Esther's first thought was, "Why does she stand being talked to like
that? I wouldn't, not for a moment."
It was as if all his latent contempt for the opposite sex was
concentrated into that one vitriolic burst. Well----! Some
physicians, she knew, practised with hyper-emotional subjects the
method of "treating them rough." This was probably Sartorius's idea.
Certainly she was ready to believe that Lady Clifford was of the
uncontrolled, hysterical type, who easily gave way to her feelings;
perhaps the doctor had found this the best way of dealing with her. As
she still paused, hesitating to enter the room, the doctor spoke again.
"Sit down and try to behave like a reasonable woman. Remember all I
have told you. Why should you upset yourself like this?"
There was no audible reply. Esther retreated upward a few steps, then
descended with a brisk step and opened the door. She observed Lady
Clifford sitting with a submissive mien on the edge of a stiff François
Premier chair, biting her underlip and pulling a small lace-edged
handkerchief between her fingers. The doctor, with an immovable face,
was filling a hypodermic syringe from a small phial.
"I'm sorry, doctor----" Esther began, when he interrupted her.
"No, no, it's all right, nurse, I found I had some here after all.
Now, if you will assist Lady Clifford with her dress----"
"I suppose you give it in the thigh?"
"In the thigh."
Lady Clifford had crossed to the hard couch by the window, and was now
seated, leaning up against the cushions at the end, cautiously, so as
not to disarrange her hat. Esther drew up the narrow skirt, exposing
slender legs encased in gossamer stockings and six inches or so of a
diaphanous under-garment, pink georgette, delicate as a cobweb and
scented like the rest of its owner with an indefinable and slightly
cloying perfume. On the white skin just below the hip there showed
startlingly a blue-black bruise, the size of a franc piece--the visible
mark of repeated injections. Esther sponged a fresh spot and the
doctor shot in the long needle with a casual indifference.
Simultaneously the woman on the couch closed her eyes and stretched out
her limbs with a feline luxurious movement. Esther was tempted to
believe she enjoyed the stabbing pain. There were people who took a
sensual delight in suffering, or at least she had heard that there
were. She watched curiously the sort of rapturous twist of the
patient's body, the convulsive grip of her hands on the rim of the
couch.
Hands? For the first time Esther noticed them. What was it about them
that was different, that filled her with a mixture of fascination and
repugnance? They were not large; they were soft, milky-white,
marvellously manicured, each nail a plaque of carmine enamel. Yet
there was something wrong, almost like a deformity. Of course! It was
the shortness of the fingers, or rather, of the first joint, a general
look of stumpiness, the nails trained to long points to hide the
deficiency. The thumbs, in particular--how squat, how stunted! They
appeared to have only two joints instead of three. Somehow they gave
her a feeling akin to nausea.... She sponged the puncture with iodine,
smoothed down the skirt, cleaned and replaced the needle in its case,
and all the time she was thinking of those oddly repulsive hands.
Repulsive to her, that is. She knew that not many people would have
noticed them specially.
Lady Clifford had risen, a sort of nervous expectancy in her manner.
The doctor glanced at her, then turned to Esther.
"You may as well go home, if you like, Miss Rowe," he said. "I don't
think I shall need you for anything more."
"Oh, thank you, doctor!"
It still wanted half an hour until the time she usually left off. For
a moment it flashed upon her that there was, after all, a spark of
kindliness concealed in that big, slow-moving machine, and the thought
warmed and pleased her. She always wanted to like the people she
worked for, it was so much jollier. But when she smiled her
appreciation she met with no answering gleam whatever. He had already
forgotten her as a person, was merely waiting for her to leave the room.
"There's no use," she sighed ruefully as she closed the door. "I might
as well try to be fond of the Woolworth Building!"
"Oh, nurse," Lady Clifford called to her suddenly. "Perhaps you will
be so good as to give a message to my chauffeur. Tell him he is not to
wait, but to call instead for Sir Charles at his club."
"Yes, Lady Clifford."
