Читать книгу Juggernaut - Alice Campbell - Страница 10

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"I felt it from the first," continued Miss Clifford. "You see, his symptoms were so exactly like Bannister's—that is the maid who is ill. There was only this difference, that my brother was a good deal longer developing his case. I don't know why, I'm sure, for he's so much older and not in robust health, either. You'd have thought he'd succumb more quickly than a young strong woman."

"You would think so," agreed Esther. "But of course there are different types of typhoid. I've even seen people who had all the symptoms fully developed, yet who never knew it and kept about the whole time."

"Really!" Miss Clifford looked frankly astonished.

"How is Sir Charles now?"

"Why, not so ill as one might have expected," replied his sister more cheerfully. "So far, we have much to be thankful for. The other nurse will tell you what she thinks, and of course you'll see the chart, but I believe I'm right in saying they consider it a mild case."

"I'm glad of that!"

"You'll see him after lunch. The other nurse is going off duty then until about eleven to-night. To-morrow will see you straightened out with regard to your hours. I thought we'd have you for the day, because"—she laughed—"without meaning to descend to barefaced flattery, you are rather nicer to look at!"

"I sha'n't know how much of a compliment that is till I see the other nurse," replied Esther, laughing too.

"You will think me very stupid," resumed the old lady after a slight pause, her face grown grave again, "but for weeks past, even before this happened, I've had such an odd sense of insecurity, a presentiment of trouble. I'm not given to feelings of that kind, which makes this one more noticeable. I can't explain it, but there it is—a kind of foreboding that I can't shake off."

"You shouldn't feel it now that your brother is going on so well."

"No, of course not, but I'm afraid I do."

"I expect you are tired and run down. That causes lots of premonitions."

"Yes, no doubt you're right. Was that the bell?" she asked, breaking off and listening alertly. "For two days I've been looking for a cable from my nephew. I sent him one nearly three days ago, but there has been no reply. That's one thing that's worrying me."

"Is that Sir Charles's son?"

"Yes. He has been in America on business since October. I sent the cable to Chicago, which was the last address we had, but he has probably moved about a good deal since then. I wish he were here!"

There was a knock and the butler entered with the blue form of a dépêche in his hand.

"Ah, here it is at last! This surely must be from Mr. Roger, Chalmers."

She took the telegram eagerly and tore it open, reading its contents with an expression of mingled joy and amazement.

"This is odd. It is sent from Cherbourg and says simply, 'Shall be with you Friday morning.' Friday! That's to-morrow. Why, he has arrived in France, and is catching the night train from Paris. That is a surprise, isn't it, Chalmers?"

"And miss, if you'll notice, it's addressed to Sir Charles, not to yourself."

"Is it? You are right, Chalmers. That looks as though he'd never got our cable, doesn't it? I suppose he couldn't if he was already on the water."

"Unless," suggested Esther, "they had sent it on by wireless to the boat."

"Of course, I didn't think of that. Anyhow, it doesn't matter now that he will be here so soon. He must have wanted to surprise us. We didn't expect him for another two months."

She turned briskly to the butler.

"Get the corner room ready, Chalmers. What a good thing we put the doctor at the back! And tell her ladyship we're expecting Mr. Roger—or no, I'll see to that myself."

"Very good, miss. It will be nice to see Mr. Roger, won't it, miss?" said the old man, preparing to go. "It will do Sir Charles a world of good."

"Yes, Chalmers, it's great good fortune. Find out the times the Paris trains get in, and order the car. I shall drive down to meet Mr. Roger."

"Yes, miss. I should hardly think he'd be on the Blue Train, as that's booked up so far in advance."

"Of course," mused Miss Clifford when the butler had departed, "if he hasn't had our news it will be a shock to him to find his father ill. I am very fond of my nephew, Miss Rowe," she added. "He is almost like my own son."

