor … Doctor –’ Then, relief and exhaustion sweeping away her control, she burst into tears. She stood there looking up at him, her whole body shaking with her sobs while the tears poured down her cheeks. In moments Kelsey was putting down his bag and was crouching before her.

‘Now, now, what is it? What’s the matter?’

She couldn’t speak. He put his hands on her shoulders and said gently, looking into her distorted face, ‘It’s Mrs Farrar’s little girl, isn’t it?’

She nodded, her sobbing going on and on, as if it would never cease, as if there was no limit to the well of her tears.

‘Agnes? Is it Agnes?’

She nodded again. Then, her hands hanging limply
at her sides she leaned forward so that her forehead rested on his shoulder. His hands came up and held her.

‘Now, Agnes – tell me what it is. Is it your mother?’

She nodded against the comfort of his shoulder, feeling the rough softness of the fabric of his warm coat against her skin. Then she managed to say,

‘Yes, it’s my mam, Doctor.’

Drawing back her head a little so that she could look into his face she told him of her mother and of how worried she was for her. ‘I didn’t know what to do anymore, Doctor …’ She told him how she had run to his own house and after that to Woodseaves House where she had seen his carriage. When she told him how the woman had sent her away her crying burst out anew. She told him then how she had waited for him at the side of the road and of how she had gone back to the house only to find that his carriage was gone. He nodded. Yes, he said, he had gone a little out of his way to call on another patient.

‘Anyway,’ he added, ‘you’ve found me now, Agnes, and as soon as I’ve looked in on Mr Dillon we’ll go together and see your mother. How’s that?’

Silently she nodded at him through her tears and he took off his glove and, taking from his pocket a neatly folded white handkerchief, wiped away her tears. Afterwards he put the handkerchief into her mittened hand – ‘Here, you keep it,’ – and then put his hand in a little warm, comforting touch to her cheek. His fingers lingered there, and then the back of his hand was touching her forehead.

‘Agnes,’ he said, frowning, ‘you’re running a fever. How do you feel?’

‘I – I got so out of breath with running and …’ A cough took away her last words and she stood with her head bent, alternately coughing and sucking in the air.

She spat into the snow, then turned and looked guiltily into the concerned face of the man. As she looked at him his face wavered before her and a slight greyness crept about the edges of the image. And then, suddenly, she was vomiting. Bending low, her small body contorted in spasms, she retched some dark brown stuff into the snow at her feet. Kelsey reached out and held her. After a moment she straightened and put the handkerchief to her mouth. The next moment the doctor was taking her up, feather-light, in his arms, lifting her and placing her in the carriage. He took a rug and wrapped it about her, tucking it in. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll take you home. You’re wet through and you’re freezing cold. We’ve got to get you to bed as soon as we can.’ He took a step back. ‘Will you be all right while I’m gone?’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you.’

‘That’s a good girl.’ He paused, looking at her with his head a little on one side, then turned away, moving towards the door of the nearest cottage.

Agnes watched as the door was opened by one of the Dillon boys, then as the doctor went into the hall, the door closing behind him. The greyness that had come over her a few moments ago kept on coming back, in waves, and each time she set her teeth and clutched at the blanket, waiting for the wave to pass.

Kelsey came out of the house in just a little over ten minutes. As he emerged he looked at the phaeton and saw Agnes move slightly, turning towards him. In just a few strides he was beside the carriage and getting in next to her and taking the reins. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘we’ll get you home, and see your mama and get you to bed where you belong.’

It was quite dark now and the lamps on the sides of
the carriage reflected yellowly in the icy crystals of the banked snow at the roadside. The mare made a slow but steady progress, and when the carriage was suddenly jolted in the freezing ruts in the roadway Kelsey put his arm around Agnes and drew her a little closer to him. He talked to her as they rode. ‘How are you feeling now?’ he asked, and she answered, ‘Quite well, thank you, sir.’ ‘Good.’ He nodded. ‘I’m looking forward to hearing you sing again in church before too long has gone by.’ She didn’t answer at this, and he turned and looked down at her in the light of the lamp and she looked up at him and gave a faint little smile. He asked her how old she was and she replied:

‘Eleven, sir. Twelve next June.’

