The Chain of Destiny

Her aunt was sitting in her chair with her cat, Horace, on her lap. She turned her head and smiled at Suzannah as she went in; she had a nice smile, which made her lined face looked years younger.

‘There you are, dear. Did you have a busy afternoon?’

‘Just busy enough to make it interesting,’ said Suzannah cheerfully. Her eye fell on the table. ‘You haven’t had tea?’

Her aunt looked apologetic. ‘Well, dear, I did get up to make a cup, but I had to sit down again. It’s so silly, but I’m a little dizzy…’

Suzannah whisked across to her chair. ‘Only dizzy?’ she asked gently. ‘No headache?’

‘No, dear, just a dull, heavy feeling. I’d love a cup of tea.’

They had their tea and presently her aunt dozed off, which left Suzannah free to get their supper, feed Horace and shut up the few hens at the end of the garden. Supper was cooked and the table laid before her aunt awoke and sat down at the table. But she ate very little and presently said that she would go to bed.

‘You’re still dizzy?’ asked Suzannah. ‘I’ll come up with you, Aunty, and if you’re not better in the morning I’ll get Dr Warren to call. Perhaps your tablets are too strong.’

She stayed upstairs until her aunt had fallen asleep and then cleared away their supper, laid the table for breakfast, settled Horace for the night and took herself off to bed, worried about her aunt. True, she had been known to have dizzy spells before, but they were over quickly, and this evening her aunt had looked ill and pale.

She crossed the tiny landing and made sure that her aunt was asleep before she got into bed herself. It took her a long time to go to sleep, and when she did she dreamed of her aunt and, inexplicably, of the man in the picture gallery.

It was a crisp, bright morning when she got up. She hung out of her small window to admire the trees beyond the meadow at the back of the cottage. She put on her dressing-gown and crossed the landing, to find her aunt wide awake.

She was still very pale, Suzannah saw uneasily, but all the same she said cheerfully, ‘Did you have a good night, Aunty? I’ll get you a cup of tea…’

Her aunt peered at her. ‘Not tea, dear, I don’t feel quite the thing—it’s so silly to feel giddy when I’m lying in bed, isn’t it?’

She began to sit up in bed and then with a muttered, ‘Oh, dear’, slid back against her pillows. ‘Such a bad headache,’ she whispered, ‘and I feel so sick.’

Suzannah fetched a bowl, made her aunt comfortable and murmured in a reassuring way and when, surprisingly, her aunt went suddenly to sleep, she leapt down the stairs to the phone, a modern blessing which had been installed when her aunt had first become ill. It was barely seven o’clock, but she had no hesitation in ringing Dr Warren; he had told her to do just that if he was needed, and she wasn’t a girl to panic and call him for something trivial.

His quiet voice assured her that he would be with her in ten minutes before he hung up.

He was as good as his word, and by then her aunt was deeply asleep. ‘More than sleep,’ he told her, ‘a coma, but not very deep as yet.’ He looked at the small figure standing before him. ‘Your aunt is too ill to move. Do you think you can manage?’

‘Yes, of course—if you’ll tell me what I have to do?’

‘Very little.’ He explained what needed to be done. ‘And I’ll get the district nurse to pop in later on.’ He hesitated. ‘I’ve an old friend staying with me for a couple of days—he’s a friend of the Davinishes at the manor, too—he’s a brain surgeon—I’d like him to take a look at your aunt, there might be something…’

‘Oh, please—if there’s anything at all… You see, she’s been quite well for months and it’s been hard to remember that she’s ill. She’s been getting slower and more tired, but never like this.’ She shivered and the doctor patted her shoulder.

‘Get yourself dressed and have some breakfast, I’ll be back in an hour or two and see what can be done.’

He was as good as his word; she barely had the time to dress, bathe her sleeping aunt’s face and hands and straighten the bed, feed a disgruntled Horace and make herself some tea before he was back, this time with his friend and colleague. The man from the picture gallery, coming quietly into the cottage, greeting her gravely and giving no sign at all that he had already met her.

But in any case Suzannah was too worried to give much thought to that; she led the way upstairs and stood quietly by while he examined her aunt with unhurried care and then trod downstairs again where he conferred quietly with Dr Warren. When they had finished Dr Warren called Suzannah from the kitchen, where she had been making coffee.

‘Professor Bowers-Bentinck thinks that the wisest course for us to follow is to let your aunt remain here. There is no point in taking her to hospital; she is gravely ill—you do understand that, don’t you? There is nothing to be done, my dear, and let us be thankful that she has slipped into a coma and will remain so…’

Suzannah gave a gulp. ‘Until she dies?’

‘Yes, Suzannah. Believe me, if there was the faintest hope of saving her by surgery, the professor would operate. I’m sorry.’

‘How long?’

‘A day—a few hours. I shall ask the district nurse to come here as soon as she has done her round. You will need help.’

All this while the professor had stood quietly by the window, looking out on to the little strip of grass and the flower border which separated the lodge from the drive. Now he turned to face her.

‘I am so sorry, Miss Lightfoot, I wish that I could help, but Dr Warren is quite right, there is nothing to be done.’

He sounded so kind that she felt tears prick her eyes. It was hard to equate this calm, impersonal man with the hard-eyed, tiresome creature who had been in the picture gallery. She said in a small voice which she strove to keep steady, ‘Thank you, I quite understand. It was good of you to come.’ After a moment added, ‘Aunty will sleep? She won’t wake and feel frightened?’

‘She won’t wake again,’ he told her gently.

She nodded her untidy red head. ‘I’ll fetch the coffee.’

