Two for Three Farthings (38 page)

A door opened and Miss Pilgrim appeared, a lighted candle in its holder lifted high in her hand. Her hair was loose and flowing, and she was clad in a long white cotton nightgown. She gasped at the scene.

‘Mr Cooper – oh, my heavens, what's happening? What is all that, and that smell, and that foul smoke?'

Jim dropped his coat over the smoking mass.

‘Someone tried to bfurn your house down, Miss Pilgrim.'

‘Look at you – wait.' She turned on the gas and lit the hall mantle with the candle. The hall glowed with light. She paid no heed to the scarred front door or the covered heap of blackened rags. ‘Come into the kitchen.'

Jim took a look at his soaked trenchcoat lying heavily over the mass. Escaping smoke was lessening. He followed Miss Pilgrim into the kitchen. She lit the mantle there.

‘There's a mess to clear up,' he said.

‘Never mind that for the moment. Look at your hand. Go to the scullery sink and run cold water over it.'

‘It's just a slight burn.'

‘Please don't argue. Come.' She went to the scullery sink and turned on the tap. Jim placed his hand under the cold running water. It eased the burning sensation at once. She pushed back the sleeve of his pyjama jacket. ‘Let your hand stay there for three minutes. Clear cold water is the best immediate antidote, did you know that?'

‘Some people use cold tea. In the field hospitals during the war, the medics used ointment and bandages.'

‘Probably as they did during the Crimean war,' said the unflappable Miss Pilgrim. ‘Mr Cooper, thank you for what you've just done. The children haven't woken up?'

‘No, and I hope they won't. Someone stuffed a hell of a lot of paraffin-soaked rags through your letter-box on to your mat, and set fire to them with a long rag that was already alight, of course. It could only have been Mrs Lockheart. You'll have to face it, she's off her rocker.'

‘Well, you aren't, Mr Cooper, you have a great deal of good sense. Thank goodness the fire woke you up.'

‘I happened to be awake at the time. I smelled the stuff.'

‘God sometimes takes care of us, and is sometimes indifferent. Who can blame Him, when so many of us are such wretched creatures? But this time, you were His instrument of care.' She turned the tap off and looked at his hand. ‘There, we've saved it blistering. Do it again in a couple of minutes, then we'll see if it needs covering up. I do not cover ordinary burns up myself.'

‘I'll go and look at that mess, to make sure it's out.'

‘I'll do that. You stay here.' Miss Pilgrim went and inspected the charred heap. When she returned she said, ‘Your coat is ruined. I shall buy you a new one.' It would cost what she could not really afford, but there could be no question of Mr Cooper paying for it himself.

‘But you're insured against fire, aren't you?' he said.

‘Yes, of course. All the contents.'

‘Then the insurance company will pay. Also for the cost of making good any damage. That'll be for the landlord to settle, through his insurance.'

‘Dear me,' she said, ‘I can't be myself not to have thought of that.'

‘About Mrs Lockheart, you'll have to do something,' said Jim.

‘That poor woman is a mental case, Mr Cooper. She has been in an asylum for years. She's out now, obviously, but is still not quite sane.'

‘Not quite sane? She's a lunatic.'

‘Come, Mr Cooper, don't raise your voice, you'll wake the children.' Miss Pilgrim turned the tap on again. ‘Let's try some more cold water.'

Jim placed his hand under the stream and smiled at her.

‘There aren't many like you, are there?' he said.

‘Like me? What do you mean?'

‘That my admiration for you is total.'

‘I thought it wouldn't be long before your nonsense made its entrance.' She turned the tap off and inspected his hand again. ‘There, I'm sure we've nothing to worry about with that. Hold still.' She went into the kitchen, opened a dresser drawer and came back with a large piece of cotton wool, which she used to dab his hand dry. ‘Good,' she said, ‘I am proud of you, Mr Cooper, and consider myself fortunate to have you as my lodger. Now you may return to your bed.'

‘As your lodger, might I point out I'm not a small boy, Miss Pilgrim?'

‘I'm glad you're not,' she said. ‘Small boys are terrors. Luckily, Horace is an exception. Yes, go up now, Mr Cooper, I'm very grateful that you saved us all, but you have your work to go to in the morning.'

‘I'll clear the mess up first, I'll dump it outside.'

‘Certainly not,' said Miss Pilgrim, ‘I am not going to have it on my doorstep for everyone to look at in the morning. I'll get a bucket and carry it out to the dustbin at my back door.'

