SUDDEN MERRIMENT

It was with some anxiety that Jane dressed herself the following morning. Rising early to tug on her nurse’s clothes and arrange her hair under the white cap, she had the thought that all her skill in helping people to cure their ailments had probably left her. It had left her because she no longer truly cared to do it. She was in love with female beauty now; she was afraid that ageing and sick bodies, especially those of men, were going to disgust her, as they had never done before. The great store of tenderness and compassion which had earned her the name of Angel was diminished – or so she felt.

When Sir William saw her at their seven o’clock breakfast, clothed in the white garments which had always suited her so well, he couldn’t but look admiringly at her and said, in a voice not devoid of profound emotion, ‘Ah, Jane. Now everything is right once more with the world!’

But for her, it was not right. She let Becky pour her some tea, but when the maid set three rashers of bacon in front of her, fatty at their edges and on a chipped plate, she sent this away. She felt sweat on her upper lip and a sickness in her stomach. She wondered if she was going to faint. She nibbled a heel of white bread, as a squirrel might nibble it, taking tiny little mouthfuls, to try to soothe her discomfort. Meanwhile, her father read the Bath Chronicle and attacked his bacon with relish. Jane waited silently on her chair. She steadied herself by holding on to the rim of the breakfast table.

Latimer was brought to the house in a chaise at eight o’clock. What Jane saw was a pale, thin man, whose mouth hung agape in his tortuous search for breath. She, who had never seen the manufacturer of glue in his pomp and optimism nor heard him boasting about his new house in North Parade, was at once moved by simple pity for a poor soul whose lungs and heart were in such distress.

She helped him to Sir William’s surgery and laid him on the couch and stood by while her father took Latimer’s pulse and listened to the laboured breathing with an expression of dismay on his face, like a man listening to a favourite piece of music being played badly. While this was going on, Latimer looked pleadingly up at Jane, his eyes never leaving her features. And she intuited what he wanted to say – that he had heard about her, that she was the Angel of the Baths and that she was now all that stood between him and death.

She took up his hand, which was as cold as any marble, and held it tenderly. She said, ‘I’m impatient to get you to the Hot Bath. The vapour and warmth will have an excellent effect on the congestion afflicting you. By the end of the morning, you will feel some relief, and then you will rest.’