She forced a little smile to her face and started to speak again, but the words would not come, and he moved away to save her the effort. But the next morning, early, while Sykes was combing out her hair she spoke to him again, though her voice was so thin and weak that he had to lean close to hear it.
“How long ’ve I been here?”
“This is the eighth day, Amber.”
“Aren’t you well yet?”
“Almost. In a few days I’ll be able to take care of you.”
She closed her eyes then and breathed a long tired sigh. Her head rolled over sideways on the pillow. Her hair, lank and oily with most of the curl gone, lay in thick skeins about her head. Her collar-bones showed sharply beneath the taut-stretched skin, and it was possible to see her ribs.
That same day Mrs. Sykes fell sick, and though she protested for several hours that it was nothing at all, merely a slight indisposition from something she had eaten, Bruce knew better. He did not want her taking care of Amber and suggested that she lie down in the nursery and rest, which she did immediately. Then, wrapping himself in a blanket, he went out to the kitchen.
Sykes had had neither the time nor the inclination and probably not even the knowledge for good housekeeping and all the rooms were littered and untidy. Puffs of dust moved about on the floors, the furniture was thickly coated, stubs of burnt-down candles lay wherever she had tossed them. In the kitchen there were stacks of dirty pans and plates, great pails full of soaking bloody rags or towels, and the food had not been put away but left out on the table or even set on the floor.
Everything spoiled rapidly in the heat and she had been negligent about reordering from the guard; so he found that the butter had turned rancid, the milk was beginning to sour, and some of the eggs stank when opened. He ladled out a bowl of soup—Sykes’s concoction and by no means so palatable as Amber’s had been—and ate it himself, and then he took the best of what he could find in on a tray to Amber.
As he was feeding her, slowly, spoonful by spoonful, Sykes suddenly began to rave and scream in delirium. Amber grabbed his wrist, her eyes full of terror.
“What’s that!”
“It’s nothing, darling. Someone in the street. Here—that’s enough for now. You must lie down again.”
She did so but her eyes watched him as he went to the nursery door, turned the key in the lock and taking it out tossed it upon the table.
“There’s someone in there,” she said softly. “Someone who’s sick.”
He came back and sat beside her again. “It’s the nurse—but she can’t get out. You’re safe here, darling, and you must go back to sleep again—”
“But what if she dies, Bruce—how’ll you get her out of the house?” The expression in her eyes showed what she was thinking: of Spong, of dragging her down the stairs, of the dead-cart.
“Don’t worry about it. Don’t even think about it. I’ll do it someway. Now you must sleep, darling—sleep and get well.”
For two or three hours Sykes continued to rave intermittently. She beat on the door, shrieking at him to let her out, demanding the money he had promised her, but he made no answer at all. The windows in the nursery overlooked the courtyard and the back alley and sometime in the middle of the night he heard her smashing them and screaming wildly. And then he heard a yowl as she leaped out and went crashing down two stories below. When the dead-cart came by he opened the window to tell the guard where they would find her.
It was almost noon the next day before another nurse arrived.
He was lying flat on his back, half dozing, worn out by the effort of getting up to bring Amber some food, to change her bandage and bathe her hands and face. And then, slowly, he opened his eyes and found an old woman standing beside the bed, watching him with a curious, speculative look. He scowled, wondering why she had come in so silently, distrustful immediately of her manner and appearance.
She was old and filthy in her dress, her face was deeply lined and her breath stank foully. But he noticed that she wore a pair of diamond earrings that looked real and several rings on her fingers which were also of obvious value. She was either a thief or a ghoul or both.
“Good-day, sir. The parish-clerk sent me here. I’m Mrs. Maggot.”
“I’m almost well,” said Bruce, staring at her intently, hoping to make her think that he was stronger than he was. “But my wife still needs a great deal of care. I got her one meal this morning, but it’s time for another now. The last nurse left the kitchen in a mess and there’s no food, but you can send the guard for some.”
As he spoke her eyes were going over the furnishings of the room: the cloth-of-silver covering the bedstead and chairs, the marble-topped tables, the row of exquisite vases across the mantelpiece.
“Where’s the money?” she asked, not looking at him.
“There are four shillings on that table. That should buy whatever we need—the guard always takes a fee for himself.”
