Of the foregoing incident Esther remained in total ignorance.
Accordingly, when next morning she heard Lady Clifford's maid, Aline,
say that her mistress had had a bad night and was indisposed in
consequence, it meant nothing special to her. She had come to regard
the beautiful Frenchwoman as spoiled and self-indulgent, prone, like
many others of her type, to exaggerate trifling ailments--though she
concluded that the explanation of this tendency lay in the boredom of
the woman's daily life. If she had been indulging in a round of gaiety
she would have proved equal to enormous exertion, but there is a vast
difference between dancing all night and lying awake in bed. Esther
knew that fact well.
At about twelve o'clock the doctor sent Esther with a message to Lady
Clifford. It seemed Sir Charles had been asking for her. The voice
that called out "_Entrez!_" in reply to Esther's knock sounded sharp
and strained.
Lady Clifford was sitting before her rather elaborate dressing-table,
partly dressed, wrapped in a peignoir of heavy white crêpe. The face
she turned upon Esther was pale and shadowed about the eyes, the lips
tightly compressed. She really did look ill.
"As soon as you are dressed, Lady Clifford, would you mind going in to
Sir Charles? He has been asking for you. I believe he must have
something rather special to say to you."
"Ah?"
A quick look of both apprehension and suspicion sprang into the grey
eyes. What was she afraid of, wondered Esther?
"The doctor thinks he's not up to much conversation, so perhaps you'll
make it as brief as possible," added Esther tactfully.
"Yes, yes; I understand!" Lady Clifford replied, nodding impatiently.
"I will come at once."
She hastily dabbed some rouge on her cheeks, powdered her face and neck
with her heavily scented powder, and followed Esther across the boudoir
and into the other bedroom.
There Esther left her and, returning to the boudoir, sat down before
the blazing log-fire with a magazine, less to read than to review with
lazy enjoyment the whole of last night. She saw and felt it all again,
the lights, the dresses, the music, the little table with its shaded
lamp that shut the two of them into an enchanted circle, Roger's arm
about her as they danced, the drive home in the dark. Why had it all
been so thrilling? She had no doubt as to the answer, indeed her
certainty on this point made her pull herself up sharply, resolving to
restrain her errant fancy, not to allow herself to take too much for
granted.
Suddenly across the fabric of her thoughts the old man's voice reached
her in a faint, indistinguishable drone. She had not the slightest
interest in what he wished to say to Lady Clifford, nor in the effect
it would have upon the latter. All at once she heard the Frenchwoman
shriek out with a piercing sharpness.
"No, no, it's impossible! You can't do it! You sha'n't!"
The words, half supplication, half angry protest, seemed wrung from
their owner out of sheer anguish. A low monotone made reply, but it
was interrupted by a fresh burst.
"But it is ridiculous, stupid! I am not a child, it's not in the least
necessary. I don't have to be watched. _Ah! c'est insupportable!_"
Esther rose uncertainly, wondering if she ought to intervene. While
she hesitated, a still wilder tirade decided her. She opened the door
just in time to behold a startling spectacle. Lady Clifford was that
instant seizing hold of her husband by his emaciated shoulders and
shaking him furiously, crying in a strangled voice:
"_Pas lui, pas lui! Vieux monstre que tu es!_"
"Stop! Lady Clifford, what on earth are you doing?"
Wholly aghast, Esther forgot everything except that her patient was
being bodily attacked--there was no other word for what was happening.
Running forward, she grasped the wife forcibly by the arm and pulled
her back from the bed, then, thoroughly frightened, bent over the old
man, who had sunk back limp and panting. In her ear she heard the
Frenchwoman's choked breathing, but she did not trouble to look at her.
"Are you all right, Sir Charles?" she asked as calmly as she could.
She was amazed to see a queer little flicker of humour in the sunken
eyes.
"Oh, quite, quite," he gasped in a spent tone. "Don't trouble about
me: but just get Lady Clifford away, will you?"
Turning, Esther beheld a look of baleful resentment in the
black-fringed eyes. She remarked the stubby white hand with its
carmine nails slowly rubbing a spot on the opposite arm, where she had
grasped it a moment ago.
"You! You!" breathed the Frenchwoman in a suppressed voice. "What
business have you to interfere in matters that do not concern you?"
"But I'm afraid this does concern me, Lady Clifford, very much indeed,"
replied Esther, as lightly as she could. "Do forgive me if I caught
hold of you rather roughly. I am sure you didn't realise what you were
doing. It--it was really dangerous for him, you know."
"Dangerous!" repeated the other with withering contempt. "For him!
T'ck!--leave us, please. There is something I must say to him. I will
not forget myself, I promise you!"
"No, Lady Clifford, really, not to-day. It wouldn't be wise. We must
get him quiet."
