CHAPTER V
"I say, have you got any matches anywhere?"
Esther jumped at the sudden sound of a man's voice close to her ear, and looked up from the accounts she was writing. She had heard someone moving about in the salon, but she had thought it must be Jacques, who a few minutes before had been cleaning the brass on the front door. The voice, which addressed her casually and without any preliminary greeting, stirred something in her memory. She rose from her desk by the window and shot the intruder a glance, at the same time reaching the matches from the sideboard.
"Here you are," she said, holding out the box.
The visitor, cigarette in mouth and hands in pockets, sauntered into the room and took it from her. He was young, English, immaculately dressed, except for a rather baggy Burberry, worn loosely over his tweed suit, and he carried a pair of very smart motoring gloves, which he cast upon the table. His manner was at once hard and immature, languid and curiously restless. A second glance assured Esther that her first suspicion was correct. Undoubtedly he was the young man she had seen on several occasions, notably with the Frenchwoman at the Restaurant des Ambassadeurs.
Puffing contemplatively, he let his eyes roam about the room.
"Doctor still out?" he inquired in a vacant tone.
"Yes, but he'll probably be home in a few minutes. It's nearly lunch-time."
She was going to ask if she could do anything for him, but she decided the question was superfluous. He had the air of a friend, not a patient, of an intimate dropping in for an informal call. It came to her that she must amend her opinion that Dr. Sartorius was quite without social ties. She was about to return to her work when the young man's roving eyes reached her in their tour and rested upon her face for several seconds, their vacant gaze giving way to speculative attention.
"You have a familiar look, you know," he remarked. "I seem to recall seeing you somewhere. Where was it?"
Esther met his scrutiny for a moment, then slowly shook her head.
"Odd. You've not been here before, have you? With Sartorius, I mean?"
"No, never."
He carefully flicked an ash upon the rug, then looked at her again.
"Yet I'm positive I've seen your face somewhere about Cannes." The problem appeared mildly to interest him. "Have you any idea where it could have been?"
She regarded him for some seconds, considering what to say.
"Yes," she replied deliberately. "I can tell you where it was. At least, I believe I know."
"Where?"
"In the grill-room of the Carlton. About a fortnight to three weeks ago, at lunch."
"Oh!"—he weighed the suggestion for a moment. "You may be right. I daresay."
Resolved not to mention that other encounter when he had been with Lady
Clifford, Esther grew bolder.
"Weren't you there with two ladies, rather Spanish-looking, one much older than the other?"
He raised his brows and blew out a cloud of smoke.
"I shouldn't wonder," he assented, and seemed to dismiss the subject from his thoughts.
While Esther resumed her task he roamed aimlessly about, winding up again in the salon, where she heard him rustling a newspaper. Jacques, coming in to lay the table for déjeuner, glanced across the hall and whispered to Esther.
"That capitaine will stay for déjeuner. It is good I have a ragoût to-day, there will be assez for three. I need only to put another egg in the omelette."
He laid three places, then from the recess at the bottom of the sideboard he produced a cocktail shaker and a variety of bottles.
"That young man he stay here once for three weeks," remarked Jacques. "Always he mix the cocktails, many different kind. But to-day he will not like it that I have no ice."
A latch-key grated in the outer door, the doctor's heavy step resounded along the hall, pausing at the salon.
"Ah, Holliday," he said without surprise. "I saw your car outside."
"About the last you'll see of it, doctor," the visitor replied, joining him. "I'm going to sell it. Know anybody who wants a decent little car cheap?"
The two entered the salle à manger together. Esther saw the doctor give his friend a slow ruminative glance before inquiring:
"Why do you want to get rid of it?"
"Oh, I'm thinking of leaving this part of the world in a few weeks' time. No good carting a car as far as I'm going—too damned expensive."
"And where are you going?"
The doctor stood blinking down on the young man with his odd, sluggish little eyes. He appeared tired and not specially interested, yet there was a sort of negative friendliness in his attitude which Esther had not seen before.
"I may go out to the Argentine. There's a job offered me out there."
"South America!"
The sleepy gaze flickered over the whole slight, dapper person of the captain, betraying frank scorn.
"So that's it, is it?" He began feeling in his pocket for a cigarette, adding as an after-thought, "I suppose you've made up your mind about it?"
"Not entirely. But there's no point in sticking around here … as things are. There's precious little, I want to tell you, between me and starvation. Still, I'm taking a few weeks to think things over."
"Won't you lose the post if you let so much time go by?" inquired the doctor, with the heavy air of making conversation.
His friend's lip curled in easy contempt.
"Not this post," he answered laconically, and turned his attention to the sideboard. After a brief inspection of the array of bottles he called through the little passage that led to the kitchen:
"Jacques! Here then! Got any lemons?"
"Des citrons? Oui, monsieur, j'en ai."
"Squeeze a couple and bring me the juice."
