THE BLUE-EYED NURSE.
It was at the door of Dudley's sick-room that Carrie informed Max that
she had learned a secret from the lips of the sick man, and Max, by a
natural impulse of curiosity, nay, more, a deep interest, pushed the
door gently open.
Dudley's voice could be heard muttering below his breath words which Max
could not catch.
But Carrie pulled the young man sharply back by the arm into the
corridor, and shut the door behind her. Her face was full of
determination.
"No," said she, "not even you."
Max drew himself up, offended.
"I should think you might trust me," he said, stiffly. "The doctor will
have to hear when he comes. And the secret, whatever it is, will be
safer with me than with old Haselden."
Carrie smiled a little, and shook her head.
"The doctor," said she, "wouldn't be able to make head or tail of what
he says. Now, you would."
"And if I did, what of that? Don't I know everything, or almost
everything, already? Didn't I bring him down here, to my father's house,
after I knew that there was a warrant out against him? What better proof
do you want that the secret would be safe with me?"
But Carrie would not give way. Without entering into an argument, she
stood before him with a set look of obstinacy in her mouth and eyes,
slowly shaking her head once or twice as he went on with his
persuasions.
"Do you think I should make a wrong use of the secret?" asked Max,
impatiently.
"Oh, no."
"Do you think it would turn me against him?"
But at this question she hesitated.
"I don't know," said she, at last.
"It is something that has given you pain?" Max went on, noting the
traces of tears on her face and the misery in her eyes.
"Yes, oh, yes."
The answer was given in a very low voice, with such a heart-felt sob
that Max was touched to the quick. He came quite close to her, and,
bending down, so that his mustache almost brushed the soft fair hair on
her forehead, he whispered:
"I'm so sorry. Poor Carrie! I won't worry you, then; I won't ask any
more questions, if only--if only you'll let me tell you how awfully
sorry I am."
He ventured to put his hand upon her shoulder, as he bent down to look
into her face.
And, as luck would have it, Mr. Wedmore at that very moment bounced out
of one of the rooms which opened on the corridor, and caught sight of
this pretty little picture before it broke up.
Of course, Max withdrew his hand and lifted up his head so swiftly that
he flattered himself he had been too quick for his father, who walked
along the corridor toward the drawing-room as if he had seen nothing.
But Max was mistaken. Mr. Wedmore, already greatly irritated by his
son's repeated failures to settle down, found in this little incident a
pretext for a fresh outburst of wrath.
Unluckily for poor Carrie, Mrs. Wedmore was in a state of irritation, in
which she was even readier than usual to agree with her husband. The
arrival of Dudley, with a terrible charge hanging over his head, in such
circumstances as to stir up Doreen's feelings for him to the utmost, was
bad enough. But for him to descend upon them in the company of a young
woman of whom she had never heard, and in whose alleged relationship to
Dudley she entirely disbelieved, had reduced the poor lady to a state
which Queenie succinctly described as "one of mamma's worst."
As soon as Mr. Wedmore entered the drawing-room, where his wife and
daughters were discussing some invitations to dinner which were to have
been sent out, but about which there was now a doubt, he abruptly
ordered the two girls to leave the room. They obeyed very quietly, but
Doreen threw at her mother one imploring glance, and gently pulling her
father's hair, told him that he was not to be a hard, heartless man.
When the door was shut, however, Mr. Wedmore addressed his wife in no
very gentle tones.
"Ellen," said he, curtly, "you must get rid of that baggage they call
the nurse. She's no more a nurse than you are!"
"And she's no more his sister than I am, either!" chimed in Mrs.
Wedmore, who had risen from her chair in great excitement.
Mr. Wedmore stared at his wife.
"Sister!" cried he, in a voice of thunder. "Whose sister? Dudley Horne
never had a sister!"
"I know that, but that's the story they have made up for us; and the
girls--our girls--are ready to believe it, and I don't want them to know
it isn't true."
"Well, whatever she is, and whoever she is, I want her to be outside the
house before lunch time," said Mr. Wedmore. "I've just caught Max with
his arm around her, and I haven't the slightest doubt that it was he who
made up the story. Any tale's good enough for the old people! Look at
her face--look at her dress! She is some hussy who ought never to have
been allowed inside the house!"
