Life after life

11 February 1910

A BIG WOMAN with the forearms of a stoker woke Dr Fellowes by clattering a cup and saucer down on the pot table next to his bed and yanking open the curtains even though it was still dark outside. It took him a moment to remember that he was in the freezing-cold guest bedroom at Fox Corner and that the rather intimidating woman bearing the cup and saucer was the Todds’ cook. Dr Fellowes searched the dusty archive of his brain for a name that he knew had come to him easily a few hours earlier.

‘It’s Mrs Glover,’ she said, as if reading his mind.

‘So it is. She of the excellent pickles.’ His head felt full of straw. He was uncomfortably aware that beneath the frugal covers he was wearing only his combinations. The bedroom grate, he noted, was cold and empty.

‘You’re needed,’ Mrs Glover said. ‘There’s been an accident.’

‘An accident?’ Dr Fellowes echoed. ‘Something has happened to the baby?’

‘A farmer trampled by a bull.’