"Entendu, monsieur."
With a thoughtful face Holliday measured equal parts of gin and Cointreau into the shaker. Esther found herself watching the operation with interest. Still busy, he remarked without turning:
"Old Clifford seems a bit seedy."
The doctor had sunk heavily into a chair at the top of a table with a sigh of relaxation. He replied:
"Yes, so his wife mentioned to me a few days ago, but I have not seen him."
"I have. Last night. I was there to dinner. The old boy was quite off his feed, and pushed off to bed about nine o'clock. I daresay you'll be hearing from him before long."
Sartorius yawned. "I daresay," he agreed, and broke off an end of the long stick of bread before him. It occurred to Esther that it was the first time she had seen him sit down properly at the table for a meal.
The lemon-juice arriving at this point, the expert added it to the contents of the shaker and agitated the whole violently.
"It's a long, long way to that Argentine ranch," he remarked pensively. "See here, doctor, you're a farseeing man. On general principles, what would you advise?"
The doctor looked up from his contemplation of the mustard-pot, and it seemed to Esther that his dull eyes met and held the young man's shallow hazel ones for an appreciable space of time.
"Well," he said at length, "do you particularly want to go?"
"Like hell," was the brief reply.
"H'm! In that case I should certainly leave the decision till the last possible moment. There's always some slight chance of something's turning up."
"No! Do you think there is, though?" demanded Holliday eagerly, stopping with the shaker in his hands.
"On general principles."
The visitor's face brightened noticeably. Whistling a bar or two of
"Gigolette" he poured out two glasses of a pale straw-coloured liquid,
then with the shaker poised over a third glass looked inquiringly at
Esther.
"What about you?" he invited.
Esther hesitated and succumbed to the temptation. After all, why not?
"As a resident of a dry country," she said, smiling, "I can't refuse."
He filled the glass and handed it to her just as Jacques entered, bearing the hot and savoury omelette aux champignons.
"Well!"—and Captain Holliday raised his glass and his left eyebrow simultaneously with easy nonchalance, "may we all get what we want!"
"Hear, hear," murmured the doctor mechanically, and drank his cocktail at a gulp.
Esther sipped hers, finding it a subtle and delicious concoction. Later she decided it was a potent one as well. Soon she observed that a hint of unwonted animation crept into the doctor's manner and indeed as the meal progressed he became almost gay, though how much of the change was due to the cocktail and how much to the company she could not tell. Moreover he ate steadily and voraciously. She thought she had never seen a man eat so much, it was like stoking an engine. Holliday, on the contrary, had little appetite for the excellent meal and seemed strung up with a kind of nervous excitement.
Afterwards this scene recurred to her more than once, showing to her imagination like a close-up on the screen. In the light of subsequent happenings it held for her a curious fascination. She could at any time shut her eyes and see the three of them, so ill-assorted, sitting around the table in that bourgeois dining-room, eating and conversing, herself one of the party by accident and virtually ignored by the other two, yet linked with them in a sort of casual camaraderie that was somehow established when she accepted the cocktail. Out of all that followed, no incident remained for her so sinister and at the same time so paradoxically trivial and absurd as this chance gathering at déjeuner.
CHAPTER VI
One bright afternoon about ten days after this the Rolls Royce of the Cliffords drew up at the doctor's door, and when the sandy-haired chauffeur had descended and rung the bell, there emerged from the car in somewhat ceremonial order Lady Clifford, her sister-in-law, and Sir Charles himself. To the casual eye it would appear that the first of these three could have no possible connection with the other two, any more than a bird of paradise would have with a pair of rooks.
"She has brought the old man with her this time," confided Jacques to Esther en passant, having admitted the trio to the salon. "He is a very bad colour, that man! I don't like his look."
Nor did Esther, when a moment later she opened the salon door and caught her first glimpse of Sir Charles, a gaunt, heavily built old man with sunken eyes, unnaturally bright, and a dry, yellowish skin tightly stretched across his prominent cheek bones. He sat leaning forward in his chair, wearing his heavy overcoat with the fur-lined collar drawn up about his thin neck and his big bony hands clasped so rigidly over the handle of his stick that the knuckles shone blanched and polished. He shivered slightly at the opening of the door.
"Here, Charlie, put on your cap," commanded his sister quickly. "This room is always creepy."
"Yes, do put it on," murmured Lady Clifford gently, taking a grey tweed cap from the table and trying to fit it on his head.
He brushed her aside with a petulant gesture.
"No, no, I don't want my hat on in the house. What do you take me for?"
The two women exchanged resigned glances, which patently said, "Well, if he won't, he won't." Miss Clifford sighed as if a little anxious, and the furrow between her brows deepened. She was strikingly like her brother, with the same heavy features, but she was a good ten years younger, and with her ruddy red-brown complexion and bright brown eyes under rather bushy brows had a look of alertness and vigour, as well as certain kindly simplicity which attracted Esther. She was dressed in good plain country clothes, and her felt hat fitted badly because of the thick coils of her hair, brown, streaked with grey.
