Rajey went to the Curzon Hotel with his staff and I to the Cadogan Hotel, where I stayed with Girlie and Baby for a few weeks. I went to see Rajey almost every day. I was much distressed to find him on the ground floor, and near the telephone, which rang from morning to night. I seldom got news of him. I do not know whom to blame for this, but it made me miserable at the time.
I suppose Rajey was taken to the Derby to brighten him up. It was a cold day and raining. The servants were so careless as to forget to take a great-coat or any wraps, and there he caught a chill and high fever set in. My third brother, who was Rajey’s secretary, was anxious to take him away to 3, Palace Court. He was removed there, and the change made him a little better. It was a nice house and Rajey was very pleased with his rooms; but the noise was too trying, as the traffic was constant. To the disappointment of all, Rajey’s health did not improve.
Dr. Risien-Russell, who had been called in, begged Rajey to go to a nursing home; he was wonderfully kind to my boy, and Rajey went to a nursing home, where he stayed for a fortnight.
I spoke to him about taking a country house. “My days are numbered,” he answered. “I know my time has come. Do you remember, mother dear, how all the fortune-tellers have said I shall not live to be thirty-two?”
Rajey returned to 3, Palace Court from Ascot. This was the beginning of the end. Something in his face forbade me to hope, but I tried to be brave and not let him know how much I suffered. He often had pain which the worn-out frame could hardly endure, and the noise of the traffic prevented much rest when the paroxysms had passed.
He was getting thinner and thinner, and I felt that the case was getting more serious. Still I could not give up hope. One day when he was very ill and could hardly walk, my younger brother helped him to sit down; Rajey put his hand on his head and said: “God bless you, you are a good boy.” Another evening when he was very weak, and they feared that he was sinking, he called this brother of mine. “Bodey, sit down by me; I shall soon be starting on the last long journey.”
He sometimes said: “Why does any one fear to die? I am not a bit afraid to go.” My Rajey was quite ready for the long journey to the unknown country, where he was going to meet the father he loved so dearly. Once I asked him: “Rajey, don’t you wish to live?” He answered: “Mother, I don’t wish to die, but if my call has come, if God has sent for me, I shall go, and if I am to go, don’t say it is an untimely death. I may be young, but if God sends for me you must believe, mother, that it is a timely death.” Another day he said: “I have only one wish, but I don’t know whether it will be fulfilled; if only I could die in Cooch Behar.”