She quickly got into her things and slipped out of the front door. The
car waiting by the curb was a luxurious Rolls, the sandy-haired English
chauffeur was smoking a cigarette and reading the _Sporting Times_ by
the aid of a tiny electric light. Inside the car on dark blue cushions
a small Aberdeen terrier, the picture of patient good-behaviour, sat
gazing resignedly out of the window. The rug heaped beside him showed
a lining of sable pattes. Clearly Lady Clifford, whoever she might be,
possessed an abundance of this world's goods. How doubly odd that she
should allow her physician to order her about in so peremptory a
fashion! Probably no one else dared to, she looked arrogant enough
herself, for all her fairness and fragility.
The chauffeur stared at Esther attentively while she delivered the
message, then with a stolid face, "Right-o, miss," he replied and,
touching his cap, started the engine.
"How do you do, Miss Rowe? Is this the place where you are employed?"
Esther jumped, astonished at anyone's knowing her name. Then, seeing
who it was who had come up behind her, she smiled in recognition.
"Oh! Miss Paull! I had no idea."
It happened that Miss Paull was the one person at her hotel with whom
she had any extensive conversation. She was a tall and angular
Englishwoman, clad always in voluminous black, a wide-brimmed,
old-fashioned hat resting uneasily atop her mountain of snowy hair.
"Yes, that is the doctor's house," added Esther in reply to her
acquaintance's question. "I'm just off for the day."
"Shall we walk along together then?" suggested the other, slightly
modifying her tremendous strides. In spite of her elderly and quaint
appearance--rather in the style of an ancient Du Maurier drawing--the
lady was a tireless pedestrian, covering miles daily, armed with an
umbrella, a water-colour box, and a folding camp-stool. Esther had
more than once met her, racing along, not the least impeded by her
paraphernalia, her black cloak and veil streaming behind her in the
wind.
"Do you know this neighbourhood?" Esther was inquiring, when she
noticed that her companion had stopped stock still and was regarding
with frank curiosity the Rolls Royce, which had just succeeded in
reversing its position.
"I seem to know that car," remarked Miss Paull. "I certainly know the
chauffeur's face. Can it be--yes, now I know." She walked on again
with a satisfied air. "That car belongs to a countryman of mine; he
has a villa over there"--she waved a black-gloved hand--"in the part
that they call La Californie."
"Really!"
Esther's tone was one of lively interest. Now she would hear something.
"He's a Mr. Clifford--or no, he is Sir Charles Clifford now, he was
knighted for something or other during the war. He's a big mill owner
in Lancashire--cotton, you know. Perhaps you've heard of the firm of
Seabrook & Clifford?"
Esther had not.
"No, of course not. I forgot you don't know England. It's an
important firm, though, several big factories. They make the Seacliff
Fabrics. Sir Charles was our Conservative member for years. He has a
place near my home, between Chester and Altringham. I've often seen
him."
"There is a Lady Clifford with the doctor now. What is she--a
daughter-in-law? She's quite young."
"Is she French?"
"Yes."
"Ha! That's his wife. His second wife, of course. He married again
about six years ago, some Frenchwoman he met down in this part of the
world. There was a great deal of excitement about it at the time, the
whole neighbourhood was astonished. It must have been a shock to his
family."
"Then he has a family?"
"Only a son, he lost another boy in the war. And then, of course,
there is a sister, unmarried, about my own age. I've met her sometimes
at charity bazaars and so on."
"Do you know Lady Clifford?"
"Heavens, no! Though I've seen her here in Cannes. I believe she was
an actress."
There was no mistaking Miss Paull's sentiments in regard to the stage.
Esther was secretly amused.
"They spend nearly all their time here now," continued the spinster,
"though whether on account of Sir Charles's health or because his wife
prefers it I can't say. I daresay it wasn't gay enough for her in
Cheshire--not enough distractions. You know how it is with these young
women who marry old men, they don't want to sit at home and do
needlework."
She ended on an expressive note, as though implying more than her
delicate maiden mind would permit her to say. Esther thought of the
young Englishman in the restaurant at the Casino, and was silent.