"Will you come this way?" said Esther, holding open the consulting-room door.
The three filed past her, Sir Charles walking with a firm if inelastic tread. There was about him a look of obstinate, almost rude, determination; he had the air of coming here under protest. Miss Clifford looked at Esther with a certain interest.
"I have not seen you before. When did you come?"
"Only a few weeks ago."
"Ah, I see you're American. No, Canadian, is it? Well, it's pleasant having someone here who speaks English."
Dr. Sartorius had come forward with a more cordial manner than he usually displayed. He positively smiled as he took Miss Clifford's hand.
"Well, you're not looking very ill," he remarked in a tone almost jovial. "Don't try to tell me there's anything the matter with you. I'll refuse to believe it."
"Oh, heavens, no, I'm all right," laughed Miss Clifford agreeably.
"It's this tiresome brother of mine who's been bothering us a bit.
He's been feeling seedy for several days, haven't you, Charlie?"
Sir Charles shook his head, though whether in dissent or simply out of an ingrained desire to contradict was not apparent.
"Feeling seedy, has he? Well, and what seems to be the trouble?" inquired the doctor with that sort of purring patter which one can readily believe to be the first thing learned by a student of medicine. "Caught a slight chill, perhaps? The weather's been a bit tricky."
"Ah, I think it is that," put in the Frenchwoman eagerly. "That
Wednesday at the polo, Charles, when it came on to rain…."
"Not a bit of it," denied her husband positively. "If it comes to that, I had all these feelings before I ever thought of going to the polo."
"I begged him to let me send for you, doctor, but you know what he is like," interpolated Miss Clifford. "He hates to admit he is ill."
"What sort of feelings?" blandly inquired the doctor.
Sir Charles thrust out his lower lip. He had planted himself in an armchair, while his wife remained standing a little behind him, her face, it seemed to Esther, full of anxiety.
"Oh, headaches, backaches. The back's the worst. Goes on steadily.
Had it for days."
"Sharp pain?"
"No, dull. Not like lumbago."
"He has no appetite," added his sister.
"Well, well, let's have a look at you."
The doctor drew a chair beside Sir Charles and reached for the gaunt brownish hand. At the same moment Lady Clifford made a little movement of solicitude, laying her gloved hand on the old man's shoulder.
"Are you quite comfortable there, mon cher?" she whispered. "You're not in a courant d'air?"
He let her hand rest, but shook his head impatiently.
"No, no, I'm all right. My God, doctor, what with these two women for ever fussing about my health and asking me how I feel a hundred times a day, the wonder is I manage to keep going at all."
He closed his eyes while the doctor counted his pulse. During the ensuing silence it struck Esther that both women were more worried than was necessary. The Frenchwoman in particular watched with an air of tense apprehension.
The doctor shut up his watch with a snap.
"Now the tongue," he said non-committally.
He examined the tongue, then the eyeballs, after which he held out his hand without looking round and took the thermometer Esther had ready for him. The silence continued while the old man sat sucking the little glass tube.
"Well," said the doctor at last, holding the instrument to the light, "he certainly has got a slight temperature."
Miss Clifford let her breath escape explosively.
"Thank Heaven for that!" she ejaculated in a tone of relief.
All eyes turned towards her in surprise.
"I suppose you're glad I'm ill, are you, Dido?" queried her brother dryly.
"Nonsense, don't be absurd! I'm only glad you'll have to admit you're ill and be put to bed properly where we can look after you. You should have been there days ago."
"Oh, very well, I'll go to bed. You'll never be happy till you've laid me by the heels, you and Thérèse both. What have I got, doctor? Touch of 'flu? They call a lot of things 'flu these days."
The doctor smiled and clapped him on the back reassuringly.
"Oh, perhaps. It's impossible to say yet. However, your sister's right; you mustn't be walking about with a temperature, however slight." He rose and the others followed suit. "Go home, get comfortably to bed, and I'll drop in early in the evening and have another look at you."
"Then you think it's nothing serious?" inquired Lady Clifford with a sudden appeal, her beautiful eyes glancing from her husband to the doctor.
"You know, doctor," broke in Miss Clifford eagerly, "I've sometimes wondered if there was anything wrong with the water. I …"
"Rubbish, Dido, I never drink the water."
There was a general laugh at this.
"I'm not sure that you don't," insisted the old lady defensively. "And I've always been told the water in France is only to be used externally."
"And precious little of it is used in that way," commented Sir Charles, moving towards the door, where he looked back with a curt, ironic gesture of leave-taking. "It's au revoir then, doctor, and not good-bye. Coming, Dido?"
His wife followed him to the outer door.
"In a minute I will join you, darling. Get into the car and put the rug well around you."
