NELLIE ENJOYED COOKING and learning the daily regimes of the kitchen and household at 8 Temple Villas.
Father liked to eat beef four times a week, fish once a week and other meats or fowl on the other days. He insisted on a good cheese-board and enjoyed a different pudding every day of the week. A selection of fine clarets, burgundies, ports and bottles of his favourite malt whiskey were always kept in the drinks cabinet. When his old friend the portrait painter John Butler Yeats visited in winter, both men enjoyed hot toddies with plenty of cloves as they discussed affairs of the day and legal matters. Mother preferred a lighter diet – chicken, fish, lean meat and soufflés. She liked blancmanges and custards, and a special peppermint cordial was kept to aid her digestion. Nellie’s sisters, with the exception of Ada, abhorred kidneys. Grace refused to eat semolina or tapioca, while Sidney hated peas. The boys ate mostly everything, though young Cecil seemed to get a rash if he ate strawberries. Her brother Gerald of late had been craving thick slices of gingerbread and fresh ginger biscuits, claiming they aided his study; he was doing his final law exams and often worked till the middle of the night.
‘Ginger is good for the brain and for concentration,’ he declared as she cut him big pieces of her homemade cake.
The ginger clearly worked, as he passed his exams and took up a position with Father and Claude in the family law firm.
It was only a few weeks later when Nellie noticed that Gerald had not attended breakfast or Sunday lunch, claiming he was not hungry – a rare occurrence in any of her brothers.
‘Will I make you a sandwich?’ she offered as he drank a glass of cold water in the kitchen.
‘No, I’m not hungry,’ Gerald murmured. ‘I’ve got a thundering headache.’
‘It’s probably after all that studying for your exams,’ she consoled him, noticing that her twenty-four-year-old brother was pale, with dark shadows under his eyes.
‘I took a knock playing rugger with a few of the fellows yesterday. Maybe I just need to have a bit of a rest,’ Gerald said quietly, disappearing off up the stairs.
Returning from helping all afternoon at the church fair with Mother and her sisters, Nellie went to change her shoes and put away her jacket. There was no sign of Gerald at teatime, so later she carried him up some tea and two scones. He seemed drowsy and she made him sit up a bit.
‘I’m fine,’ he mumbled. ‘I just want to sleep.’
She looked in on him again before she went to bed, relieved to see that he was in a deep, heavy sleep.
When Gerald did not appear the next morning, Nellie decided to bring up his breakfast on a tray. Her brother lay curled up on his side in bed and barely looked at her. She pulled open the heavy damask curtains.
‘Close them!’ he yelled. ‘The light hurts my eyes.’
She did what he said but went over to stand beside him. He looked awful, and then she noticed the blotchy rash on his arms – purplish, nearly black, like blackberries.
She went immediately to her parents’ room. Father was getting dressed for work, fixing his tie and pulling on his waistcoat.
‘It’s Gerald! He’s much worse,’ Nellie interrupted.
She could read the alarm on both their faces once they saw Gerald. Father told her to send Nora or Essie for their neighbour, Dr Mitchell, as quickly as possible. He arrived immediately.
Nellie waited anxiously in her room as he examined her brother. The doctor took an age, then at last she saw him talking, serious-faced, to her parents on the landing.
‘It’s some kind of brain infection, meningococcal, very vigorous and in the fluid around Gerald’s brain, judging by that rash. I have only seen it a few times, but I’m afraid his condition is grave.’
‘Should we move him to the hospital?’ demanded Mother. ‘Get the proper treatment there?’
‘Unfortunately I think your son is far too ill to move,’ said James Mitchell calmly. ‘He needs total rest, peace and quiet in a darkened room. The next few hours, the next day or two, will be very critical.’
‘Critical?’ repeated Father.
‘Frederick, his condition is grave – very grave. I will organize for a nurse to come and attend Gerald. But you must send for me at once if there is any change.’
Nellie sat with her brother in the darkened room as Mother went to dress. Father refused to go to the office.
‘I have my briefcase, so I can read files and case notes here at home,’ he insisted.
Nellie listened to her brother’s laboured breathing. His eyes were firmly shut and his face had a strange pallor.
‘Gerald is strong, always has been,’ Father assured her, watching him. ‘Boys often have falls and knocks, but they get over them and so will he, just you wait and see.’
Nellie didn’t know what to say.
‘I’ll be in my study,’ he said, shutting the door gently and going downstairs.
Mother came and sat with Gerald awhile. She read aloud from her father’s Bible, but Nellie wasn’t sure if her brother could hear her.
The nurse arrived two hours later. She checked his pulse and temperature and made them go outside while she examined his skin. The rash had worsened.
Mother rested for a while in the afternoon and Muriel, who had returned from school, sat with Nellie and sang their brother some of his favourite songs softly.
‘He loves to sing,’ Nellie explained to the nurse. ‘He has a fine tenor voice.’
Muriel sat patiently beside Gerald for hours, asking the nurse how she could help. She sponged his face and moistened his lips so they would not dry out, talking quietly to him all the time.
Claude arrived after work to see his brother and they all took turns sitting by his bedside. He was no better but certainly no worse. Dr Mitchell called to visit him after dinner, conferring quietly with the nurse about his condition. She would stay through the night and another nurse would take over in the morning.
The doctor came again after breakfast. He was most concerned about Gerald’s breathing and the fact that he could not be roused.
‘The brain at times shuts down to protect itself,’ he explained, ‘but often this can worsen so the patient slips deeper and deeper into unconsciousness.’
‘But he will recover,’ Mother said firmly.
‘I cannot say or promise that,’ Dr Mitchell replied quietly. ‘Gerald’s position is most unstable.’
The new nurse was older and she gently sponged her patient down. ‘You poor, poor boy,’ she said kindly, turning down his sheet and combing his hair.
By the time Muriel, Grace, Cecil and Sidney had returned from school, Gerald was much worse. They all sat in the kitchen as Essie made endless cups of tea. Nora took up a tray for Mother and Father, who sat with him, pale-faced and exhausted, Mother holding his hand in hers.
Then the nurse urged them all to come upstairs quietly to say goodbye to their brother. Nellie was shocked, unable to take in the fact that Gerald was going to die. They crowded into the room, each taking a turn to kiss his cheek. Sidney and the twins, Grace and Cecil, were so upset that Nellie had to take them outside. Twenty minutes later it was all over.
Nellie sat on her bed looking out on the dark road and the shadowed plane trees in the moonlight, wondering why this had happened. Her brother had never done a bad thing in his life, never hurt anyone. But now Gerald was dead, her strong, healthy brother taken cruelly from them.