They drank it, sitting in the small room, the two men talking about nothing in particular, covering her silence, and presently the professor got to his feet and went back upstairs. When he came down again, the two men went away, getting into Dr Warren’s elderly car with a final warning that she was to telephone and that Nurse Bennett would be with her directly.

Nurse Bennett had been the district nurse for years; the very sight of her comfortable form getting out of her little car was reassuring. She had known Miss Lightfoot for a long time and Suzannah for almost as long. She put her bag down on the sitting-room table and said cheerfully, ‘Well, love, we’ve known this would happen—it doesn’t make it any easier for you, but it’s a gentle passing for your aunty, and we’d all wish for that, wouldn’t we, after all she’s done for others.’

Suzannah had a good cry on to her companion’s plump shoulder and felt better for it. ‘I’ll make a pot of tea while you go upstairs,’ she said in a watery voice, and managed a smile.

Miss Lightfoot slipped away as she slept, and by then it was late in the evening and Dr Warren had been once more. He had liked his patient and felt sorry for her niece. ‘Nurse Bennett will stay here tonight,’ he told Suzannah, ‘and I’ll deal with everything.’

He went back home and his wife asked him what would happen to Suzannah. ‘She’s a sensible girl’, he observed. ‘That’s a nice little house and I dare say she’ll find work; she’s a clever girl, you know, should have gone to a university by rights. I dare say they’ll give her a helping hand at the manor house.’

The professor had already left to keep an appointment; Dr Warren picked up the phone and left a message for him.

Almost the entire village went to the funeral. Miss Lightfoot had been liked by everyone, and Suzannah, going home to an empty little house, felt comforted by their kindness. She had refused several offers of hospitality; it would only be putting off the moment when she would be alone with Horace. She had been unhappy before when her parents had died, and she knew that the unhappiness would pass, and pass more quickly if she faced up to it and carried on with her life as usual. She cooked her supper, fed Horace, saw to the hens and went to bed, and if she cried a little before she slept, she told herself it was only because she was tired after a long and trying day.

It was hard at first and time hung heavy on her hands, for she had been doing more and more for her aunt during the past few months. She turned out cupboards and drawers, gardened for hours at a stretch, and in the evenings sat at the table, pondering ways and means. Her aunt had left only a very little money, for she had been supplementing her pension from her small capital. Suzannah had a few pounds saved, but she would have to find work as soon as possible. There had been a rumour in the village that Miss Smythe had asked for an assistant to help her in the school; Suzannah had had a good education, a clutch of A-levels and could have had a place in a university. Much cheered with the idea, she went to bed a week or so after her aunt’s death, determined to go and see Miss Smythe in the morning.

She was up early to find that the postman had already been—several letters which she skimmed through and laid on one side to answer later; the last one was from the manor house and rather surprised her—a formal note asking her to call there that morning.

She read it a second time; perhaps there was a job for her there? She got dressed and had breakfast, tidied the little house and walked up the drive and round the side of the house to the door which the staff used. She met Mr Toms as she was going through the flagstoned passage which would lead her to the stairs and the private wing. She had always got on well with him, but now he showed no wish to stop and pass the time of day; indeed, he muttered that he was already late and barely paused to wish her good morning, which surprised her very much.

Grimm the butler answered the door when she pressed the discreetly hidden bell by the door at the top of the staircase. He bade her good morning, ushering her into a small ante-room, and then he went away, to return in a few minutes and ask her to go with him.

She had expected to see old Sir William, but there was no sign of him in the study into which she was ushered. Only his niece, a girl a little older than Suzannah, sat behind the desk. Suzannah had met her on several occasions and hadn’t liked her; she liked her even less now as she went on writing, leaving Suzannah to stand in the middle of the room. She looked up finally and Suzannah thought what a pretty girl she was, tall and dark with regular features and blue eyes and always beautifully dressed. She said now, ‘Oh, hello. Uncle isn’t well enough to see anyone, so I’ve taken over for a time. I won’t keep you long. I expect you’ve heard that there is an assistant teacher coming to live here to give Miss Smythe a hand. She’ll start after half-term, in a couple of weeks’ time, so we shall want the lodge for her to live in.’

It was the very last thing Suzannah had expected to hear. She was sensible enough to know that sooner or later she would have to leave the lodge unless she could get a job connected with the manor house, and somehow she had believed that old Sir William would have agreed to her applying for the post of teacher or at least allowed her to have stayed on and continued to work as a guide.

She said in a carefully controlled voice. ‘I had hoped to apply for that post…’

‘Well, it’s been filled, and don’t expect to find a job here. Sir William has been far too easygoing; I’m cutting down on the staff. But you’re able to shift for yourself, I suppose?’ She gave Suzannah a cold smile. ‘I consider that we’ve more than paid our debt to your aunt; there’s no reason why we should have to go on paying it to you.’ She pulled some papers towards her. ‘Well, that’s settled, isn’t it? I don’t know what you intend doing with your aunt’s furniture—sell it to the schoolteacher if you like, only the lodge must be empty of your possessions in two weeks. Goodbye, Suzannah.’

Suzannah didn’t answer, she walked out of the room and closed the door very gently behind her. It was like a bad dream, only it wasn’t a dream, it was reality, and presently when she could think straight she would come to terms with it. Without thinking, she took the long way round to the front door, through the picture gallery, and half-way along it found herself face to face with Professor Bowers-Bentinck. She would have walked past him, but he put out a hand and stopped her, staring down at her pale, pinched face.

‘Well, well, Miss Lightfoot, so we meet once more—there must be a magnet which draws us…’ He had spoken lightly, but when she looked up at him with her lovely grey eyes full of hurt and puzzlement, he asked, ‘What’s wrong? You’re not ill?’