She bundled the fur collar closely about his throat and patted him affectionately on the shoulder. He was well over six feet, even though he stooped a little, so that she had to stand on tiptoe to reach him.
"There, I'm all right," the old man objected testily, but he was not displeased.
Perhaps, thought Esther, she was mistaken after all in regard to Lady Clifford's sentiments towards her husband. She could not, of course, be supposed to be wildly in love with him, but she undoubtedly did appear to be fond of him, even though her feeling might be that of a daughter for a father. At any rate, when it came to the point, she seemed genuinely concerned over the idea of his being ill. Most likely, in common with many very emotional women, she dramatised and exaggerated her slightest feeling, professing far more than she meant. This would easily explain that conversation at the tea-table. She might have meant all she said at the time, but she had probably forgotten it completely by now.
Waving aside all offers of assistance, Sir Charles made his way slowly to the car. His sister let him go ahead, then halting on the doorstep, took hold of Esther's arm confidentially. "One moment, nurse," she said in an undertone, "I'd like to ask you something. Tell me frankly, do you think the doctor saw anything alarming in my brother's symptoms?"
Her plain, pleasant face was puckered with anxiety, her eyes searched
Esther's.
"Why, no, I honestly think he meant what he said, that it is too soon to tell anything definite."
"I wonder! Doctors are all alike, they never give anything away," and she frowned thoughtfully. "I daresay you think me foolish, but the fact is I am extremely apprehensive. You see, I'm afraid it may be typhoid."
"Typhoid!"
Esther could only repeat the word, unwilling to admit that the same suspicion had occurred to her.
"Yes, there's a great deal of it about the Riviera this season, as you may know."
"I've heard so."
"There have been several cases quite close to us, and one actually in the house, one of the maids. She went down with it four weeks ago, and has had a severe case. She's in a nursing home now. An attack of typhoid as violent as that would probably prove fatal to a man of my brother's age and in his state of health—for he hasn't been at all strong for several years. So you can understand how I—how we—feel about it."
With an impulse of sympathy Esther grasped the gloved hand on her arm and gave it a warm squeeze.
"You mustn't think such things," she admonished earnestly. "It may be nothing at all serious, over-fatigue, a slight cold. Besides, typhoid fever needn't be fatal, even at his age."
The elder woman's face lit up with a sudden, grateful smile.
"You're right. I shouldn't cross bridges—and I mustn't let him see
I'm worried. Thank you, my dear!"
She took a step downward, then turned and smiled again at Esther with friendly curiosity.
"What is your name," she asked, "and how do you come to be here?"
Esther told her.
"Well," remarked Miss Clifford, "you're a very different sort from the young Frenchwoman the doctor had here before you came—all paint and powder, busy making herself up whenever she thought you weren't looking, always ready for a flirtation." She made a grimace. "Not that she got very far with the doctor, I may tell you," she added, then nodding good-bye, joined her brother in the car.
Esther went into the salon and straightened the disarranged pile of magazines. Then going to the window she peered through the net curtain at the two occupants of the Rolls Royce. The old man was leaning back with his eyes shut and his haggard face sunken into lines of weariness; his sister was adjusting the rug more comfortably about him, watching him with troubled eyes. What a good sort she was! Esther liked her downright honesty and warm-heartedness; she thought she had never met anyone of that age so utterly guileless. How did she get on with her temperamental sister-in-law? What did she think of her really?
She heard the door of the consulting-room open, the other one, leading to the hall.
"You think—but are you sure?"
It was Lady Clifford who put this question in a voice which, though low-pitched, had a note of sharp insistence.
"Sure! Can one be absolutely sure of anything?"
All the geniality was gone from the doctor's voice; he sounded cold, as though wearied by a tiresome topic.
"Yes, but you know what my nerves are like! Can't you say something more?"
A short silence. Then:
"You say he had his milk regularly—the pint and a half a day?"
"Yes, yes, of course—every day."
"Oh, then, I don't think I should worry."
The front door closed; a moment later the car drove away.
Puzzled and slightly curious, though not intensely so, Esther found herself wondering what meaning there was in the doctor's last words. Was the old man ill—or wasn't he?
As she continued putting the room to rights the doctor pushed open the glass doors and stood regarding her undecidedly. There was no clue to his thoughts, but then there seldom was.
"Fools, these people," he remarked at last. "The more money they have the bigger fools they are. Always insisting that you tell them more than you know yourself, never willing to wait for a disease to declare itself."
With a kind of contemptuous snort he lumbered back into the consulting-room and closed the door. Had he been offering an explanation in case she had overheard? Or merely expressing aloud a general opinion regarding patients, all of whom he evidently held in scorn? For the life of her she could not decide.
