Scales of Justice (5 page)

“My good Maurice, you don’t suppose the girl is going to spend the rest of her existence doting on Daddy, do you?”

“I wouldn’t have it for the world. Not for the world.”

“Well, then.”

“But I… I didn’t know… I still don’t believe…”

“He turned up here five minutes ago looking all churned-up, and they’re closeted together in the drawing-room. Go and see. I’ll excuse your changing, if you like.”

“Thank you, my dear,” the Colonel said miserably and went indoors.

If he hadn’t been so rattled and worried he would no doubt have given some sort of warning of his approach. As it was, he crossed the heavy carpet of the hall, opened the drawing-room door and discovered his daughter locked in Mark Lacklander’s arms, from which embrace she was making but ineffectual attempts to escape.

Rose and Mark behaved in the classic manner of surprised lovers. They released each other, Rose turned white and Mark red, and neither of them uttered a word.

The Colonel said, “I’m sorry, my dear. Forgive me,” and made his daughter a little bow.

Rose, with a sort of agitated spontaneity, ran to him, linked her hands behind his head and cried, “It had to happen sometime, darling, didn’t it?”

Mark said, “Sir, I want her to marry me.”

“But I won’t,” Rose said, “I won’t unless you can be happy about it. I’ve told him.”

The Colonel, with great gentleness, freed himself and then put an arm round his daughter.

“Where have you come from, Mark?” he asked.

“From Chyning. It’s my day at the hospital.”

“Yes, I see.” The Colonel looked from his daughter to her lover and thought how ardent and vulnerable they seemed. “Sit down, both of you,” he said. “I’ve got to think what I’m going to say to you. Sit down.”

They obeyed him with an air of bewilderment.

“When you go back to Nunspardon, Mark,” he said, “you will find your father very much upset. That is because of a talk I’ve just had with him. I’m at liberty to repeat the substance of that talk to you, but I feel some hesitation in doing so. I think he should be allowed to break it to you himself.”

“
Break
it to me?”

“It is not good news. You will find him entirely opposed to any thought of your marriage with Rose.”

“I can’t believe it,” Mark said.

“You will, however. You may even find that you yourself (forgive me, Rose, my love, but it may be so) feel quite differently about…” the Colonel smiled faintly… “about contracting an alliance with a Cartarette.”

“But, my poorest Daddy,” Rose ejaculated, clinging to a note of irony, “what have you been up to?”

“The very devil and all, I’m afraid, my poppet,” her father rejoined.

“Well, whatever it may be,” Mark said and stood up, “I can assure you that blue murder wouldn’t make me change my mind about Rose.”

“O,” the Colonel rejoined mildly, “this is not blue murder.”

“Good.” Mark turned to Rose. “Don’t be fussed, darling,” he said. “I’ll go home and sort it out.”

“By all means, go home,” the Colonel agreed, “and try.”

He took Mark by the arm and led him to the door.

“You won’t feel very friendly towards me tomorrow, Mark,” he said. “Will you try to believe that the action I’ve been compelled to take is one that I detest taking?”

“Compelled?” Mark repeated. “Yes, well… yes, of course.” He stuck out the Lacklander jaw and knitted the Lacklander brows. “Look here, sir,” he said, “if my father welcomes our engagement… and I can’t conceive of his doing anything else… will you have any objection? I’d better tell you now that no objection on either side will make the smallest difference.”

“In that case,” the Colonel said, “your question is academic. And now I’ll leave you to have a word with Rose before you go home.” He held out his hand. “Goodbye, Mark.”

When the Colonel had gone, Mark turned to Rose and took her hands in his. “But how ridiculous,” he said. “How in the world could these old boys cook up anything that would upset
us
?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how they could, but it’s serious. He’s terribly worried, poor darling.”

“Well,” Mark said, “it’s no good attempting a diagnosis before we’ve heard the history. I’ll go home, see what’s happened and ring you up in about fifteen minutes. The all-important, utterly bewildering and Heaven-sent joy is that you love me, Rose. Nothing,” Mark continued with an air of coining a brand-new phrase, “nothing can alter that. Au revoir, darling.”

