The Silent Lady by Catherine Cookson

Author:Catherine Cookson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2001-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

9

Bella’s cold was a bad one, and she passed it on to Reenee.

Unfortunately, Reenee’s cold attacked her chest, and one morning when she didn’t appear at breakfast Bella went up to her room and found her in a fever, hardly able to get her breath.

‘Oh, my dear,’ she said, ‘you’ve got it right and proper, haven’t you? I’m sorry, lass; I’m sorry I gave it to you, but mine was never like this. Nevertheless, I know what’ll cure it, a lemon in some boiling water with a drop of whisky in it.’

Reenee was past making comment of any kind: all she could do was hold her chest tight, trying to press down the pain and the tightness of it and to prevent herself from having another bout of coughing.

‘Just lie quiet now; I’ll be back in a minute.’

But three doses of hot lemon with dashes of whisky did nothing to alleviate Reenee’s condition. As the day wore on she became worse. This frightened Bella, and when she saw Carl in the yard, talking to one of the boys, she called down to him.

When he hurried into the kitchen she said, ‘Look, you know the doctors round here. I know there’s only two, but who’s the better?’

‘Why, Bella?’

‘The lass, Reenee, she’s bad, real bad. I think she’s in a kind of fever.’

‘Oh, there’s Dr Brown and Dr Harle. Dr Harle’s the assistant. He’s a young man, but they say he’s good. Well, I know he is: I saw him pull a fellow’s shoulder back into place without him havin’ to go to hospital.’

‘Well, go and get him. Ask him to come as soon as he can.’

It was almost two hours later when the doctor arrived, and straight away Bella liked the look of him. He wasn’t all that young, perhaps in his late thirties, and he was only of medium height, but broad, and his voice was nice, as she put it to herself, kindly like. She noticed that he seemed a little surprised at the inside of the house. Being at this end of the market area, he had likely expected it to be a muck-heap, and as they made their way upstairs, he said, ‘Have you lived here long, Miss Morgan?’

‘Touchin’ on thirty years.’

‘Really! And you’ve never had the doctor in?’

‘No; not often, Doctor, we haven’t. As I recall, you’re the first since Mr McIntyre died.’

On entering the bedroom, he stopped for a moment just inside the door and looked at the waxen-faced figure on the bed. Reenee’s chest was heaving; the sweat was running from her brow. Her eyes were wide open, and as she turned them towards him she pulled the rest of the bedclothes right up under her chin with a convulsive movement, making a guttural sound in her throat.

Immediately Bella went to her. ‘Now it’s all right, love. It’s all right. This is the doctor. He’s a nice man and he’s come to make you better.’

The head on the pillow turned from side to side,

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