‘I-I was right there in the next room and I always leave the door open. I didn’t hear a thing after he woke once in the night. He seemed perfectly all right when I left him.’
‘But he clearly wasn’t,’ the woman snapped disparagingly and Amber felt tears of regret start to her eyes. Was this her fault? she wondered. Why hadn’t she noticed that something was seriously wrong?
The doctor arrived within half an hour and it was all he could do to prise the child from his father’s arms. Barnaby hadn’t said a single word since he’d told Margaret that he’d sent for the doctor and it was clear that he was deeply in shock.
‘It looks like his little heart gave out,’ the doctor said when he had gently examined the little boy. ‘I’m so sorry, Barnaby, but to be honest I’m surprised he lived as long as he did.’
‘Is it my fault?’ Amber asked in a small voice as tears rolled down her cheeks.
The doctor shook his head. ‘Absolutely not, lass. This could have happened at any time.’
This at least made her feel a little better but only marginally.
The doctor laid David back in his crib and gently pulled a blanket over his ashen little face. ‘I’ll call in to the undertaker’s on my way home and get him to fetch him.’
‘No!’ Barnaby’s head snapped up. ‘He can lie here in the drawing room until the funeral.’
‘Very well, in that case the undertaker can come and measure him for a coffin.’ The doctor laid his hand on Barnaby’s arm. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said once more and with a shake of his head he lifted his bag and left.
Barnaby sat staring into space, lost in his grief, until Charlotte’s disgruntled whimpers turned to angry wails and it seemed to snap him out of his spell.
‘I think she wants feeding,’ he said quietly and rising, he left the room.
*
The day of David’s funeral dawned exactly one week later and as the horse-drawn hearse drew up outside, Amber and Becky watched from the window of the nursery with tears rolling down their cheeks. Two men dressed in black tail-coats and wearing tall silk top hats bore his tiny coffin from the house and gently placed it inside the hearse.
Another carriage drew up behind it and Barnaby and his in-laws climbed inside. Mrs Greenwood was far too ill to attend and Amber and Becky watched as the sad procession disappeared off down the drive. It was a cold, rainy and overcast day and Amber was glad. It wouldn’t have seemed right to lay David to rest on a bright sunny day somehow. Downstairs was pandemonium as the maids raced about preparing the dining room for the buffet Cook had made for the mourners when they returned.
‘I reckon they’re plannin’ on feedin’ the five thousand,’ Becky told Amber after venturing down to the kitchen. ‘I ain’t never seen so much food all in one place in me whole life. Goodness knows ’ow many people they’re expectin’.’
‘I shall just be glad when it’s all over,’ Amber muttered miserably as she cuddled Charlotte. ‘I still can’t help but think there might have been somethin’ I could do.’
‘Yer can stop wi’ that silly nonsense straightaway,’ Becky scolded. ‘Didn’t the doctor ’imself tell yer there wasn’t?’
*
It was almost an hour and a half later when Mr Greenwood and the rest of the mourners began to arrive home and soon Becky and Amber could hear the murmur of voices from downstairs.
‘Crikey, look at the amount o’ carriages outside.’ Becky was standing in the window, amazed at how many people were turning up, and still they kept coming. It was raining heavily by then and the wind was shaking the glass in the nursery window. Around mid-afternoon the nursery door creaked open and Margaret Hamilton-Tate appeared dressed in a severe black bombazine gown edged with black velvet ribbon that rustled as she walked. Mr Greenwood was close behind her and one glance at his red eyes confirmed to the girls that he had been crying. It was funny, Amber thought as she jiggled Charlotte on her knee, after the callous way he had treated her, she had imagined he didn’t have any finer feelings, but the death of his son had clearly affected him badly.
‘There you are, Barnaby. Didn’t I tell you that the girl would be quite all right?’ the woman snapped unfeelingly. ‘I really don’t know why you feel that you must check on her all the time. She has two people here to see to her needs and she has always been so much more robust than David was.’
She didn’t even glance in the two girl’s direction. Both Amber and Becky had soon realised that the woman considered speaking to servants was far beneath her except when absolutely necessary.
But despite his mother-in-law’s words Barnaby crossed to the child and as soon as he drew near, Charlotte gave him a big grin and lifted her chubby arms to him.
‘I know you’re probably quite right,’ he told his mother-in-law wearily. ‘But David’s passing is still very raw and I feel better when I’m with her.’
‘Hmph! She’ll be ruined rotten at this rate!’ The woman tossed her head and bounced out of the room and as they heard her clattering down the wooden staircase that led from the nursery, Barnaby seemed to relax a little, although both Amber and Becky suddenly felt as if they were in the way.
‘I’m sorry if I’m breaking her routine.’ His voice was so full of pain that even Amber almost felt sorry for him for a moment.
‘It’s all right. She ain’t due to go down fer her nap fer another half hour or so.’ It was Becky who answered him while Amber busied herself putting the baby’s freshly laundered clothes away. She only ever spoke to Barnaby when she had to and he was getting used to it now.
He stayed for another ten minutes then with a sigh he handed Charlotte back to Amber. saying, ‘I suppose I’d better get downstairs to the visitors.’
She inclined her head and as he left the room Charlotte began to wail. She always did when her father left her and it disturbed Amber. She’d hoped that very soon Charlotte would be closer to her than Barnaby but it was crystal clear that the little girl adored him, and more surprisingly still, that he adored her.
