The Fifth Day of Christmas

‘Why rich? As long as he’s the right one, the money doesn’t matter very much, does it? You need enough to live on and educate the children.’

‘And pretty clothes and the hairdresser and jewellery and going to the theatre and out to dine, and a decent holiday at least twice a year.’

Julia said soberly, ‘Perhaps I’m not ambitious,’ and turned away to look out of the window again—a pointless act, for it had been quite dark for some time now.

When the ambulance at last stopped, Julia couldn’t believe they had arrived, for the last hour had been a nightmare of skidding and crawling through the blanket of fog and snow and now there was a gale blowing as well. She stepped out of the ambulance into several inches of snow and then clutched at her cap as a gust of wind tossed her backwards as though she had been a leaf. It was pitch dark too, but in the ambulance lights she could just see the beginning of steps leading upwards. She stood aside to let Bert and Willy get into the ambulance and asked, ‘Shall I ring the bell?’ and thought how ridiculous it sounded in this black waste of snow and fog and howling wind. But Bert said cheerfully enough,

‘OK, Nurse—up them steps, and look out for the ice.’

She advanced cautiously with the beam of her powerful torch guiding her: it wasn’t so bad after all—the steps ended at a great door upon whose knocker she beat a brisk tattoo, and when she saw the brass bell in the wall, she rang that for good measure. But there were no lights—she peered around her, unable to see anything but the reassuring solidarity of the door before her, and that hadn’t opened. She was about to go down the steps again to relay her doubts to her companions when the door swung open, revealing a very old man holding a hurricane lantern. She was still getting her breath when he spoke testily.

‘Ye didna’ need to make all that noise. I heard ye the fust time.’

Julia, who had nice manners, apologised. ‘Is this Drumlochie House?’ she asked through teeth which were beginning to chatter with the cold.

‘Aye—ye’ll be the nurse with Miss Mary?’

‘That’s right—could you turn on the lights, please, so that the ambulance men can bring her indoors?’

‘No lights,’ said the old man without annoyance. ‘Wind’s taken the electric—can’t think how ye got here.’

Julia couldn’t either, but it hardly seemed the right moment to discuss it. She said instead, ‘Then would you leave the door open and we’ll bring Miss Mary in.’

She didn’t wait to hear his reply but went carefully down the steps again.

She followed the two men, with the carrying chair and Mary in it, between them, back up again, shuddering at the possibility of a broken ankle or two added to Mary’s diabetes. But they achieved the entrance without mishap and went inside where the old man was waiting for them, his lamp held high. ‘So ye’re back, Miss Mary,’ he was, it seemed, a man of few words, ‘your room’s ready.’

He turned and started to walk across the hall towards the staircase discernible in the gloom, and the ambulance men, still with Mary between them, followed him with Julia bringing up the rear, shivering a little partly because she had got cold waiting at the front door and partly because her surroundings were, inadequately lighted as they were, a trifle forbidding. They seemed to walk a great distance before the old man at length opened a door and they entered Mary’s bedroom—a large apartment with a fire burning in its open fireplace and most pleasantly furnished. Julia, looking round her, heaved a sigh of relief. If their rooms were half as comfortable they would have nothing to grumble about.

‘Where’s the nurse?’ she asked the old man.

He stood and thought, his head on one side, for an aggravating moment. ‘The nurse? Weel, she’s to come from Edinburgh, but it’s been snowing a blizzard since daybreak hereabouts. There’ll be no nurse.’

‘No nurse!’ Julia looked at him with something like horror. ‘But I’m going back to London with the ambulance in the morning—I can’t leave my patient. Where’s the telephone?’

‘The wind’s had it.’

The wind, thought Julia bitterly, was answerable for a lot.

‘There must be some way of getting a message—to the village or a doctor—or the police.’

He didn’t even bother to say no, just shook his head. ‘Snow’s deep,’ he observed without emotion. ‘There’s Jane the cook and Madge the maid gone to Hawick yesterday to shop for Miss Mary’s return. They’ll not be back for twa days, maybe.’

Julia’s dismay was smothered in a flood of practical thoughts.

‘Food?’ she asked. ‘Hot water, candles?’

‘Food’s enough—candles and lamps we’ve got—hot water, now, that’s another matter. I’ve no call for hot water, stove’s gone out.’

‘If you could possibly light it for us again? Miss Mary—all of us, we need to wash at least. Are there any rooms ready for us?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Madge was to have done that, and me thinking ye’d not get here in this weather—I didna’ light the fire…’

‘Never mind—could the ambulance men come and help you? They’re tired and hungry—they must have a meal and a good sleep. If you’d give them the bedlinen I’m sure they’ll make up the beds, and I’ll come down to the kitchen and cook something.’