"It was Doreen who brought her in. And, to do her justice, George, I
believe the girl didn't want to come," said Mrs. Wedmore. "And it's
about Doreen I wanted to talk to you, George. This coming of Dudley has
upset all the good we did by never mentioning him to her. To-day she's
as much excited, as anxious and as miserable as if they were still
engaged. And--and--oh! if the police come here to the house and take him
awa-a-ay,"--and here the poor lady became almost too hysterical to
articulate--"it will break the child's heart, George; it will indeed.
And, oh! do you think it possible he really did--really did--"
"Did what?"
"Oh, you know! It's to dreadful to say. Why do you make me say it? They
say something about his having gone out of his mind, and--and--killed
somebody. It isn't true, George, is it?"
"I don't know, I'm sure. Who told you?"
"Max first, and then I learned the rest from the guesses of the girls.
Oh, it is dreadful--shocking! And to think of his having been planted
down upon us like this, just when I was beginning to hope that Doreen
was getting kinder to Mr. Lindsay."
"It's all the doing of that idiot Max!" said Mr. Wedmore, angrily. "I'll
send him out to the Cape, and make an end of it. He shall go next
month."
"Oh, I didn't want that," pleaded Mrs. Wedmore, with a sudden change to
tenderness and self-reproach. "Don't do anything in a hurry, George,
anything you will be sorry for afterward."
"Sorry for! The only thing I'm sorry for is that I didn't send him
before, and saved all this."
"And as for the girl, no doubt it's her fault, and Dudley's, a great
deal more than Max's," went on the mother of Max, with the usual
feminine excuse for the darling scapegrace. "When she's gone he will
forget all about her, as he always does."
This speech was an unlucky one.
"Yes, that's just what I complain of, that he always forgets," said he,
turning sharply upon his wife. "If he would stick to anything or to
anybody for so much as a week, or a day, or an hour, I shouldn't mind so
much. But he isn't man enough for that. As soon as this girl's out of
the house, he'll be looking about for another one."
"I'm sure it wasn't his fault that she came here at all," persisted Mrs.
Wedmore, who never opposed her husband except in the interest of her
son. "And I'm sure you can't blame him for doing what he could for his
friend, even if he does put us to a little inconvenience. After all,
Dudley's been like a son to you for a great many years--"
"That's just what I complain of--that he's so like a son," interrupted
her husband. "That is to say, he has brought upon us no end of worry and
bother, and a bill for five guineas for this pleasant little drive down
from London."
"Well, how could we refuse to take him in?"
"How did he get into the mess?"
"What mess?"
"That's what I want to know, too--what mess? I am told he fell into the
water, striking his head against the side of a bridge, or of a church,
or it doesn't matter what, as he fell. They haven't thought it worth
while to make up a good story. But whether he was drunk, or whether he
was escaping from the police, or what he was doing, nobody seems to
know. If I'd been consulted, if I hadn't been treated as a cipher in the
matter, he should have driven straight back to London again with the
girl, and with Max himself."
Mrs. Wedmore thought it better to say nothing to this, but to let her
husband simmer down. These ferocious utterances came from the lips only,
as she very well knew, and might safely be disregarded.
Fortunately his attention was diverted at this point by the arrival of
the doctor, who had been out on his rounds when they first sent for him.
Rather relieved to have a fresh person to pour out his complaints to,
Mr. Wedmore hastened to give his old friend a somewhat confused account
of the patient's arrival and condition, in which "cheap, ready-made
clothes," "a bill for five guineas," "a baggage of a girl" and "the
police" were the prominent items.
But as for any details concerning the patient's state of health and the
reasons for his needing medical care, Doctor Haselden could learn
nothing at all until he had prevailed upon Mr. Wedmore to let him see
Dudley instead of listening to abuse of him.
Doctor Haselden was a long time in the sick-room, and when he came out
he looked grave. Mr. Wedmore, who met him outside the door, was annoyed.
"It's nothing, I suppose, that a few days' quiet won't set right?" he
asked quickly.
"I don't know, I'm sure," answered the doctor. "It's more serious than I
thought by what you said--a great deal more serious. I don't know, I'm
sure, whether we shall get him round at all."
A little cry startled both men and made them look round. In a recess of
the corridor above they could distinguish the figure of a woman, and Mr.
