A Kind of Magic

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He didn’t look at her; he was bending over his patient, listening to his chest, so she did exactly as she had been told and then, leaving Mrs MacFee with him, hurried through to the dining-room through the open archway and up the small second staircase leading from it. Old Robert, the odd-job man, and a young girl with a tear-stained face were standing in the doorway leading to the kitchen, and Rosie said, ‘Come up with me, will you, and help me get a bed ready?’

Her uncle’s room was at the front of the house; if he was to be carried upstairs, then it would be easier if they used the main staircase in the inner hall leading up from the drawing-room. Rosie ran through the passages and opened the door wide. ‘We’d better take the bedclothes off.’ She gave the girl a reassuring smile. ‘What is your name?’

‘Flora, miss, I’m the housemaid.’

‘Well, Flora, would you switch on the lights? And I should think one pillow would do.’ She frowned. ‘Perhaps you’d better fetch several more, though, for I’m not sure if Mr Macdonald should sit up or not.’

She gave a quick look round, moved a bedside table to make it easier to reach the bed, and said, ‘I’m going downstairs again to tell the doctor to use the main staircase.’

Dr Cameron was still bending over her uncle. He didn’t look up as she went in, but said in his calm way, ‘Is the bed ready?’ and when she said ‘yes’ he lifted his patient with apparent ease.

‘Lead the way…’

She went ahead, turning every few steps to make sure that the doctor was all right. ‘Pillow?’ she asked urgently as they reached the bedroom.

‘One,’ Dr Cameron laid his patient on the bed. He was breathing rather fast, but that was all. He must be all of fifteen stone, reflected Rosie and, being a practical young woman, began to ease off her uncle’s shoes.

Her uncle was still unconscious.

‘We will get him undressed,’ stated the doctor. ‘Trousers and jacket, leave everything else.’

When that was done he turned to Rosie and said, ‘Go and telephone the hotel, reassure your grandmother. Will it upset her to be told?’

‘She hasn’t spoken to Uncle Donald since he came here to live, but I’d rather not tell her—not yet, anyway.’

‘Tell her what you think is best, and then come back here.’

She was still wringing wet and with no hope of getting dry, at least for the moment. When she got downstairs she kicked off her shoes, stripped off her tights, and went to the telephone. It took a minute or two to explain to the manager where she was and why.

‘If you could tell my grandmother,’ she asked, ‘that I am quite safe, and will be back just as soon as Dr Cameron can leave his patient.’

Mrs MacFee was at her elbow as she put down the phone.

‘You’ll get these wet things off you, Miss Rosie. Ye can sit in my dressing-gown while they dry—it’ll take but a wee while.’

‘I can’t just yet, Mrs MacFee, the doctor might need help.’ She raced back upstairs, and the housekeeper, tutting indignantly, went back to the kitchen to warm up the soup she was sure would be needed.

‘A fine, strong lass,’ she grumbled at Old Robert. ‘It won’t be my fault if she catches her death of cold—and why should she be here after all this time and them not speaking, her father and him?’ She nodded her head towards the ceiling. ‘That’s a braw man, that doctor. Fetch in some more peat, Robert, will you? The fire’ll need banking for the night.’

‘Woman, it’s but five o’clock.’

‘And a long night ahead of us, Robert.’

‘Stay here, will you?’ asked Dr Cameron as Rosie reached the bedroom. ‘I’ve some phoning to do. No need to do anything, but give a yell if he comes round.’

She sat down close to the bed, her eyes glued to her uncle’s unconscious face. It was quiet in the room save for his slow breaths, so quiet that she had to strain her ears to hear them. It seemed an age before the doctor came soft-footed through the half-open door. He said nothing, checked his patient’s pulse once more, and then sat down on the other side of the bed.

Presently he looked across at her.

‘Go down and get those wet things off; your Mrs MacFee is seething with anxiety for fear you will catch cold. Then come back here—I might need you.’

He could have been giving orders to a nurse on a hospital ward. Polite, impersonal, and quite sure he would be obeyed.

She did as she was told, and didn’t say a word. In the kitchen she was given a scalding cup of tea, and was told to go up the back stairs to Mrs MacFee’s room, strip off her clothes, and put on the dressing-gown she would find behind the door. It was a voluminous garment, very woolly, and she wrapped it around her person with a sigh of relief as Mrs MacFee came trotting in with her tights.

‘You put these on, my lass, and button up that gown all the way down. Come and sit in the kitchen by the fire—your things will dry in no time.’

‘I’m to go back upstairs,’ Rosie insisted.

‘Like that? Whatever next…?’

‘He’s a doctor, Mrs MacFee,’ said Rosie. ‘He’s concerned with Uncle Donald—I could be there with nothing on at all and he wouldn’t notice!’

She gave the elderly cheek a quick kiss, nipped through the upstairs passages, and slid into the room without a word.

If the doctor noticed her appearance he gave no sign. ‘He is regaining consciousness. Sit where he can see you.’

So she sat close to the bed again, and sure enough her uncle’s eyelids soon fluttered and opened. He closed them again at once, and then after a minute opened them again. ‘Rosie?’ His voice was a thread of sound.

‘Yes, Uncle.’

‘Strange you’re here—I’ve been thinking about you…your father…’ He closed his eyes again, and she looked at the doctor, who looked calmly back at her and didn’t speak.

‘Never liked me much, did you?’ went on the weary voice. ‘Kicked me when I beat that dog. Sorry about that. So long ago. I’ve been a fool.’

Rosie took one of his hands in hers. ‘That’s all over and done with, Uncle… The doctor’s here, you were taken ill.’

The tired face turned slowly on the pillow. ‘Don’t know you. Married to Rosie, are you?’

Dr Cameron looked faintly amused. ‘Indeed not. Your own doctor was out on a case, and I got your housekeeper’s message on the car phone. Dr Douglas will be with us very shortly and it is to be hoped that you can be taken to hospital in Oban as soon as you are fit enough to move.’