CHAPTER VII
Several days slipped by, during which she heard nothing further of the Cliffords. Nor indeed did she think about them very much, there being more vital matters to occupy her attention. Esther was but mortal. There was a particular chestnut-coloured crêpe-de-Chine jumper in a shop-window along the Croisette that drew her like a magnet—her colour, and what a background for her golden amber beads, brought her recently by a patient from Peking. Should she give way to the extravagance, or ought she to save her money? The problem was a weighty one. Besides this, there was a young Italian, merry and good-mannered, whom she had met at her hotel, and who was beseeching her to come out one evening and dance. What ought she to say to him? Her soul longed for gaiety—Italians were good dancers, as a rule. There was, moreover, a letter from New York from the devoted doctor who wanted to marry her, a long letter, fraught with complete understanding and fidelity which left her cold, but gave her something to think about. On the whole she had quite enough to occupy her idle thoughts.
Yet now and again she recalled the sudden liking she had felt for Miss Clifford, and at these moments she wondered what was happening to the old cotton manufacturer up there in La Californie. She knew the doctor called twice daily. She decided to question him.
"Doctor, what happened to Sir Charles Clifford?"
"Happened?"
The doctor frowned into a test-tube and waited for her to explain.
"I mean, if he is ill, what has he got?"
"Oh, typhoid fever," replied the doctor indifferently, intent on his experiment.
"So it was typhoid after all!" Esther exclaimed, conscious of a certain regret.
He lowered the tube and slowly levelled his small dull eyes upon her.
Without knowing in the least why, she felt uncomfortable.
"Why do you say 'after all'?"
"I merely meant that his sister told me she was afraid it might be that. One of their housemaids had it."
"Yes, that is so. There's enough of it about."
She wanted to inquire how the old man was, but she could not bring herself to continue the subject with a person who somehow made her feel that her questions were superfluous, if not actually impertinent. She watched him fit a slide into his huge microscope, entirely absorbed by the matter in hand. Patients as human beings meant nothing to him. Two days later the thing occurred which altered her whole mode of life.
She was aware that something had happened when she arrived as usual in the morning, for Jacques, who met her in the hall, had a somewhat mysterious and wholly ironical manner.
"Ah, mademoiselle, what have I told you? Did I not say it would be so?"
"Say what? What do you mean?"
"Did I not say he was what you call fed up?"
"Jacques, what are you talking about?"
He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
"Go in there; you will soon know. He is waiting to speak to you."
Considerably puzzled, she tapped on the consulting-room door and was bidden to come in. As she did so, the doctor looked up from what seemed an unusual confusion on his desk, and as his gaze encountered hers she thought that the dull heaviness of his demeanour was oddly lightened by a spark of something she could not define.
"Ah, Miss Rowe, you see me about to make a rather sudden change. The fact is I have been persuaded to put aside my practice for a short time—I can't say exactly how long it will be—and during the interval to act as private physician to Sir Charles Clifford."
Frankly taken by surprise, Esther could at first only exclaim, "No, really!" and wait for him to go on. Whatever had induced him to do this? She reflected that the Cliffords must have offered him a good deal of money.
"I have arranged with a colleague to take over my practice for the next few weeks," the doctor continued, busy sorting papers as he spoke. "Although naturally my patients can please themselves about going to him. He is a competent man. Needless to say Sir Charles will make it worth my while, and for the rest I badly need a holiday. The change will do me good."
So this was why he looked more cheerful. Even a machine needs a rest once in a while. Then Esther thought of that other work of his, the research of which he seemed never to tire.
"What about your experiments?" she ventured.
"I shall be able to snatch a couple of hours now and then," he replied. "But of course I must resign myself to giving up really serious work in the laboratory until the case is finished. It is regrettable, for, as you know, I am in the midst of that series of tests in regard to the anti-toxin for tetanus. Every week I lose increases the chance of some other fellow's finding it; there are a number of experimenters hot on the trail. However, it can't be helped." He sighed and added to himself, "You can't have it both ways."
It now occurred to Esther to inquire how this alteration of plans affected her.
"Then I suppose, doctor, you won't be wanting me for the next month or so?"
"I was coming to that. No, I shall not; and I don't know that it would be worth my while to pay you to stay on while I have nothing for you to do."
"Oh, no, naturally. I understand."
"If, however, you still wish to remain in Cannes, I have an offer to make you. There is an English nurse looking after Sir Charles, but he is going to require another. Perhaps you'd care to take on the job of day-nurse to him?"
It was a second surprise.
"Oh! Would they like me to come?"
"It was Miss Clifford's suggestion. I believe from what she said to me she took a liking to you when she saw you here the other day."
The detached tone in which he made this observation implied that such a thing as taking a liking to a person did certainly exist and therefore must be scientifically recognised, incredible as it might appear.
The image of the simple, friendly eyed, north-country woman flashed across Esther's mental vision, obscuring the less comprehensible figure of her sister-in-law. She thought for a moment.