He kissed Rose in a business-like manner and was gone.

She sat still for a time hugging to herself the knowledge of their feeling for each other. What had happened to all her scruples about leaving her father? She didn’t even feel properly upset by her father’s extraordinary behaviour, and when she realized this circumstance, she realized the extent of her exthrallment. She stood in the French window of the drawing-room and looked across the valley to Nunspardon. It was impossible to be anxious… her whole being ached with happiness. It was now and for the first time that Rose understood the completeness of love.

Time went by without her taking thought for it. The gong sounded for dinner and at the same moment the telephone rang. She flew to it.

“Rose,” Mark said. “Say at once that you love me. At once.”

“I love you.”

“And on your most sacred word of honour that you’ll marry me. Say it, Rose. Promise it. Solemnly promise.”

“I solemnly promise.”

“Good,” said Mark. “I’ll come back at nine.”

“Do you know what’s wrong?”

“Yes. It’s damn’ ticklish. Bless you, darling. Till nine.”

“Till nine,” Rose said and in a state of enthrallment went in to dinner.

By eight o’clock the evening depression had begun to settle over Commander Syce. At about five o’clock, when the sun was over the yard-arm, he had a brandy and soda. This raised his spirits. With its successors, up to the third or fourth, they rose still further. During this period he saw himself taking a job and making a howling success of it. From that emotional eminence he fell away with each succeeding dram, and it was during his decline that he usually took to archery. It had been in such a state of almost suicidal depression that he had suddenly shot an arrow over his coppice into Mr. Danberry-Phinn’s bottom meadow and slain the mother of Thomasina Twitchett.

To-night the onset of depression was more than usually severe. Perhaps his encounter with the Colonel, whom he liked, gave point to his own loneliness. Moreover, his married couple were on their annual holiday and he had not been bothered to do anything about an evening meal. He found his arrow and limped back to the archery lawn. He no longer wanted to shoot.

His gammy leg ached, but he thought he’d take a turn up the drive.

When he arrived at the top, it was to discover Nurse Kettle seated by the roadside in gloomy contemplation of her bicycle, which stood upside down on its saddle and handlebars.

“Hullo, Commander,” said Nurse Kettle, “I’ve got a puncture.”

“Evening. Really? Bore for you,” Syce shot out at her.

“I can’t make up me great mind to push her the three miles to Chyning, so I’m going to have a shot at running repairs. Pumping’s no good,” said Nurse Kettle.

She had opened a tool kit and was looking dubiously at its contents. Syce hung off and on and watched her make a pass with a lever at her tyre.

“Not like that,” he shouted when he could no longer endure it. “Great grief, you’ll get nowhere that fashion.”

“I believe you.”

“And in any case you’ll want a bucket of water to find the puncture.” She looked helplessly at him. “Here!” he mumbled. “Give it here.”

He righted the bicycle and with a further, completely inaudible remark began to wheel it down his drive. Nurse Kettle gathered up her tool kit and followed. A look strangely compounded of compassion and amusement had settled on her face.

Commander Syce wheeled the bicycle into a gardener’s shed and without the slightest attempt at any further conversation set about the removal of the tyre. Nurse Kettle hitched herself up on a bench and watched him. Presently she began to talk.

“I
am
obliged to you. I’ve had a bit of a day. Epidemic in the village, odd cases all over the place, and then this happens. There! Aren’t you neat-fingered. I looked in at Nunspardon this evening,” she continued. “Lady Lacklander’s got a ‘toe,’ and Dr. Mark arranged for me to do the fomentations.”

Commander Syce made an inarticulate noise.

“If you ask
me,
the new baronet’s feeling his responsibilities. Came in just as I was leaving. Very bad colour and jumpy,” Nurse Kettle gossiped cosily. She swung her short legs and interrupted herself from time to time to admire Syce’s handiwork. “Pity!” she thought. “Shaky hands. Alcoholic skin. Nice chap, too. Pity!”

He repaired the puncture and replaced the tube and tyre. When he had finished and made as if to stand up, he gave a sharp cry of pain, clapped his hand to the small of his back and sank down again on his knees.