Her eyes brightened and her whole plain-featured face was irradiated with pleasure so that she seemed suddenly to have grown handsome. Then as Esther remarked this another change came over her, a sort of cloud descended, and her manner showed vague nervousness and hesitation.

"I suppose," she said, rising, "I'd better go and tell my sister-in-law."

She moved about undecidedly, and it occurred to Esther that the task she was contemplating was an uncongenial one, though why it should be so was not apparent. She turned suddenly to Esther.

"Come with me, Miss Rowe," she suggested, "I can show you your patient's quarters at the same time."

They quitted the room and turned back to the central hall. "This is my sister-in-law's bedroom," Miss Clifford informed her, laying her hand on the first door. "That third door leads to my brother's room, with his dressing-room and bath beyond. This middle one is a sort of boudoir or sitting-room—it is really Lady Clifford's, but I use it, too. … Are you there, Thérèse?" she called gently through the door.

"Yes, come in!"

A soft, cloying wave of perfume greeted them as they entered. It seemed a mixture of the scent Esther now definitely associated with Lady Clifford and some other of Oriental character. The room, filled with sunlight, was a perfect setting for its owner. Silver blue brocade filled the panels of the walls, grey carpet lay under foot, the furniture was walnut Louis Quinze, graceful in shape. The two long casement windows, opening upon a narrow balcony, were framed in heavy curtains of the same material as the wall covering. A thin trail of blue smoke hung in the air, and Esther discerned its source in a small incense-burner, a golden Buddha, resting cross-legged between trees of jade and amethyst on a table near the fireplace.

Lady Clifford was seated with her back towards the door at a writing-table placed between the windows. She did not immediately turn, but instead looked up, meeting the reflection of her visitors in a mirror on the wall. It was the first time Esther had seen her without a hat, and she found her not less lovely. Her golden-brown shining hair waved back from a side parting with that carefully contrived artlessness which is the crowning achievement of a coiffeur, and in colour it exactly matched her soft frock, which was of the sports variety with a finely pleated skirt. The skin of her throat was milky-white and of the fineness of a flower petal. Against it her pearls showed a faint rosy tinge. She was smoking a cigarette through a long holder.

"Thérèse, this is our other nurse, who has just come. You remember you saw her at the doctor's the other day?"

The Frenchwoman laid down her pen and turned towards Esther with a bright, perfunctory smile.

"Ah, yes, I remember."

Her grey eyes looked Esther over appraisingly from head to foot, then returned to the sheet of paper on the desk. Miss Clifford spoke again, with slight hesitation.

"What I really came to tell you, Thérèse, is that I have just had a telegram from Roger."

"From Roger?"

The younger woman stared blankly.

"A cable, you mean, not a telegram."

"No, a telegram, from Cherbourg. He says he will be here to-morrow."

With a bound Lady Clifford sprang to her feet.

"Roger here to-morrow?" she exclaimed almost sharply, her eyes fixed on her sister-in-law's face. "But it is impossible; you must be mistaken."

Her cigarette fell out of the holder to the floor, where it would have burned a hole in the carpet if Esther had not quietly picked it up.

"That's what he says."

"Let me see the telegram."

She snatched it rather brusquely from the other woman's hand and scanned it frowningly, her vivid red underlip caught between her teeth. Miss Clifford looked embarrassed. Esther moved unobtrusively across the room and examined the crystal lustres on the mantelpiece.

"Yes, but I do not understand. How is it he has come back so much sooner than he expected and without letting us know?"

"I can only suppose he has finished his work there and thought he would give us a surprise."

The younger woman gave back the telegram and turned with a slight shrug of her shoulders.

"I think he might have written us he was coming," she said with a sort of resentment. "Why do people want to take you by surprise?"

"At any rate," remarked Miss Clifford pleasantly, "it can't possibly make any difference. To me it seemed like an answer to prayer! It's just as though something had warned him his father was ill."

"How could anything possibly warn him of such a thing?" demanded the other with a touch of irritation. "A thing no one could have foreseen!"