"Why, yes, if you like, I'll be glad to come," she agreed.
The doctor raised a corrective hand. "It's if you like," he amended. "I can get another nurse from the British Nursing Home in an hour's time, it is all the same to me. If you come, however, they will pay you at the rate usual in your country—more than an English nurse gets, as you know."
"I wasn't thinking of the money," declared Esther hastily and with truth. "I was only wondering … but it doesn't matter. I'll come. When do you want me?"
"At once. How soon can you be ready?"
"Oh, I can be ready in an hour or so. I've only to pack my things and settle my hotel bill."
"Very well, try to get to the house before lunch. I will telephone to say you are coming. Here is the address."
He scrawled it on a slip of paper and handed it to her, instantly turning his whole attention to something else in the way he had when a matter was concluded. It was exactly like shutting a door in one's face, she thought with rueful amusement. In another minute she had left the house and was on her way back to her hotel.
In the little lobby she met Miss Paull, just drawing on a pair of black gloves preparatory to setting off on a ramble.
"And what are you doing here at this hour?" she greeted Esther cheerfully, curiously beaming in every line of her rather noble face.
Esther explained hurriedly.
"How extremely odd! The very people we were discussing the other day. And you say your doctor is giving up his entire practice to devote himself to Sir Charles? They must have money to burn. I wonder what you will think of them. I wonder if the son is there? Such a nice-looking boy he was. I used to see him often. And the beautiful French wife—you must tell me what she is like, to know, that is. Of course she looks like something on the films, doesn't she?"
Esther assented, anxious to get away.
"I should like to know what she was doing in that dirty little jeweller's shop, going into the back room and all," mused the spinster regretfully. "Well—good luck to you!"
Esther smiled to herself as she got into the tiny lift. Miss Paull extracted so much enjoyment out of life from inventing mysteries out of simple things. What a pity she could not be in her, Esther's, place! What capital she would have made out of her opportunities!
It was with a slight feeling of excitement that two hours later she toiled in a creaking taxi up to the steep streets of Cannes, her hat-box and neat dressing-bag reposing on the seat beside her, her small trunk in front. What luck, she reflected, to have brought her uniforms along! She had not really thought she would need them. A thin rain fell, but the sky showed signs of breaking, and the raindrops sparkled on the thick green foliage of the trees and added beauty to the feathery sprays of mimosa wherever it raised its yellow plumage. The town left behind, villa after villa came into view, many half-hidden in greenery. The drive seemed a longish one, but of course a good car would have done it in half the time….
How strange to think that the very first woman who had in any way impressed her in Cannes should now be employing her to nurse her husband! It was a good thing Lady Clifford had never recognised her; no doubt if she had done so she would have thought twice about engaging her services.
Ah, here it was, the Villa Firenze—a spacious, even imposing mansion of pinkish brick, the front covered in wistaria. Acacias shut off the well-kept garden from the road and bordered the drive, a circular one, the approach terminating in wide, shallow stone steps, flanked by carved stone baskets of fruit. While she was paying the taxi, the door opened and a manservant, English, with sparse grey hair and a pleasant wooden face, came out and took her bag and hat-box.
"I daresay you'll be wanting to go straight to your room, miss?" he suggested.
"Yes, thank you."
She found herself in a large, irregular entrance hall with a sweep of stairs facing her. On the left was a high Gothic chimney-piece of grey stone, the fireplace banked with azaleas, flame-coloured and rose. There were a few tall Stuart chairs and a carved oak coffer. The long windows were curtained with old needlework. She followed the butler up the carpeted stairs and from a broad upper hall along a passage towards the back of the house, meeting no one on the way but a housemaid.
The room into which she was shown had the charm of harmonious simplicity. The plain furniture was painted black, outlined in mauve; the curtains and covers were of Toile de Jouy in one of those delightful reproductions of an eighteenth-century pattern, showing a dozen scenes of pastoral life, mauve on a white ground. The carpet was black, and on the mantelpiece was a black Wedgwood bowl filled with anemones, placed between crystal candlesticks.
"Your box will be up directly, miss," the butler said as he left her.
She went to the window and looked out over wet green lawns with hedges and oleanders. Rain dripped from the shrubs, but a shaft of watery sunlight had broken through the clouds. She breathed in the fragrance of the garden for several moments, then, her trunk arriving, set herself to work to unpack the belongings so recently stowed away. This done, she quickly changed into one of her pale buff uniforms with its accompanying snowy apron, stiff cuffs and coif—an uncompromising costume at the best of times, yet she had managed to have hers well-cut and of a becoming colour, which was the most that one could do.
As she was putting the final touches to her attire there was a tap on the door and the maid she had seen in the passage entered. She was a wholesome-looking Scotch girl with a strong Glasgow accent, and she smiled on Esther in a friendly way.
"If you please, nurse, Miss Clifford is wanting to see you when you've done dressing. She said there was no pertickler hurry."