Sir Charles interposed in a whisper:
"It's quite settled, my dear, I've nothing further to say. You will
see that I am right."
She burst out hysterically, trying to get past Esther to the bed:
"No, no, you do not understand; you are doing a terrible thing!
Charles darling, if you love me..."
She broke off abruptly, staring at the hall door.
Following her gaze, Esther saw that Roger had just entered and was
looking gravely from one to the other of the three. It seemed likely
that he had heard the disturbance and was come to investigate.
"There he is now!" cried Thérèse, pointing at her stepson. "Tell him
you will make some other arrangement, that you have changed your mind;
you will, you must!"
Esther noticed that Roger displayed no astonishment whatever, merely
glancing expectantly at his father. The old man's lips twisted into a
grim smile as he remarked dryly:
"You behave as if you were quite certain I was going to die, my dear."
A swift change came over her face. Pushing Esther aside, she threw
herself on her knees beside the bed, grasping her husband's bony hand
and pressing it against her cheek emotionally.
"Ah, why do you say such things. You are too cruel; you want to make
me suffer!"
"There, there, don't make a song about it. Of course I don't want to
make you suffer. Now go. I want to rest."
Still clinging to his hand, she began to weep, convulsively, without
restraint. Esther, greatly embarrassed, made two attempts to lift her
up, but she resisted. At last Roger bent over the huddled figure and
touched her on the shoulder.
"See here, Thérèse," he whispered, so low that the rather deaf old man
did not catch his words, "I don't like this arrangement any more than
you do, but if we oppose him now it can only do harm. Leave him to me,
and when he's well enough I'll tackle him again."
The weeping ceased, she stiffened to attention, her face still hidden.
Then slowly she raised her head, her cheeks streaked with tears.
Little rivulets of black coursed from her lashes. For several seconds
her gaze swept his countenance, her expression strangely hostile, yet
enigmatic. Watching her, Esther could not possibly guess what was
going on behind that mask.
"Very well," Lady Clifford murmured at last in a detached voice, all
passion gone. "You may be right."
She got up, smoothed her hair automatically, drew her peignoir close
about her, and walked out of the room like a woman in a dream. Esther
gazed after her, astonished but relieved. She had feared she would
have to remove her by force. Now that the extraordinary episode was
over she was quite unnerved, her heart beat fast, her hands trembled.
Roger eyed her sympathetically.
"Don't look so upset, Esther," he whispered reassuringly. "You must
tell me presently what happened, though I have a pretty good idea."
They both glanced at the old man. His eyes were closed now, he was
breathing more quietly.
"He seems all right," murmured Esther doubtfully. "I'm still a little
frightened; it--it was terrifying."
He took her arm and drew her well out of earshot towards the window.
"Don't worry too much," he told her. "I shouldn't wonder if the poor
old boy is more used to bursts of temperament than you are, you know!"
She smiled at him gratefully, feeling comforted. It was not till later
that she realised he had a moment ago called her "Esther." It had
seemed perfectly natural.
Soon after lunch she made an excuse to take her patient's temperature,
for she was not yet sure he had suffered no bad effects. However, the
thermometer registered no change. Sir Charles may have noticed the
relief on her face, for he remarked hesitatingly, choosing his words:
"You mustn't take my wife's excitability too much to heart, nurse. It
is true she goes up in the air sometimes, but she always comes down
again. She's rather like a spoiled child, but that may be partly my
fault."
"Of course--you mustn't think I don't understand," she assured him
quickly, thinking what a generous explanation he had given for an
unpardonable offence. The instance she had witnessed of Lady
Clifford's "temperament" was unique in her experience, and she hoped it
would remain so. Not readily would she forget those sharp accents of
rage and--was it fear? She had thought at the time it was fear; she
could not be certain.
It did not surprise her that Lady Clifford should fail to appear at
_déjeuner_, but she was unprepared for the new development announced by
Aline, the maid, who came into the dining-room at the close of the meal
and somewhat portentously informed the doctor that her ladyship was
"_trés souffrante_" and wished to see him at once.
"_Souffrante_, Aline?" repeated Miss Clifford. "Is it a headache?"
Aline replied that it was both backache and headache. She was a
steely-faced woman of middle age with gimlet eyes and dank black hair
in a ragged fringe. As she spoke she eyed the company at the table
with a sort of malicious triumph.
"Oh----!" exclaimed Miss Clifford, slightly dismayed. "I don't quite
like the sound of that--do you, doctor?"
Without answering her, Sartorius finished his coffee and rose.
"_Moi je crois,_" volunteered Aline with enjoyment, "_que Madame a un
peu de fièvre._"
"Oh, I hope not!" The old lady glanced quickly at Roger and then at
Esther, who both remained impassive.
