So instead I went to the nearest flower bed, prized up one of the rocks that bordered it and, after a second’s hesitation, hurled it through a kitchen window. The crash of breaking glass should have been loud enough to wake the dead, but no lights came on upstairs. I punched out enough of the broken glass to reach through and undo the catch. Then I hauled myself inside.
The house was completely dark and still and I groped around the walls for a light switch, eventually locating one. I flipped it down and the room was instantly bathed in harsh light from a naked bulb overhead. I came out of the kitchen, wondering whom to wake. The family slept upstairs and I had no idea where the servants’ bedrooms were. Probably up in the attics. I couldn’t find a light anywhere in the passage and made my way along it by feel until I sensed, rather than saw, the vast emptiness of that front foyer. The telephone, I thought. The telephone must be somewhere around here. Moonlight made narrow stripes on the tiled floor as it came in through thin arched windows over the staircase. It did little to illuminate, rather added to the unreal atmosphere of the place.
Suddenly I couldn’t stand it any longer. There are times when decorum has to go out of the window. “Help!” I shouted. “Wake up! Somebody help me!”
My voice echoed as if in some vast church. For a moment nothing happened, then there was the sound of feet above me and an electric light was turned on in the corridor above.
“What’s going on?” a male voice asked.
“Down here!” I shouted.
Then Mrs. Flannery and Father Patrick appeared at the top of the staircase,
“What is it? What’s happening?” Mrs. Flannery asked.
“Is that you, Mrs. Sullivan?” Father Patrick’s calm voice called to me.
“It’s my husband. He’s dangerously ill,” I called up to them as they made their way cautiously down the stone stairs. “He needs a doctor right away. I know there’s a telephone somewhere here.”
They reached me. Father Patrick put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, my dear. I’m sure it will be all right. Now where is that telephone? I know I’ve seen it somewhere.”
“Don’t ask me,” Mary Flannery said. She had taken longer to reach me and was puffing with the exertion. “I agree with Mrs. McCreedy. I don’t hold with such contraptions myself.”
“Mrs. McCreedy would know,” I said. “Do you know where she sleeps? Or does she still go home for the night?”
“Go home for the night?” Mrs. Flannery sounded surprised. “As far as I know she stays on the property year round. I think her room must be up with the rest of the servants.”
“I have a feeling the telephone is in Brian’s study,” Father Patrick said. “Let’s go and look, shall we?” He led me down one of the halls and finally opened a door. “Ah, yes, I was right. Do you know how to use it?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’ve tried a telephone before. You just wind the crank, don’t you?”
“Go on then. Give it a try,” he said.
I had just picked up the receiver when a voice behind us demanded, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what is going on here?”
And there was Mrs. McCreedy herself, breathing heavily as if she’d just been running.
“Mrs. Sullivan’s husband has taken a turn for the worse,” Father Patrick said quietly. “She needs to telephone for a doctor.”
“That won’t do much good,” Mrs. McCreedy said. “Dr. Wilkins is the old-fashioned kind. Hasn’t taken to the electricity yet, nor the telephone.”
“Then what am I going to do?” I demanded. “Daniel is running a dangerously high fever. He’s delirious.”
“We’ll have to send somebody for the doctor,” Mrs. McCreedy said. “Too bad the master didn’t bring his chauffeur this time. Can that footman boy drive the automobile?”
“I’ve no idea,” Father Patrick said. “But I have driven a vehicle a couple of times in my life. I expect I can manage it. Give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll go and fetch the doctor myself.”
“Thank you. Thank you.” I was on the verge of tears.
“You’ll find him on Spring Street,” Mrs. McCreedy said. “White clapboard house just up from Narragansett Street. You’ll see his brass plate outside.”
I watched him go back upstairs. “I must get back to Daniel,” I said. “But I don’t know what to do.”
Mrs. McCreedy patted my shoulder tentatively. “Don’t you worry, my dear,” she said. “I’ll come over to the cottage and stay with you until the doctor arrives.”