"I'll come at once," said Esther promptly, and followed her out of the room, back to the central landing, and a few yards along another hallway to the right. Here, in an open doorway, Miss Clifford was standing. At once Esther noticed in her appearance a marked alteration; her strong colour had faded and she looked tired and distressed. However, she smiled in a welcoming fashion and extended her hand as to a friend.
"Ah, I am glad you could come, Miss Rowe," she exclaimed with an air of relief. "It was my first thought when Dr. Sartorius consented to come to us. I felt I should so like to have you look after my brother."
She drew Esther into her room, which was comfortable and bright in a solid, old-fashioned style.
"So you see," she said, closing the door and motioning Esther towards a large easy chair by the fireplace, "my fears were well-grounded after all. He has got typhoid—he had it then."
CHAPTER VIII
"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.
CHAPTER IX
At the gare next morning, Miss Clifford, having selected a likely train, leaned forward in her brother's car and eagerly scanned each arrival as he issued from the exit. What if Roger did not arrive after all? These trains were so booked up at this season, he might not have been able to secure a wagon-lit. Still, he usually managed things….
"Roger! Roger!" she shouted suddenly, so that at least half a dozen travellers turned in her direction.
The young Englishman in the Harris tweed coat wheeled at the sound of her voice, and reached the car in a dozen quick strides. He was nearing thirty, tall, but less tall than Sir Charles, with features similar but not so pronounced, and eyes intensely blue. He had his father's humorous mouth modified and softened, and to the old man's look of stubborn strength he added something which suggested more imagination and sensitiveness. He appeared in excellent condition, wiry and vigorous, his skin tanned from five days of sea and wind.
"Roger, darling!"
"Dido, my dear old girl!"
His bear-like embrace brought comfort to her heart. She held him off at last and gazed on him with deep affection.
"This is good of you, auntie, to come and meet me. I didn't expect it."
"As if I wouldn't!"
She kissed him again warmly, and the nature of this second embrace conveyed to him the knowledge that something was amiss.
"What's wrong, Dido? Anything happened?"
"It's your father, Roger—he's ill."
"Ill! Why didn't you cable?"
"I did, to your Chicago address, three days ago."
"It should have been Marconied to the boat. What's the matter with him?"
"Typhoid fever, my dear. We've been rather distressed."
His face grew serious.
"Good God, that's bad!"
"Don't be too alarmed, he seems to have a mild case, thank heaven, and naturally we are doing all that can be done for him. We've got two splendid nurses, and a doctor who is giving us his entire time."
"What doctor is it?"
The chauffeur, having strapped the luggage to the back of the car, was looking to them for instructions.
"What would you like to do, dear? Stop anywhere, or go straight home?"
"Oh, home. I want to see the old man."
In a twinkling they had left the gare and were heading for the heights."
"What luck to be here!" exclaimed the young man with a luxurious sigh. "I had hoped to get a fortnight later on, but as things have turned out I finished up much sooner than I thought I should. I found I could get a passage on the Berengaria, and I can tell you I didn't waste much time saying good-bye. Out where I've been, in the West, it's ten below zero, with the wind cutting like a knife. People can abuse the Riviera all they like, but after that sort of thing it seems like Heaven."
He glanced out at the town appreciatively, throwing back his coat.
Then he turned again to his aunt.
"I thought you always had Cromer when you wanted any doctoring?" he said.
"So we did, but he got so very fashionable we felt he didn't give us much attention. Too many kings and queens, you know! Then we heard of this other man through Captain Holliday. You remember Arthur Holliday?"
"Do I not?"
Her nephew made a slight grimace.
"Oh, I know you never cared for him, but this is quite apart from anything personal. You see, when Arthur was so terribly damaged from that last smash of his, he met this Dr. Sartorius out in Algeria. He was absolutely a wreck; none of the doctors who had seen him could do anything more for him. Well, this doctor took hold of him, experimented on him, and really made him over. I'm not exaggerating, the result was a miracle, everyone will tell you so. It was enough to give one enormous confidence in the man."
"Well, I'm glad you've got him."
"Yes, I'm thankful. He's unattractive to meet, indeed he is rather an odd, cold-blooded creature—a scientist mainly—but what does that matter if he is really so able?"
Roger nodded. Then, after a pause, he inquired casually, but in a faintly altered tone:
"And how is She?"
"Thérèse?" his aunt returned, understanding at once. "I was going to tell you. Do you know she has been so charming lately, that I am beginning quite to like her?"
"No!"
He raised incredulous eyebrows.
"It's true. Her whole disposition is improved. She is so changed that except for just a little petulance now and then, which I'm sure she doesn't mean, she's—she's—— But you'll see for yourself."
"I can't believe it."
"I knew you wouldn't. But you'll see. She is nicer to Charles than she has ever been since just at the first."
