"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.