He left her in silence then, just murmuring occasionally to the mare as they made their way. Just before Church Row became Elm Road the phaeton was brought to a crawl behind a herd of cows bound for a nearby farm. But then at last the cattle had moved on and the carriage was free to turn into Coates Lane. As it did so it was jolted by a pothole in the road and Kelsey held on to Agnes’s slight form at his side, tightening his arm about her and saying with a little chuckle, ‘Hey-
up
!’ Then, turning, he looked down at her. Her head was bent low, her face obscured by the woollen hat. He pressed his encircling hand into her arm. ‘We’re almost there now, Agnes. Nearly home now.’

She didn’t answer. He spoke again. ‘Agnes …?’

She didn’t move.

‘
Agnes
.’ His voice was sharper now, imperative and touched with fear. ‘Agnes!’

Holding her fast with his left hand he pulled on the reins with his right, calling out, ‘Who-o-a-a-ah, Janie,’ and brought the mare to a halt. Then, letting fall the reins he turned and lifted Agnes’s face, his fingers
beneath her chin. The glow from the lamp reflected in her dull sightless eyes as they gazed past his collar into the bitter evening air.

The snow fell intermittently over the following days, adding to the silence within the walls of the cottage. There seemed to be no words to say and Ernest and Sarah went for hours at a time hardly speaking. For a time Ernest was deathly afraid that Agnes’s death would be the final blow to his mother, but it was not so. Somehow, it was as if the death of Arthur had filled up the capacity of Sarah’s grief, and when she learned of Agnes’s death too she just seemed to retreat into a kind of numbness. Lying in her bed, so ill herself, it was as if some cocooning shield slowly enwrapped her, keeping her from a total awareness which, Ernest was sure, should it find her when she was so weak, would surely be too much.

The days passed. Ernest, having no choice, continued with his work at the farm while Esther from next door came in during the days to stay with his mother. On Wednesday while Sarah, too ill to move, had remained in her bed, Ernest had taken the morning off and, following the coffin of Arthur, had helped carry Agnes’s coffin to the churchyard. There beside Mary and their father the two were buried. After the funeral Ernest changed back into his working clothes and left for the farm. No matter what happened livestock had to be fed and watered, cows milked.

Each evening on leaving the farm Ernest hurried back home to be with his mother. And slowly, slowly, with no effort on her own part, Sarah began to recover. It
seemed to Ernest that his mother had no real will to keep living, yet at the same time she showed no wish to die. She just didn’t seem to care what became of her. Lying silent and uncomplaining on her bed she obediently did as she was told, almost childlike in a way, as if the matter of what became of her held no interest for her and was outside her own control.

With the death of Dr Harmon, Dr Kelsey had continued to make frequent calls at the cottage, attending Sarah with gentleness, firmness and understanding. Ernest, on meeting the doctor there, knew that he would never see his face without it bringing back to him the memory of the afternoon when Agnes had died. That Sunday, increasingly concerned about his mother, Ernest had asked for an hour’s leave from his duties at the farm and had hurried home to see how she was. Finding Esther Hewitt sitting with his mother, and learning that Agnes had gone off to fetch the doctor he had sat waiting for his sister’s return. When, after half-an-hour there had been no sign of her he had announced his intention of going to find her. He had put his coat back on and was just opening the scullery door when he had seen a dark figure moving towards him across the yard. In the darkness he hadn’t been able to make out who it was – someone carrying a bundle in his arms. Then, in the faint light from the lamp-lit kitchen window he had made out the figure of the doctor. ‘Ah, Dr Kelsey,’ he had said with relief as the man came towards him, ‘– our Agnes has gone off to find you and –’ Coming to a stop he had seen then what was the burden in Kelsey’s arms. A child. And then some part of his brain had registered the coat the child was wearing. But – it was Arthur’s old coat. Then, a moment later, he had recognized the child’s old woollen hat and realized who it was.