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Hester continued with her visits to the rest of Cleo’s patients, just to conclude the list of medicines. She was uncertain if it would be any use, but she felt compelled to do it, and regardless of anything else, she wanted to go and see John Robb again. It was over a week since she had last been, and she knew he would be almost out of morphine. He was failing, the pain growing worse, and there was little she could do to help him. She had some morphine left, taken with Phillips’s connivance, and she had bought a bottle of sherry herself. It was illogical to give it to him rather than anyone else, but logic had no effect on her feelings.
She found him alone, slumped in his chair almost asleep, but he roused himself when he heard her footsteps. He looked paler than she had ever seen him before, and his eyes more deeply sunken. She had nursed too many dying men to delude herself that he had long left now, and she could guess how it must tear Michael Robb to have to leave him alone.
She forced her voice to be cheerful, but she could not place the barrier between them of pretending that she could not see how ill he was.
"Hello," she said quietly, sitting opposite him. "I’m sorry I’ve been away so long. I’ve been trying to find some way of helping Cleo, and I think we may have succeeded." She was aware as she spoke that if she embroidered the truth a little he would probably not live long enough to know.
He smiled and raised his head. "That’s the best news you could have brought me, girl. I worry about her. All the good she did, and now this has to happen. Wish I could do something to help—but I think maybe all I could do would make it worse." He was watching her, waiting for her to reply.
"Don’t worry, nobody will ask you," she answered him. She was sure the last thing the prosecution would do willingly would be to draw in the men like John Robb who would indeed show that Cleo had handed on the medicines, because they would also show so very effectively why. The sympathies of every decent man in the jury would be with Cleo. Perhaps some of them had been in the army themselves, or had fathers or brothers or sons who had. Their outrage at what had happened to so many old soldiers would perhaps outweigh their sense of immediate justice against the killer of a blackmailing coachman. Tobias would not provoke that if he could help it.
Hester herself would be delighted if it came out into the public hearing, but only if it could be managed other than at Cleo’s expense. So far she had thought of no way.
He looked at her closely. "But I was one s
he took those medicines for—wasn’t I?"
"She took them for a lot of people," Hester answered honestly. "Eighteen of you altogether, but you were one of her favorites." She smiled. "Just as you’re mine."
He grinned as if she were flirting with him. His pleasure was only too easy to see, in spite of the tragedy of the subject they were discussing. His eyes were misty. "But some o’ those medicines she took were for me, weren’t they?" he pressed her.
"Yes. You and others."
"And where are you getting them now, girl? I’d sooner go without than have you in trouble, too."
"I know you would, but there’s no need to worry. The apothecary gave me these." That was stretching the truth a little, but it hardly mattered. "I’ll make you a cup of tea and we’ll sit together for a while. I brought a little sherry—not from the hospital, I got it myself." She stood up as she said it. "Don’t need milk this time—we’ll give it a bit of heart."
"That’d be good," he agreed. "Then we’ll talk a bit. You tell me some o’ those stories about Florence Nightingale and how she bested those generals and got her own way. You tell a good story, girl."
"I’ll do that," she promised, going over to the corner which served as kitchen, pouring water into the kettle, then setting it on the hob. When it was boiled she made the tea, putting the sherry fairly liberally into one mug and leaving the morphine on the shelf so Michael would find it that evening. She returned with the tea and set one mug, the one with the sherry, for him, the one without for herself.
He picked up his mug and began to sip slowly. "So, tell me about how you outwitted those generals then, girl. Tell me the things you’re doing better now because o’ the war an’ what you learned."
She recounted to him all sorts of bits and pieces she could remember, tiny victories over bureaucracy, making it as funny as possible, definitely adding more color than there had been at the time.
He drank the tea, then set down the empty mug. "Go on," he prompted. "I like the sound o’ your voice, girl. Takes me back..."
She tried to think of other stories to tell, ones that had happy endings, and perhaps she rambled a bit, inventing here and there. Now and then he interrupted to ask a question. It was warm and comfortable in the afternoon sun, and she was not surprised when she looked up and saw his eyes closed. It was just the sort of time to doze off. Certainly, she was in no way offended. He was still smiling at the last little victory she had recounted, much added to in retrospect.
She stood up and went to make sure he was warm enough since the sunlight had moved around and his feet were in shadow. It was only then that she noticed how very still he was. There was no labored breathing, no rasp of air in his damaged lungs.
There were tears already on her cheeks when she put her fingers to his neck and found no pulse. It was ridiculous. She should have been only glad for him, but she was unable to stop herself from sitting down and weeping in wholehearted weariness, in fear, and from the loss of a friend she had come to love.
She had washed her face and was sitting in a chair, still opposite the old man, when Michael Robb came home in the late afternoon.
He walked straight in, not at first sensing anything different.
She stood up quickly, stepping between him and the old man.
Then he saw her face and realized she had been weeping. He went very pale.
"He’s gone," she said gently. "I was here—talking to him. We were telling old stories, laughing a little. He just went to sleep." She moved aside so he could see the old man’s face, the shadow of a smile still on it, a great peace settled over him.
Michael knelt down beside him, taking his hand. "I should have been here," he said hoarsely. "I’m sorry! I’m so sorry..."
"If you had stayed here all the time, who could have earned the money for you both to live on?" she asked. "He knew that—he was so proud of you. He would have felt terribly guilty if he’d thought you were taking time away from your work because of him."
Michael bent forward, the tears spilling over his cheeks, his shoulders shaking.
