She looked at me for the first time then, I think, and looked as a doctor would, taking in my flushed face and dishevelled hair.
‘Are you feeling all right, Mrs Gilver?’ she said.
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘That is, I would have said so and yet I hope not. It would be much better to put it down to illness really.’
She had risen and approached me at this less-than-certain assurance and now she laid a hand against my forehead, felt gently under my jaw with the tips of her fingers, and finished by cupping my face in her hands and turning it up to hers, looking very intently into my eyes. It was a curiously intimate gesture, and not one that any doctor had subjected me to before. I looked back at her quizzically.
‘Perhaps you’re tired after your disturbed night,’ she said.
‘I don’t follow you,’ I said. My sleep had been restless; Bunty, taking her time to get used to the new surroundings, had shifted and snuffled and pawed the counterpane every two hours. I, also still getting used to them, had woken each time and taken much longer than her to settle again.
‘The fire drill,’ Dr Laidlaw said. ‘I have no earthly idea why my brother thinks it’s a good idea to have them in the middle of the night. Such confusion, everyone rushing around in their dressing gowns.’
‘Have you forgotten, Dr Laidlaw,’ I said, ‘that I’m not staying in the hotel?’ The stricken look she gave me was so far beyond what my mild rebuke deserved that I almost reached out and touched her arm, to try to comfort her.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I did. I forgot. I’m so very sorry.’
I laughed lightly to cover the awkwardness.
‘Not at all. Think nothing of it. Am I ill then? Is that what caused the strange experience I just had?’ She lifted one of my hands to take my pulse, only realising when she lifted her own arm that she was not wearing a watch. She looked instead at the clock sitting in the middle of the jumble of objects on the crowded chimneypiece. It seemed more likely to topple than ever today, from the pressure of the bills stuffed in behind.
While the doctor was counting, I spoke again.
‘That treatment room which leads off from the spray baths?’ I said. I felt the pinch of her suddenly tightening her grip on my wrist, but it only lasted a moment and then she continued calmly counting. ‘What’s in there?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. She let my hand drop and went back to sit behind her desk, even going so far as to rearrange some papers in front of her as though all her reading and writing could defend her against me. ‘Just an unused room. It was never very convenient, what with the chance of someone slipping on the wet floor as she arrived or departed.’
‘Did someone slip?’ I said. ‘Did someone fall?’
‘No,’ said Dr Laidlaw. A blot of colour was beginning to stain her neck. ‘Why would you think so?’
‘Well, now,’ I said. ‘I don’t say that I believe it, but I can’t account for it exactly. The fact is, I think I might just have seen a ghost there.’
Dr Laidlaw froze and for a long empty moment there was silence between us, then she stood, quite roughly pushing her chair back out of the way, and walked over to the window. She could not see anything through that dingy lace curtain, surely, but still she stayed there facing away from me, her shoulders rising and falling as she fought to bring her breath back under control.
‘I know how it sounds,’ I said. ‘Too silly for words, but there it is. I saw something which might have been wisps of steam, coming from the door. Not from under it or from the keyhole, but just as though the steam were passing right through the glass and wood.’
Dr Laidlaw turned to face me again at last.
‘Steam,’ she said, with a great rush of breath released so that almost she was laughing.
‘At first I thought so,’ I said. ‘It formed… a shape.’
‘As steam will,’ said Dr Laidlaw, nodding.
‘And clouds and inkblots, oh absolutely,’ I agreed. ‘But the thing is, the shape was quite distinctly a woman.’
‘It may well have looked like one.’
‘And it spoke to me.’
Still nodding, she came back and took her seat behind the desk, smoothing her skirt and once again touching the locket at her throat.
‘You were in the plunging pool?’ she said.
‘On my way in.’
‘You had been in the hot room?’
‘The steam room.’
‘Ah,’ she said, sounding almost relieved.
‘I see what you mean,’ I agreed again. ‘I might have been swooning.’
‘It sounds that way.’ She was calm again now. She went as far as to sit back in her chair and fold her hands in her lap. ‘Perhaps you should move from the warm room to the sprays,’ she said. ‘I love the cold pool – always have done: it’s quite my favourite part of the Hydro – but the sprays are much less taxing.’
‘I suppose they would be,’ I said. ‘Shall I tell you what she said?’
Dr Laidlaw inclined her head and smiled patiently.
‘Please do. I’m very interested in the mind, Mrs Gilver. In the things it tells us. What words did your mind put into the mouth of this wraith?’
‘What a wonderful word,’ I said. ‘Although she was hardly wraith-like. Very considerable in outline, actually.’ I noted a pucker at her brows as she heard this. ‘And what this ample wraith said to me was that she had a message for her son and daughter.’ Dr Laidlaw drew breath to speak and then stopped, her eyes darting. ‘She also said that she was cold and asked where her clothes were. Isn’t that a curious thing?’
‘Her clothes?’ It was a ragged whisper.
‘Yes, she was naked. Or at least she might have had a shift on, it’s hard to say.’
Dr Laidlaw was shaking her head, just a little, and very fast.
‘Impossible,’ she said. ‘Impossible.’
‘I give you my word,’ I told her, making myself look affronted. ‘Why on earth would it be impossible for my mind to put those words in the mouth I was imagining? The message for her daughter and son sounds like standard seance fare – we used to have them at school you know: great fun, but the mistresses were very down on it always – and as for saying she was cold and wanted her clothes? Well, I was halfway into a bath of ice-water and wearing nothing myself. No, Dr Laidlaw, you have quite set my worries aside. I shall eschew the hot room and the steam room from now on and I shan’t think of it again.’ I gazed at her out of innocent eyes. She was still struggling, breathing hard and rather wobbly about the mouth, but she managed a nod and a bit of a smile.
‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘Well, I’m glad I could help.’
‘And I’m sorry if I upset you,’ I said. ‘I know that room is a treasured place for you.’
‘Treasured?’ she said faintly.
‘Regina mentioned it,’ I said, trying to sound airy. ‘That you go there to mourn your father. Was it his study? Surely not, opening off the ladies’ sprays that way.’
‘To mourn my father?’ Dr Laidlaw sounded thunderstruck.
‘Actually,’ I said, nodding as though the thought were only then occurring to me, ‘Regina said merely that you go there to weep. I naturally assumed… I mean, what else would you be weeping for?’
I loathed myself for this and was determined to scold myself later, but it was certainly working. Dr Laidlaw was quite undone, slumped back in her chair, jaw fallen, eyes wide.
‘I can’t imagine what Regina meant by saying such a thing. I shall have to-’
‘Oh no, please don’t!’ I said. ‘Perhaps I misheard or misunderstood.’
‘Yes.’ She seized the lifeline.
‘As you say, it was all in my imagination, no doubt.’ I summoned my very airiest, breeziest voice. ‘It must be coincidence the way it’s reminding everyone of Mrs Addie.’