“I hope that’s not Prescott again,” Daniel said. “I don’t feel in any state to speak to him now.”
Words were being exchanged downstairs. I couldn’t make them out but then I heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. I stepped out to intercept the visitor and found that it was the doctor.
“Mrs. Sullivan,” he said. “I’ve just been told the good news about your husband. So the fever broke by itself, did it? Oh, that is a relief. I have to tell you that I was expecting the worst this morning. I didn’t think the poor man would make it through the night.”
“Not only made it through the night but is currently eating breakfast,” I said and ushered him into the bedroom.
“You are a fortunate young man, sir,” he said to Daniel. “You clearly have a strong constitution to fight off the disease when it had such a grip on you.” He took out his stethoscope and started listening to Daniel’s chest. When he’d finished he nodded.
“Not out of the woods yet by any means,” he said. “There’s still a lot of fluid on the lungs. So no exertion, no excitement for a while yet. You’re not to move from this bed until I say so, and that’s an order.”
I followed him down the stairs. “Thank you for coming out in the night like that,” I said. “I’m so relieved. If I write out a telegram, I wonder could you arrange to have it sent from the telegraph office when you go back to town? I don’t want to leave him yet but I’d like his dear ones to know that he’s not going to die.”
The doctor shook his head and at first I thought he was refusing to send the telegram, but then he leaned closer to me. “I’d wait a little longer if I were you. He is not out of the woods yet. A relapse is all too possible with a disease like pneumonia. I’ve seen it many times. So hold off sending your good news for a while and make sure you keep him in bed, keep him quiet, on an invalid diet.”
“I will, don’t worry. You’ll be sending us the bill, will you?”
“I most certainly will. Extra money for being woken from my beauty sleep.” He smiled and patted my hand before he put his hat on his head and departed.
A young woman called Martha arrived soon after and Mrs. Flannery went back to the bickering at the big house. Daniel was asleep when I came to collect his tray, so I left Martha busy in the kitchen and went outside. I felt that I needed a breath of ocean air in my lungs after everything I’d been through that night. It was another perfect day for sailing, with a stiff breeze and puffy white clouds racing across a blue sky. I expected that Archie Van Horn was miffed that he couldn’t compete in his yacht races.
There was no sign of the family, nor of the gardeners and I strolled through the trees and down to the ocean front. Then I sat on a log and watched the sea birds and the waves. The sound of feet on gravel made me look up and there came the two little boys in their identical sailor suits, marching side by side at a great rate down the path, while their nursemaid struggled to keep up with them, gasping every now and then, “Slow down, boys. Do you hear me? Slow down.”
As the boys came closer to me I stood up. “Are you two in trouble again?” I asked.
They stopped and grinned at me. “We’re not allowed to play, you see,” the older one (Was it Alex?) said. “Because of grandpapa. And it was so boring sitting in the house and reading on a fine day that we begged Mama and she said we could walk around the grounds if Bridget stayed with us, but we weren’t to run.”
“So we weren’t running,” the younger one (Thomas, if I remembered correctly.) joined in. “But we were seeing how fast we could walk.”
“You boys will be the death of me,” the nursemaid said. “You don’t do a thing you’re told. Well, your father is going to hear of this.”
“But we weren’t running, Bridget. It’s not our fault if you only have little legs and we have long ones,” Alex said.
“I don’t believe you’re allowed anywhere near the cliffs,” I reminded them. “You know what your mother feels about that.”
“We thought we’d take a look for ourselves at the place where they found grandpapa’s body.” Thomas said. “We won’t go really near the edge.”
“You’ll go nowhere near it. I’ll walk you back to the house,” I said. “The last thing you want to do right now is give your poor parents more worry. Your mother has lost her father. She’s naturally very upset. You should try to be good boys and comfort her. I expect you miss your grandfather too, don’t you?”
“I suppose so,” Alex said. “We didn’t see him very much and he was rather bossy. We always had to mind our manners with him.”
“He was your grandfather,” I pointed out. “It’s up to you to show respect to his memory.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Alex said. Then his face lit up again. “You’ll never believe what we saw last night—we saw a ghost. Mama won’t believe us, but we did.”