She clicked the door shut behind her and looked around. He was the only person in the room. Clearly not even Miss Bellegarde was inclined to sit with him.
Venturing in further, she felt small against the four posts rising almost to the ceiling. The sheets covered him to below his neck and he looked pallid, but he was definitely breathing. Without the scowl he so often wore, he looked rather peaceful, and Thea decided that she quite preferred him like this. He reminded her a little of one of Doctor Hunter’s specimens. Skin and bone like everyone else, but capable of eliciting such fear in her because of the power he wielded. If all people were essentially meat with thoughts, she considered, what was it that made some feel that they were worth more than others? Was it arrogance, or ignorance? Or simply perpetuating a convenient myth that the powerful silently agreed to peddle.
She wrang out the muslin in the bucket next to his bed and pressed it to his brow to cool him. The windows in his room faced due south, and the sun was streaming in, making the room almost stifling. She thought about opening the windows further, before she felt a hand reach up and grasp her wrist.
Immediately she lunged backwards, pulling herself away from his touch. He was groggy but definitely waking. He groaned and laid the hand that had come up to grasp her over his eyes, as if the light hurt him.
‘George?’ she said, but he only groaned again, shifting a little before settling.
What should she do now? She wondered as she stood in the middle of the room. She should probably call for Doctor Speckle, she thought, he must be able to ascertain more when George was conscious. But then she paused.
She thought about George’s rages and what they would mean for both her and their children in the future. Now she had slapped him, and now he knew what Martha was to her, andnow he had clearly shown what he was capable of. What would he do next? He had threatened to push her in the fire, and she didn’t doubt that he meant it. Her eyes darted to the fireplace and the poker that sat in its holder. It had an ostentatious quartz counterweight on it. That must be heavy, she thought. He had already received a blow to the head and in this state it wouldn’t be hard. He had no regard for Annie’s life, or even hers. Why should she have any for his?
Then she blinked and considered that if everyone was simply meat with thoughts, the difference in the morality of people must lay not only in the type of thoughts that one had, but most importantly, what one chose to do with them.
She went to call Doctor Speckle.
So far, Doctor Speckle had been reluctant to trespass on Doctor Cope’s patient, but as the latter would take at least two hours to arrive, he looked in.
Doctor Speckle looked thoughtful as he felt George’s pulse.
‘Hmm,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’ asked Thea, looking at the doctor’s furrowed brow.
‘Quite slow, even for someone in his state,’ said Speckle.
‘Anything we can do?’ asked Thea.
‘I will try a poultice,’ said Speckle. ‘I will need someone to help me turn him over.’
Thea called for Fletcher and Stubbs, George’s valet. Mrs Phibbs came with them. Thea was glad, as although she knew Fletcher’s passing of the secrets had been at George’s request, she was still struggling to trust him. Between them they helped Speckle to turn the duke on to his front, eliciting further groansin his half-awake state. When his bed shirt was lifted, they saw for the first time the large bruises on his buttocks and legs.
‘Goodness,’ she said.
‘Mmm,’ said Speckle as he rummaged in his medical case. ‘Made a mess of himself.’
‘Went down hard,’ said Mrs Phibbs, trying hard not to sound pleased about it. Mr Fletcher gave her a look of admonishment.
‘Oh, don’t tell me you’re not pleased about it too,’ she said to him. ‘I saw how you looked at him when he was mean to the children.’
‘It is not done to say,’ said Fletcher, but Thea gave him a look of silent thanks and wondered if his allegiance might be different, if George came round.
Speckle finished the poultice, and they turned George back over. Mrs Phibbs fixed him his water and laudanum, and he drank it down before sleeping again.
As they were about to leave there was a knock at the door. It opened a crack to reveal Martha, Frankie and the children. It seemed that the night of the fire had finally thawed Martha’s attitude to Frankie, and the two of them had been thick as thieves ever since. Frankie sported a bruise on her check and Martha’s arm and leg had been patched up after her fall, but the two of them seemed unstoppable.
‘Is he sleeping?’ Martha asked. Thea confirmed that he was. ‘The children thought they would like to read him a story,’ said Martha. ‘One that Samantha wrote with Annie. Abigail said she would like Frankie to help’.
Thea smiled. ‘Of course, that’s a lovely thought.’ Both Frankie and Aunty Martha will stay with you.’ She knew they would be safe with two strong women.
After that, George began to rouse more often, spending longer awake. He complained of nausea and chills, which both Doctors said was normal after a blow to the head.
On the fourth day he awoke enough to sit up and take some soup. Then, on the fifth day after the fire and when nobody expected it, he quietly died. It was possibly the most understated thing he had ever done.
Chapter 34
‘How did the children take it?’ Martha stood up as Thea let herself into the parlour.