"I don't know how, but I certainly felt a premonition of it, as I was telling the nurse a moment ago. If I had been away I am sure I should have come home at once, feeling as I did."

Lady Clifford carefully fitted another cigarette into her holder and lit it.

"I think the doctor is right, that we are all making far too much fuss over Charles's illness," she said abruptly. "After all, there has been nothing so far to cause us any alarm."

"Yes, you are quite right," agreed Miss Clifford simply. "And I am glad to hear you say so, my dear. You know you have really been more nervous than I have."

"Ah, that is the way I take things. I cannot help my nature!" sighed the Frenchwoman amicably enough. "I always fear the worst. I suppose now we had better ask the doctor if we can tell Charles about Roger's coming?"

"Is the doctor with him?"

"I will see."

She crossed to the door at the far side of the room and opening it spoke softly to someone inside. A second later the nurse stuck her head through the opening. She was a smiling, angular woman of forty, with fluffy, mouse-coloured hair, and a frosty tip to her nose.

"Do you wish to see the doctor, Lady Clifford?"

She spoke ingratiatingly, with a hiss of badly fitting false teeth.

"Yes, is he there?"

The nurse disappeared and was presently replaced by Dr. Sartorius, who came inside and closed the door behind him. Acknowledging Esther's presence by the merest flicker of the eye, he bent his head and listened attentively to what the Frenchwoman told him. As she spoke her eyes searched his face eagerly, but his heavy features remained impassive.

"Ah, it won't hurt him to hear good news," he replied indifferently.

"Go in now, if you care to, he's wide awake."

To Esther's surprise, the Frenchwoman put out her hand to her sister-in-law with a gracious gesture.

"You tell him, Dido, dear," she said gently, "I know you would like to."

"Thank you, Thérèse."

With a grateful smile the old lady disappeared into the bedroom, followed by the doctor, and Esther was left alone with her employer. Lady Clifford did not glance in her direction, but put up her hand with a restless, irritable movement and swept the big wavy lock of hair off her forehead.

"Qu'il fait chaud!" she exclaimed, going to the nearest window and flinging it open with a jerk. "Stifling! There, that is better."

She stood for several seconds breathing in the fresh air, her body tense as if on steel wires, her head thrown back. Then, relaxing somewhat, she turned and spoke to Esther, as if suddenly recalling her presence.

"You come from New York, I hear," she said, with another keen glance; "do you like it, New York?"

Esther replied that she did, but Lady Clifford closed her eyes, not listening.

"Ah, New York, that is a place I have never visited. It must be marvellous. Some day I shall go there, some day when I am … "

She did not finish, for at that moment the butler came in to announce lunch. She had stretched out her arms with a sort of abandon, but now she let them fall abruptly, gave a sigh, and without looking in Esther's direction walked into her own bedroom on the right, perhaps to give a touch to her hair, or another brush of powder to her flawless nose.

The breeze, with wet freshness, cleansed the over-perfumed room, fluttering the papers on the writing-table. The top sheet sailed through the air and settled on the hearthrug. Mechanically Esther picked it up to replace it, the habit of order being strong upon her. Unavoidably she saw that it was covered with figures in angular French writing, money sums by the look of them, with frequent signs of the pound and the franc. She anchored the paper upon the blotter with a little carving of amethyst crystal, then, turning away, perceived Lady Clifford, motionless in the doorway, regarding her with eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Your papers were blowing about," explained Esther. Inwardly she was asking herself: "What is the matter with me? I always seem to be imagining things with this woman!"

With one of her swift movements the beautiful Thérèse snatched up the rescued sheet and tore it to bits.

"It is of no consequence, this," she remarked indifferently, dropping the pieces into the waste-basket.

Again Esther noticed those stumpy, abbreviated fingers, so oddly at variance with the rest of their owner.

"Bien," said Lady Clifford, flashing a charming smile upon her. "Let us have our _déjeuner."

She led the way downstairs.