"It may be nothing at all," Esther said soothingly, just as she had
done on a former occasion. "I shouldn't get upset."
However, within a quarter of an hour, the doctor summoned Esther to
Lady Clifford's bedroom. Lady Clifford certainly showed preliminary
symptoms of typhoid, he informed her, so that it would be as well to
administer the necessary doses of anti-toxin. Taking the thing in time
like this was a good chance of warding it off.
"Naturally we won't mention this to Sir Charles," he added. "We'll let
him think she's merely suffering from a cold."
The Frenchwoman was lying limp and still in the middle of her low,
gilded bed, gazing with unseeing eyes at the rose canopy above. Her
hair was pushed back ruthlessly, revealing an unsuspected height of
forehead, which somewhat altered her appearance. She was very pale, a
pallor with a tinge of yellow in it. She received the injection
mechanically, paying scant attention to either the doctor or Esther.
She gave a slight nod when the former advised her to remain in bed for
a day or so, her manner suggesting the complete exhaustion which
follows violent hysteria, but Esther thought the exhaustion was only
physical. It seemed to her that Lady Clifford's brain was active, that
she was thinking deeply.
As soon as she was free, Esther put on her hat and coat and joined
Roger in the car outside. Once alone with him she somewhat reluctantly
let him draw out of her exactly what had occurred that morning.
"I can't in the least understand what it was she was so furious about,"
she ended.
After a short silence Roger said:
"I can. In fact, I was perfectly sure she was going to kick up a hell
of a row. Forgive the language! I warned my father she would."
He stopped, deliberating with a frown on his face, as though wondering
how much to disclose. At last he went on with sudden resolution:
"There's no reason why I shouldn't tell you. I feel as if I'd known
you quite long enough, somehow.... You see, my father recently decided
to appoint me trustee of all his property. It happens to give me a
good deal of power over Thérèse when he dies, or rather not so much
power, in actual fact, as knowledge of her movements. She knows it to
be a pure formality. I should never interfere with her, but--she hates
the idea. That's all."
"Oh!" exclaimed Esther, somewhat blankly.
"You see," he went on with a shrug, "indeed, it's possible you've
noticed it, she doesn't find me very sympathetic. She'd hate to have
any dealings with me."
"But as much as that? If you'd seen how furious she was----"
"I can imagine it. Yes, quite as much as that. I'm afraid I'm a very
sharp thorn in her flesh."
"But you wouldn't try to--to----"
"To restrain her? Lord, no! The position's as detestable to me as to
her. I don't want to be compelled to know what she does with her
money. However, I'm hoping to have another go at the old man when he's
in a more reasonable frame of mind. He's as stubborn as a donkey now."
She nodded with a rueful laugh and said:
"I'm afraid your stepmother is going to hate me most awfully from now
on. Still, I couldn't stand by and allow her to go for the poor old
man like that. Why, she was like a tigress!"
She stopped, looking as though afraid she had committed an indiscretion.
"Oh, don't apologise; facts are facts. I'm only sorry you had to come
up against this unpleasant one. You were absolutely in the right, so
you have nothing to worry about."
"I shall be uncomfortable, though. It puts me in an awkward position."
"Never mind. It looks now as if she's made up her mind to be laid up
for a bit, so you won't have to see her."
She looked at him curiously.
"What do you mean--made up her mind?"
"Well, isn't that what a hysterical woman usually does when she wants
to get sympathy and put other people in the wrong? It's an old trick.
What do you think?"
"I don't know," she answered slowly. "Anyhow, the doctor is taking it
seriously. He's given her an injection of anti-toxin for typhoid."
"And why not? He must earn his money. Besides, it won't do her any
harm."
She smiled doubtfully.
"She really does look ill," she said.
"And so would you if you'd been in a couple of rages like hers within
twelve hours," he retorted quickly, then, as though he had committed
himself, changed the current of thought suddenly. "What a
conscientious child you are, Esther," he said, smiling at her; "you
won't let me abuse anyone, will you? I say, will you let me call you
by your first name? It seems so----"
He had been regarding her with a closer attention than any driver
should give to his companion. The result was a violent swerve to the
far side of the road, barely missing a lamp-post.
"Good God! What's the fool about?"
Esther screamed, starting to her feet. They had only just avoided
cutting short the life of an ill-starred pedestrian who was in the act
of crossing diagonally to a small cafe. The wayfarer stood in the
middle of the road, hurling imprecations in the choicest argot at
Roger, while a waiter in a dirty apron and two seedy guests on the
sidewalk joined him ardently. Ignoring the abuse with lofty scorn,
Roger was proceeding on his way when Esther clutched his arm.
"Stop please, stop! I want to speak to that man. He's a friend of
mine!"
She laughed as, completely astonished, Roger obeyed her command and
brought the car to a halt.