He looked at her with a glimmer of respect. ‘Aye, do that if ye will. Miss Mary—she’s all right?’

‘Once she has had her supper she will be.’ Julia smiled at him and went to fetch Bert and Willy.

There was food enough once she could find it in the vast semi-basement kitchen. She pottered about, still wrapped in her cloak, while the men made up beds and lighted fires, making Mary’s supper as attractive as possible.

It was getting on for midnight when Julia removed the supper tray, and Mary, still grumbling, had consented to go to bed. Julia left an oil lamp the old man had produced in the room, wished her patient a good night and went in search of Willy and Bert. She found them, after a great deal of tramping up and down draughty corridors, very snug in a little room on the floor above.

‘Nothing but fourposters downstairs,’ Willy explained. ‘We’ve found you a nice room below, Nurse, got a fire going an’ all. First left at the bottom of the stairs.’

She thanked them, warned them that she was about to cook supper and went in search of her sleeping quarters. The room was reasonably near her patient’s, she was glad to find, and at the head of the stairs, and although there was a piercing draught whistling round the hall below, the room itself looked pleasant enough. She sighed with relief, went to look at Mary, who was already asleep, and made her way downstairs once more. The old man had disappeared; to bed probably, having considered that he had done enough for them. She set about frying eggs and bacon and boiling the kettle for tea, and presently the three of them sat down to a supper, which, while not being quite what they had expected, was ample and hot.

The three of them washed up, wished each other good night, and crept upstairs, bearing a variety of candlesticks and yawning their heads off. Julia, with a longing eye on the comfort of the bed, undressed with the speed of lightning, unpinned her hair, brushed it perfunctorily and went to find a bathroom. There were several, none supplying more than tepid water, so she cleaned her teeth, washed her face and hands with the same speed with which she had brushed her hair and, after a quick look at the sleeping Mary, retired to her room, where, without daring to take off her dressing gown, she jumped into bed. And as she closed her eyes the front door bell rang.

She waited a moment, pretending to herself that she hadn’t heard it, but when it pealed again she got out of bed, picked up her torch, thrust her feet into slippers and started downstairs. The wind was fiercer now and the draughts eddied around her, chilling her to the bone. Only the thought of the unfortunate person on the doorstep urged her on. It would be the nurse, arrived by some miracle Julia was far too tired to investigate, or perhaps the cook and the maid from Hawick, although she fancied that the town was a good many miles away. She undid the bolts of the front door, slid the chain back and opened its creaking weight on to the fog and wind and snow outside.

There was a man on the top step, a very large man, who stood wordless and patient while she allowed her torch to travel his considerable length. She knew that he was staring at her from the gloom and when she said impatiently, ‘Oh, do come in—we’ll both catch our deaths of cold…’ he stepped into the hall without uttering a word, only when he had locked the door behind her did he say without heat,

‘Of all the damn fool things to do—opening a door to a complete stranger in the dead of night!’

Julia’s beautiful eyes opened wide. ‘But you rang the bell.’

‘And have you never heard of opening a door on its chain? I might have been armed with a shotgun.’

Julia interrupted him in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘Don’t be absurd—who’d be out on a night like this with a shotgun?’

He laughed then. ‘Since you’re kind enough to trust me, could I beg shelter until the morning? I’m on my way down from Edinburgh and quite obviously I’ve taken the wrong road.’

He gave himself a shake and the snow tumbled off him, to lie unmelting on the floor. ‘You’re not alone in this place?’

‘No,’ said Julia with calm, ‘I’m not—there are two ambulance men asleep upstairs, so tired they won’t hear a sound—and my patient—oh, and there’s a kind of ancient family retainer, but I haven’t seen him for several hours.’

He took the torch from her hand and shone it deliberately on her.

‘You are a fool,’ he remarked mildly. ‘Here you are, a very beautiful girl unless my eyes deceive me, with two men sleeping like the dead upstairs, an old retainer who’s probably deaf and a patient chained to his bed…’

‘Look,’ said Julia patiently, ‘I’m very tired—you’re welcome to a bed,’ she waved a vague arm towards the staircase. ‘There are plenty of empty rooms if you like to choose one. Are you hungry?’

She had taken the torch once more from his grasp and shone it briefly on him. ‘Take off that coat,’ she advised. ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on—will bacon and eggs do?’

‘Not only beautiful but kind too,’ he murmured. ‘Thank you, I’m famished. Where’s the kitchen? Go back to bed and I’ll look after myself.’

She was already on her way kitchenwards. ‘It’s warmer there than anywhere else. Come along.’