"I am astonished! How long has she been so angelic?"
"Let me see—oh, about two months, I believe."
"Not very long, then."
"It began before Christmas. Before that we had a dreadful time. She and your father had a frightful quarrel. I wish I hadn't been there! She did most of the quarrelling, of course; he was merely firm, but for all that I have never seen him angrier. There were terrible scenes, so embarrassing. One hates so to have the servants get to know about these things, and really they couldn't help knowing."
"What was it all about? Do you know?"
"Oh, yes, I know. It was about the amount of money Thérèse had been spending. It seems your father suddenly for some reason took it into his head to go through her pass-book. Apparently he was horrified at the frequent large sums she was drawing to herself—oh, not for dressmakers or anything of that sort. Naturally he asked what she was doing with all that money, and eventually it came out she had been losing it at baccarat."
"Baccarat!"
"Well, you know your father has never much approved of gambling, beyond what he calls a mild flutter; so when he found she was throwing away several thousands a year——"
"As much as that?"
"I believe so. I never heard the exact amount, but it was staggering, that much I know. At any rate, he put a stop to it at once. He went carefully into all her legitimate expenses, and the result was he made her a fixed allowance—oh, a generous one—he has never been mean with her—only if she wants more, he must be told what it's for."
"Good boy!" murmured Roger with approval. "So of course she was in a devil of a rage?"
"Devil expresses it rather well, I'm afraid, Roger. I've only seen one other person so violent, and that was an Irish cook we had before you were born, who drank raw spirit out of the bottle. As for Thérèse, she stormed first, then she wept, and was pathetic, then she raged again. Altogether she must have tried everything, but you know what your father is like when he takes a stand. At last she shut herself up in her room and sent for the doctor. She declared she was ill, and threatened going into a nursing home. After a few days, however, she came to herself, very subdued, but much more pleasant and anxious to please. I can't help thinking she might have been better all along if Charles hadn't spoiled her so, if from the start he had taken a firmer hand."
Roger frowned a little dubiously.
"A woman, a spaniel and a walnut tree——" he murmured. "At any rate,
I am very glad for the old man's sake, and yours, too!"
"Yes, as you know, I would never stay here if your father didn't insist on it, but now it is much more agreeable; there is scarcely any friction. She seems far less self-centred. Why, to give you one little instance; earlier in the winter your father was ordered to drink milk between meals. We had special milk in sealed bottles, and we kept it upstairs in a small refrigerator. I always opened the bottles myself and gave it to Charles at the right times—you know I have always attended to that sort of thing. But one day Thérèse came to me and asked if she might see to it herself. She said she felt she would like to do something for him. Of course I was delighted, so she has done it ever since. Still, it was unlike her, wasn't it?"
"Very," assented her nephew dryly, while his face grew a little more thoughtful. "Indeed, I feel almost inclined to question her motives. Don't you suppose this is just another attempt to get round him? 'Timeo Danaos,' you know."
Miss Clifford shook her head.
"I never studied Greek," she said, "but I am sure you are unjust."
Roger gave a rapturous chuckle and squeezed her plump hand in his.
"Never mind. 'Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood'—you know that quotation, don't you?"
"Certainly, though I scarcely see how it applies to Thérèse."
"It doesn't," retorted Roger, laughing anew. Then more seriously, "You spoke of Arthur Holliday. Is he still on the tapis?"
"Oh, we see a good deal of him, although I believe he's considering a position that's been offered him in the Argentine. He came recently to ask Charles's advice about accepting it."
"The Argentine! He must have pulled a wonderful bluff with someone."
"Yes! I've never known him do anything serious. Yet he always appears to have money. He runs a car, dresses well and lives at a first-rate hotel."
"One of Life's little mysteries," commented the young man with a shake of the head. "I would like to know how these gentlemen of leisure manage. I always have to pay my hotel hills, or I would be put out, but not these fellows. Oh, no! There's some magic about them—no known means of support, yet they live like princes. There's one in Manchester now—he was up at Cambridge with me, I regret to say. The fact's cost me a good deal first and last. He comes regularly to borrow money and keeps a taxi ticking up outside for an hour while he's waiting to see me. Oh, he's to the manor born, just like Arthur Holliday. I take off my hat to them both."
Miss Clifford laughed tolerantly.
"What you say is quite true. In the ordinary way no one despises that type more heartily than your father, but he can't forget that Arthur was Malcolm's great friend, and for that reason he has a soft spot in his heart for him. Arthur comes and talks to him about the war and Malcolm's bravery, and you know what that means to Charles. And then of course he amuses Thérèse, who, after all, doesn't get much fun, poor girl."
Before they realised it the car was swerving into the drive of the Villa Firenze, whose door stood wide open, framing the butler's precise, black-clad figure. At sight of him Roger's eye lit up.
"Well, well, Chalmers my lad, how are you? You're looking fairly fit."