‘Lord Powerscourt is much the same as he has been since he was shot, more or less. I can detect little change in him today from yesterday, Lady Powerscourt. I shall return after lunch to see him again.’
‘Hope?’ said Lady Lucy, very quietly.
‘As I said before,’ briefly he took her hand, ‘there is always hope. You must not give up. You must not let your household give up. I can only guess how difficult it must be for you all. But, please, please, hope, hope for your husband, hope for your children, hope for yourself.’
Thomas and Olivia had decided on a different tactic for their papa on this day. They were going to read to him together, they told Lady Lucy over breakfast, well, not exactly together because Olivia wasn’t a great reader yet while Thomas was quite proficient by now. But they were going to read Treasure Island, a work their father had often read to them. Thomas was to do most of the reading. Olivia had a number of tasks to perform. She had some paper and a pair of scissors and pens of different colours as she had to make a black spot for Blind Pew to press into the palms of his victims as he did in the story. She had to join in the reading every time the book said ‘Fifteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest, Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum’ or the longer version with the two extra lines ‘Drink and the Devil Had Done for the Rest, Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.’ The children had agreed upstairs that they should be able to make enough noise with this chorus to wake their father, if not the persons at rest in the nearest graveyard.
In the end the nurse put them off. Nurse Winifred was one of the kindest people alive and loved children of every age. But her appearance, what Olivia privately thought of as that sea of starched white at the front of her, put you off if you were only six years old.
There was one very important visitor late that afternoon. Shortly after five o’clock a beautifully dressed man of about forty years presented himself at the door. He had an enormous bunch of flowers. ‘They’re from Lord Salisbury’s Hatfield greenhouses, Lady Powerscourt. The Prime Minister was most insistent I should deliver them in person.’
The impeccable suit bowed. Inside it was Schomberg McDonnell, Private Secretary to Prime Minister Salisbury, now, so the gossip said, nearing the end of his tenure at Number 10 Downing Street. Powerscourt had taken his orders twice before, once in saving the City of London from a terrible plot, and on the second occasion taking up, at Salisbury’s request, the position of Head of Army Intelligence in the war in South Africa. Truly, the great world had come to pay its respects to Francis Powerscourt in his hour of need in Manchester Square.
McDonnell listened gravely to Lady Lucy’s account of her husband’s situation. ‘I would stay longer if I could but I have to return to the Prime Minister, Lady Powerscourt. I have often brought your husband messages from Lord Salisbury in the past. I have another one for him today. Lord Salisbury says that he is weary of office, and, between ourselves, expects to leave it soon. He does not expect to live very long in retirement. But his message to Lord Powerscourt is very clear. He is damned if he is going to have to attend Powerscourt’s funeral. He expects, nay, he orders that Powerscourt should attend his, whenever that may be. Your husband, Lady Powerscourt, in the Prime Minister’s words, is under government orders to recover.’
Johnny Fitzgerald took the last watch that day. The children were asleep. He hoped Lady Lucy was too. He walked up and down the room for a long time, lost in the memories of his and Powerscourt’s lives together. They had been to so many places after leaving Ireland and had shared so many adventures. He thought of Lady Lucy and the enormous strain she must be under. Johnny had seen how, more than ever now, all the threads of this house and of Francis’s life ran through her hands. Lady Lucy had to determine the altered routines of the house with the cook and the domestic staff. She had to liaise with the nurses and with the frequent presence of Dr Tony, who demanded total attention when he came. She had to look after the two oldest children who stitched on, at her instructions, he suspected, a mask of cheer and optimism about their father’s chances of recovery during the day. At night, he knew, the hope deserted them and Thomas and Olivia fled to weep in their mother’s bed. Johnny had heard them crying from two floors further up the night before. And all the time, reassuring her children, organizing her household, welcoming the visitors and ordering yet more tea, Lady Lucy must, Johnny felt sure, have her own private nightmares. Would Francis pull through? Could she imagine life without him? How would the children cope? And this worry above all, he was sure, how would the twins, so tiny and so young, cope with life without their father?
At about half past eleven Johnny sat down by the side of the bed. He began telling his friend stories about the officers and men they had known in India, the eccentric, the mad, the brave, the cowards, the ones who liked the Indians, the ones who despised Indians, the very occasional ones who went completely native. Most of these stories contained jokes, some of them very good jokes. But the laughter Johnny hoped for did not come. As the church clock rang the midnight hour Lord Francis Powerscourt was still in a coma, drifting uncertainly between life and death.
17
Edward and Sarah came round to Manchester Square in the middle of the fifth afternoon. They brought fresh news of the Inn. There had been little sadness over the suicide of Barton Somerville, Edward reported. The remaining benchers, on the instigation of Maxwell Kirk, had all resigned to mark their failure to rein in the previous Treasurer. There had, Edward and Sarah quickly realized, been considerable progress in the story of Treasure Island in the sick room. Olivia had quickly mastered the production of Black Spots, supposed to bring bad luck to those holding them, and had pressed one into the palm of virtually every member of the household. Edward himself had collected two already and the unfortunate butler was marked with four of the things. Edward was able to bring another dimension to the story. While Sarah took over the job of reading Treasure Island, Edward, with the aid of some elastic, some very long socks and some string, taught the children how to tie one leg up so the foot was attached to the thigh. Two retired broom handles were discovered in the pantry and cut to the appropriate sizes for Thomas and Olivia. With the leg tied up and the broom acting as a crutch they could each pretend to be Long John Silver thumping his way across the boards of their parents’ bedroom that was really the upper deck of the Hispaniola sailing across the oceans to the fabulous island of treasure. Edward regretted that there were no parrots available but he suggested they ask Johnny Fitzgerald to say ‘Pieces of eight’ in his best parrot voice when he next appeared. The only problem in acting out the role of a handicapped pirate in quest of treasure was that it was much more difficult to walk with the broomstick than you might have imagined, even if you were small and supple. The two children kept falling over and giggled helplessly on the floor until some kind person helped them up. If there hadn’t been anybody else around to assist them, Thomas told the assembled company, he and Olivia would be left there until the end of time. Edward assured the children that there was a section of the book, he couldn’t remember exactly which chapter, where the author says it took Long John Silver himself over a year to learn how to walk properly with his crutch. For a brief quarter of an hour the children forgot about their sick father. Then the doctor came in for his afternoon visit, accompanied by Lady Lucy. The children disappeared upstairs. Edward took Sarah by the hand and led her out into Manchester Square.