Wedmore's heart smote him, for it was Doreen.
"Go away, child! Go away!" said he, half petulantly, but yet with some
remorse in his tone. "The girl's crazy about him," he added, with
irritation, when his daughter had silently obeyed.
"Poor child! Poor child!" said Doctor Haselden, sympathetically. "She's
the real old-fashioned sort, with a warm heart under all her little
airs. I hope he'll get round, if only for her sake. But--"
"She couldn't marry him in any case," said Mr. Wedmore, shortly. "I
thought I told you that affair was broken off--definitely broken
off--weeks ago. And now--"
He stopped and intimated by a gesture of the hand that the break was
more definite than ever.
The doctor was curious, but he tried not to show it.
"I should wire up to town for another nurse, I think," said he. "This
little girl can't do it all."
Mr. Wedmore pricked up his ears.
"Then I must wire for two--for two nurses," said he, decidedly. "We're
going to send this girl off. She's not a nurse at all."
"Ah, but she does very well," objected the doctor, promptly, "and you
will be doing very unwisely if you send her away. It seems she
understands all the circumstances of the case, and that counts for
something in treating a patient who has evidently something on his mind.
She seems to be able to soothe him, and in a case of concussion--"
"But she's trying to get hold of my fool of a son Max!" protested Mr.
Wedmore.
"But it isn't a question of your son Max, but of young Horne," said
Doctor Haselden, with decision. "As for Max, he can take care of
himself; and, at any rate, he's got all his family about to take care of
him. You keep the girl. She's got a head on her shoulders. Most uncommon
thing, that--in a girl with such eyes!"
And the doctor, with a humorous nod to his angry friend, went
downstairs.
After this warning of the real danger in which Dudley lay, it was, of
course, impossible for Mr. Wedmore to send poor Carrie away, at any rate
until the arrival of some one who could take her place. And as there was
clearly some sense in the doctor's suggestion that her knowledge of the
case was valuable, Mr. Wedmore ended by sending up for one trained nurse
to relieve her, instead of for two, as he had proposed.
And, after all, there seemed to be less danger in the direction of Max
than he had supposed; for Carrie never once left the sick-room until the
professional nurse arrived at ten o'clock that night. And as Mrs.
Wedmore was then in waiting to mount guard over Carrie, and to carry her
off to her supper and then to her bedroom, the first day's danger to the
susceptible son and heir seemed to have been got through rather well.
On the following morning, however, the well-watched Carrie escaped from
the supervision of her jailers, and boldly made a direct attack upon Max
under the family's nose.
Carrie was looking out of one of the back windows of the house to get a
breath of fresh air, before taking her turn of duty in the sick-room,
when she saw Max talking to one of the grooms outside the stables. He
saw her, and his face flushed. Mrs. Wedmore, who was standing on guard a
few paces from Carrie, noted the fact with maternal anxiety. She rather
liked the girl, whose modest manners were as attractive as her pretty
face; but with the fear of "entanglements" before her eyes, she tried to
check her own inclination. Carrie turned to her abruptly.
"The nurse won't mind waiting a few minutes for me," said she, quickly.
"I must speak a few words to Mr. Max."
And before Mrs. Wedmore could get breath after this audacious statement,
Carrie was down the stairs and half away across the yard, where Max
hastened to meet her.
"I have something to say to you," she began at once with a grave face.
"Do you know that--_they've come_?"
"Who? Who have come?"
"The police."
Max started.
"Nonsense! What makes you think so? I've seen no one."
"I have, though. I've been expecting them, for one thing, and it's made
me sharp, I suppose. But I've seen in the park, among the trees, this
morning before anybody was up almost, a man walking about, taking his
bearings and looking about him."
"One of the gardeners," said Max. "There are several."
"Oh, no, it wasn't a gardener. Can't you trust my London eyes? And
listen: Presently another one came up, and they talked together. Then
one went one way and the other another, not like gardeners or
workingmen, but like men on the lookout."
"What should they be on the lookout for?" asked Max. "If they want
Dudley, why don't they come up to the house? I don't doubt that by this
time they know where he is."
Carrie said nothing; but there was in her eyes, as she glanced
searchingly round her, a peculiar look of wistful dread which puzzled
Max and made him wonder what fear it was that was in her mind.