‘I'll put a glove on,' said Jim, ‘and if you'll give me your coal shovel and the bucket, I'll see to it. If anyone's to go to bed, it's you. Off you go.'

Miss Pilgrim, of course, was quite against taking orders from her lodger, and in the end they cleared up the mess together, Jim wearing a protecting glove. Before he went up, he elicited from Miss Pilgrim a promise to speak to the vicar about Mrs Lockheart. She refused to go to the police, but she agreed to ask the vicar for his help. Someone must contact the Asylums Board. The vicar had the right kind of authority to do that.

The next evening, Jim cleaned up the door, rubbed it down and repainted it. Orrice and Effel wanted to know what had happened, and why there was a new doormat, and Jim got away with a reference to an accident involving paraffin.

In her compulsive growing attachment to the children and their welfare, Miss Pilgrim kept a watchful eye on them during the rest of their holidays. The summer went, brief autumn followed, and winter arrived, with its damp and its fogs. The country, struggling to recover from the war, braced itself to fight the hardships of winter. Alice went to and from school wrapped in a warm cosy coat and a woollen hat, and Jim bought warm coats for Orrice and Effel. Alice could not be detached from her growing friendship with Orrice, and Orrice found he could not be detached from his protective role as Effel's brother or Alice's sweetheart. Mr Hill kept an encouraging eye on Orrice's abilities, and Miss Forster did her best with the awkwardness of Effel.

Jim took Molly out on occasions, but did little or nothing, relatively, to advance his cause with her. He knew himself incapable of asking her to take on Orrice and Effel as well as his illegitimacy. Her father, George Keating, was a man of the old school, despite his general geniality.

He arrived home one evening in early December suffering a headache and little bouts of feverishness. He had a bad night, and when he crawled out of bed the next morning he was a sick man.

Miss Pilgrim, in her kitchen and at her breakfast, looked up as knuckles rapped on her door.

‘Come in,' she said. She might have sighed at this continuing invasion of her privacy, but her voice was quite welcoming.

Orrice showed his face, a worried face.

‘Please, Miss Pilgrim, could you come?' His diction showed definite improvement. ‘Could you, please? It's Uncle Jim, me and Effel don't think he's very well.'

‘Well, we can't have that, Horace, can we? Is he in bed?'

‘No, Miss Pilgrim, 'e's on the floor, 'e just sort of folded up. Could you come and look at him?'

Miss Pilgrim did not reply. She came swiftly to her feet, picked up her skirts and ran up the stairs. Orrice, following on, saw yards of white lace. Jim was lying beside his bed in his pyjamas. His body was racked with shivering, his eyes closed, his breathing erratic.

Miss Pilgrim pulled the bedclothes far down. Effel stood silently watching, upset and helpless.

‘Horace, will you help me, will you take hold of his legs while I lift his shoulders? We must get him into the bed.' Miss Pilgrim spoke urgently. Orrice stooped and took a firm hold of his guardian's legs. Miss Pilgrim, bending, put her hands under his shoulders, to his armpits. ‘Ready, Horace? Now lift at one go.'

They lifted him and placed him on the uncovered sheet. Quickly, Miss Pilgrim drew the bedclothes up over him and tucked them in on her side. Orrice tucked them in on the other side.

‘Please, ain't he very well?' asked Effel.

‘No, Ethel, I'm afraid he isn't,' said Miss Pilgrim. She felt Jim's forehead, and was appalled. He was on fire. ‘Horace, who is his doctor?'

‘Doctor? He's not been to no doctor since 'e found me and Effel, Miss Pilgrim.'

‘Then will you run and get Dr McManus in the Walworth Road?'

‘Oh, I know 'im, Miss Pilgrim, I'll run all the way.'

‘Yes. Don't worry about school for the moment. Tell him he must come, tell him the message is from me. Go, Horace, be as quick as you can.'

The boy rushed away. Out of the house, he ran fast through the cold, wintry morning.

Effel peeped worriedly at her guardian. Jim was burning but shivering, his mind bursting in his thumping head, his awareness of the presence of Miss Pilgrim a vague, elusive thing of running fire. She hurried downstairs and came up again with two blankets. She laid them over the bedclothes. She felt Jim's hand. That too was alarmingly hot.

‘'E's only a little bit ill, ain't 'e?' asked Effel anxiously.

