Juggernaut Part 12

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, Therese?" 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 a.s.sociated 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 cas.e.m.e.nt 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 s.h.i.+ning 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.

"Therese, 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, Therese, 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed it rather brusquely from the other woman's hand and scanned it frowningly, her vivid red underlip caught between her teeth.

Miss Clifford looked embarra.s.sed. Esther moved un.o.btrusively across the room and examined the crystal l.u.s.tres 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 impa.s.sive.

"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, Therese."

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.