Their walk led them through the older, more picturesque part of the
town, a portion Esther loved, finding in its steep winding streets and
irregular architecture the charm that was missing from the modern
cities of her knowledge. Here, she thought, one could imagine anything
happening--intrigues, romantic incident, crimes even, all the material
that went to form tales of adventure. This was its habitat. From the
newer, cleaner streets, the luxurious Promenade de la Croisette, the
heterogeneous Route de Grasse, or that region of plutocrats, La
Californie, one expected nothing of the kind.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" remarked her companion, echoing her thoughts.
"I am so fond of all this part. When the weather gets a little warmer
I am going to bring my sketchbook out one day and get a few nice bits.
That corner, for instance--delightful, don't you think?"
They dawdled a bit, through a littered street of open markets where
they examined the contents of barrows--flowers, cheap lace, stockings,
furs, trays of battered coins and bits of china, brass and copper
vessels--now and then peering into a provocative alley-way, held by the
spell of the exotic. Hatless women with smooth shining heads bustled
past them, children in black pinafores played noisily in the gutters,
_ouvriers_ in dust-coloured corduroys bound about the waist with red
sashes lurched along, often with a clatter of black varnished sabots.
In a doorway one of these fellows, a swarthy brigand, was feeding a
particularly ill-favoured mongrel, kneeling beside it and admonishing
it to eat. "_Allez, vite, mange donc, Hélène!_" he was saying, and
Esther found entertainment in the mangy cur's rejoicing in the name of
Hélène.
It was dark now, lights flared in the windows. Leaving the market,
they turned into a street of shops which Esther had several times
explored, and paused before an antiquaire whose windows showed a
display of old majolica, silver-gilt, and Limoges enamel against a
Flemish tapestry.
"This is one of my favourite shops," said Miss Paull. "You know it,
too? But of course I never buy anything, the things are too dear for
my purse. Cannes is like Chester when it comes to antiques--too many
tourists."
As she spoke a taxi rattled up the street at a characteristic
break-neck speed, stopping abruptly at the shop next door, a dingy
jeweller's. From the taxi stepped a woman, young, smartly dressed.
She paid the fare, then stood looking somewhat uncertainly at the name
on the shop door.
"_C'est bien vingt-quatre, madame_," said the driver, as if to help her.
"_Oui--ça va bien_," she replied, but still hesitating.
Esther had turned at sound of her voice just in time to see her gather
her silver fox closer about her neck, clutch her red morocco _pochette_
against her chest and enter the shop. The taxi, with a little "cling"
of the meter, shot off down the hill. Esther touched her companion's
arm.
"That was Lady Clifford who went into that shop," she said.
Miss Paull dropped her tortoiseshell lorgnon.
"Was it? I didn't notice. Where? What shop?"
"This one, just here."
"Really! That's an odd, dirty little place for her to go into!"
She raised her lorgnon again and examined the printing on the door. It
was "_Abel Klement, achat de bijoux, anciens et modernes_." Then, not
content with this superficial inspection, she went close to the door
and, bending, gazed with frank curiosity into the interior. Lacking
her indifference to appearances, Esther made a pretence of looking into
the window.
"She's taking something in a small box out of her bag," announced the
Englishwoman after a deliberate scrutiny. "Ah, of course, some bit of
jewellery to be repaired. No, she's not opening the box, after all.
She's following the man out through the door at the back of the shop.
Now she's gone."
Satisfied that she could ascertain no more, Miss Paull turned away from
the door.
"Doesn't look at all her sort of shop," she remarked thoughtfully as
they pursued their way. "Such a dingy little second-rate place. And
why do you suppose she came up in a taxi instead of her own car?"
She appeared to ponder this question so deeply that Esther was amused
at what seemed to her a morbid desire to scent a mystery in an affair
which, no doubt, had the most ordinary explanation.
"Now _I_ should say," her companion added, confidentially, "that that
fashionable lady is up to something she doesn't want known. That is
_my_ conviction--you can take it or leave it."