‘We'll see what the doctor says, child. There, you go off to school. Have you had breakfast?'

‘Don't want none. 'ave I got to go to school?'

‘Yes, you must, Ethel,' said Miss Pilgrim. It was better for the girl to be out of the way. ‘It will please your guardian if you make no fuss, and please me too. Horace will join you when he comes back. Everything will be all right with the doctor here.'

‘We can come 'ome dinnertime?'

‘Of course, just as you usually do.'

‘A' right,' said Effel, and went to school reluctantly, thinking about what had happened to her mum and dad when they'd been taken ill.

Orrice ran all the way back from the surgery. He found Miss Pilgrim seated beside the bed in which his Uncle Jim lay shivering and restless.

‘'E's comin', Miss Pilgrim, the doctor. I said I come from you, I told him about Uncle Jim being on the floor all shivery, like, I told him we put 'im in the bed. He's comin', Miss Pilgrim, only I ran back to tell you, like. Is Uncle Jim a bit better?'

Miss Pilgrim saw the boy's worry and concern. Mr Cooper had won himself a place in Horace's affections. She silently prayed for both of them, and for Ethel.

‘That's splendid, Horace. I'll let Dr McManus in. You go off to school. Ethel went a little while ago.'

‘Yes, Miss Pilgrim.' Orrice hesitated. ‘Can't I stay? I can make 'ot lemonade, if yer like. I can do things like that.'

‘I'll see to that, Horace. You go to school. I'm sure your guardian will be better when you come home for your dinner.'

‘I wouldn't like—' Orrice stopped.

‘We'll see, Horace, we'll see. Thank you for going for the doctor. Run off to school now.'

Orrice went even more reluctantly than Effel, but he shut from his mind the thought that having lost their parents they might also lose the man who had saved them from an orphanage.

Dr McManus made no bones about the fact that the patient was already in crisis. Miss Pilgrim put a hand to her throat.

‘Crisis?'

‘How long has he been sick?'

‘I don't know how long he's been as bad as this. He was at work yesterday, and made no comment to me on his return in the evening.' Miss Pilgrim bit her lip. Mr Cooper had made a habit these last two months of putting his head into her kitchen and saying hello to her every evening on his return from work. He had not done so last night. Horace had told her later that his Uncle Jim had a headache and had dosed himself with a Beecham's powder. ‘But he did tell Horace he had a headache.'

Dr McManus frowned. Vicious flu was sweeping the country. It had galloped up on this man. It could do that. It could give someone a bad headache and shivering fits one day, and kill him the next. Or take its time to be fatal.

‘He's in extraordinary fever, Miss Pilgrim. Perhaps I should arrange to get him to hospital.'

‘No.' Miss Pilgrim was swift and emphatic. ‘I will nurse him. I have nursed Chinese people in fever, and was doing so when I was sixteen. I will take your instructions, doctor. He'll only be one more patient among the hundreds already in hospital. Let him stay where he is. That is, if you think I'm competent to do as much for him as a hospital can.'

‘You know I think you fully competent,' said Dr McManus. ‘I've brought tablets and medicine. Give him two tablets every—' He thought. ‘Every two hours, and one tablespoon of the medicine in between. Keep him fully covered. Don't worry about food, but you can pour as much liquid into him as he'll take.'

‘Fresh hot lemonade?'

‘Excellent. Then keep your fingers crossed, Miss Pilgrim.'

‘It's as bad as that?'

‘You'll know by midnight. I'll look in again this evening. Oh, take two of the tablets yourself, and give one each to his wards. They're a preventive as well as a cure, although as a cure they've been known to fail. I have to tell you that. He's your lodger?'

‘He is my friend, Dr McManus.'

‘He's a privileged man, then. Oh, one more thing. If you find it difficult to get him to drink the liquids, use a teapot.'

‘A teapot?'

‘Put the spout into his mouth.'

‘That is so practical, doctor.'

‘I thought you'd like the idea. Good luck.'

‘Thank you for coming so quickly.'

Orrice and Effel ran home from school at dinnertime. Not to see what Miss Pilgrim was giving them for the meal, but to see how their guardian was. Miss Pilgrim came down to let them in and assured them she was doing everything for him that the doctor had advised. She was sorry not to have prepared a hot meal for them, only sandwiches. They were first to swallow a tablet each, they would find them on the table beside their plates, and drink water to wash them down. Then, when they had eaten their sandwiches, they could come up and see their guardian for a moment.