Death, Taxes and Nurses

Mildred opened the hot tap to a steady flow.

"You'll have to pull the plug occasionally to stop it over-flowing and turn the tap off before it gets too hot. Can you do that for me, Jake?"

"Yes, mum."

Jake knelt down by the bath and rolled up his sleeve to stir the hot water around the bath with one of his paddle-like hands.

"Well done, Jake. Right, my girl: it's your turn. Charles will be fine."

"Yes, if Jake doesn't drown him."

"Come with me, then."

Melanie obeyed, kicking Jake in the ribs as she passed, hurting her foot.

"Ow, shit!"

"Sorry, Mel."

"You will be," she assured him as she hobbled into the corridor, to be aided by Mildred's warm protective arms into her own restorative immersion.

Jake didn't drown Charles but carefully tended to him, gradually increasing the temperature of the bath until the blue man turned pink.

Fifteen minutes later, Charles had regained consciousness. Though tired and in severe pain from his bruised face and the whiplash in his neck, yet he could talk enough to let the contrite Jake know that he was forgiven for Melanie's sake.

When Melanie and Charles were in their baths, Mildred telephoned Clara to put her mind at rest. Clara was grateful and relieved but she was also clearly upset. She had bad news to communicate: Casper was dead.

It had not long happened. Elizabeth was holding her father's hand when he woke up again after dozing. He smiled, looking at his daughter.

"Rachael, my love, you're here," he croaked thinly.

"It's Elizabeth, Daddy," she said, the tears starting in her eyes.

"Bessie. You look so much like your mother.... So beautiful...."

He tried to lift his hand to touch her face. She helped him and held his palm to her cheek.

"So beautiful," he repeated. "Bessie ... I've had a wonderful life ... a beautiful family, ... but it wasn't the same without Rachael. ... I am going to join her now...."

"Give Mum a kiss from me, Daddy," Elizabeth said, tears streaming down her cheeks onto his face as she bent over to kiss him goodbye.

He closed his eyes to rest and Elizabeth let his arm down to his side, still holding his hand. Two minutes later, he opened his eyes again. It was a post-mortem reflex. Casper Greenwood was dead.

Clara was sobbing when she ended her telephone call and Mildred had tears in her eyes when she returned laden with a tray of strong, black coffees.

Charles asked after Melanie.

"She's fine: she was splashing around like a water-baby when I left her. I'm sorry I had no rubber duck to give her to play with."

"Good for her," Charles said, but he groaned, holding his jaw.

"Do you think you can drink from a cup, or shall I fetch you a straw?"

Charles thought he could detect a slight undertone of dislike in Mildred's attitude toward him but he was not in a position to justify himself, so he chose to ignore it.

"I can manage a cup, thank you, Mildred."

"If you're okay, I'll go talk to Melanie again. Mr. Greenwood died this morning."

"I'm very sorry, Mildred. I liked him a lot. He was a most generous man. ... He'll be a great loss to the art-world."

"I suppose so," she agreed, "though a greater loss to his family and household," was her no-nonsense Parthian shot as she progressed to Melanie's bathroom to share the sad news.

Melanie sat and wept as Mildred wrapped her in a bath-sheet. She had genuinely loved the kindly old man.

Jake had gone to fetch Charles' clothes and, when he was dressed, Charles came to console Melanie. She hugged him and kissed the unbruised side of his face.

"I'll miss him so much," she said.

Melanie wept again a week later at the funeral of Casper Greenwood. And, one day after that, she wept at the country estate when, in the company of Casper's family, Clara, Kelly and the solicitor, she was informed that Casper had left his nurses one hundred thousand pounds each. Elizabeth would hear neither refusals nor thanks but she hugged the girls and expressed the gratitude of the whole family for the care and happiness with which they had graced the last years of her father.

Another time that Melanie wept was one Sunday in May, when she and Charles made their weekly visit to the National Gallery. Charles guided her to the Rembrandts and was charmed to see that the sweet sadness of the late self-portraits moved her to tears.

Later on that warm spring day, while walking in St. James' Park, Charles manoeuvred Melanie to a vacant bench, sat her down and then knelt. He kissed her hand and asked her to marry him. She shed tears of happiness as she said "yes".

Melanie did not weep again that year until August, when she married Charles in Bow Church.

She laughed at the preposterous suit that fitted Jake like a tent. She cried as she hugged Clara, whose angelic beauty was enhanced by a golden glow now that she was Countess von Starfish-Blunderbuss. She wept joyfully when she promised to 'love, honour and obey' Charles. And mischievous laughter consumed her when her new husband happily whispered that he'd seen her cross her fingers as she said the word 'obey'.