“Hul-lo!” Nurse Kettle ejaculated. “What’s all this? ’Bago?”

Commander Syce swore under his breath. Between clenched teeth he implored her to go away. “Most frightfully sorry,” he groaned. “Ask you to excuse me. Ach!”

It was now that Nurse Kettle showed the quality that caused people to prefer her to grander and more up-to-date nurses. She exuded dependability, resourcefulness and authority. Even the common and pitilessly breezy flavour of her remarks was comfortable. To Commander Syce’s conjurations to leave him alone, followed in the extremity of his pain by furious oaths, she paid no attention. She went down on all fours beside him, enticed and aided him towards the bench, encouraged him to use it and her own person as aids to rising, and finally had him, though almost bent double, on his feet. She helped him into his house and lowered him down on a sofa in a dismal drawing-room.

“Down-a-bumps,” she said. Sweating and gasping, he reclined and glared at her. “Now, what are we going to do about
you,
I wonder? Did I or did I not see a rug in the hall? Wait a bit.”

She went out and came back with a rug. She called him “dear” and, taking his pain seriously, covered him up, went out again and returned with a glass of water. “Making myself at home, I suppose you’re thinking. Here’s a couple of aspirins to go on with,” said Nurse Kettle.

He took them without looking at her. “Please don’t trouble,” he groaned. “Thank you. Under my own steam.” She gave him a look and went out again.

In her absence, he attempted to get up but was galvanized with a monstrous jab of lumbago and subsided in agony. He began to think she had gone for good and to wonder how he was to support life while the attack lasted, when he heard her moving about in some remote part of the house. In a moment she came in with two hot-water bags.

“At this stage,” she said, “heat’s the ticket.”

“Where did you get those things?”

“Borrowed ’em from the Cartarettes.”

“My God!”

She laid them against his back.

“Dr. Mark’s coming to look at you,” she said.

“My God!”

“He was at the Cartarettes and if you ask me, there’s going to be some news from that quarter before any of us are much older. At least,” Nurse Kettle added rather vexedly, “I
would
have said so, if it hadn’t been for them all looking a bit put out.” To his horror she began to take off his shoes.

“With a yo-heave-ho,” said Nurse Kettle out of compliment to the navy. “Aspirin doing its stuff?”

“I… I think so. I
do beg
…”

“I suppose your bedroom’s upstairs?”

“I do BEG…”

“We’ll see what the doctor says, but I’d suggest you doss down in the housekeeper’s room to save the stairs. I mean to say,” Nurse Kettle added with a hearty laugh, “always provided there’s no housekeeper.”

She looked into his face so good-humouredly and with such an air of believing him to be glad of her help that he found himself accepting it.

“Like a cup of tea?” she asked.

“No thank you.”

“Well, it won’t be anything stronger unless the doctor says so.”

He reddened, caught her eye and grinned.

“Come,” she said, “that’s better.”

“I’m really ashamed to trouble you so much.”

“I might have said the same about my bike, mightn’t I? There’s the doctor.”

She bustled out again and came back with Mark Lacklander.

Mark, who was a good deal paler than his patient, took a crisp line with Syce’s expostulations.

“All right,” he said. “I daresay I’m entirely extraneous. This isn’t a professional visit if you’d rather not.”

“Great grief, my dear chap, I don’t mean that. Only too grateful but… I mean… busy man… right itself…”

“Well, suppose I take a look-see,” Mark suggested. “We won’t move you.”

The examination was brief. “If the lumbago doesn’t clear up, we can do something a bit more drastic,” Mark said, “but in the meantime Nurse Kettle’ll get you to bed…”

“Good God!”

“…and look in again to-morrow morning. So will I. You’ll need one or two things; I’ll ring up the hospital and get them sent out at once. All right?”

“Thank you. Thank you. You don’t,” said Syce, to his own surprise, “look terribly fit yourself. Sorry to have dragged you in.”

“That’s all right. We’ll bring your bed in here and put it near the telephone. Ring up if you’re in difficulties. By the way, Mrs. Cartarette offered…”

“NO!” shouted Commander Syce and turned purple,

“…to send in meals,” Mark added. “But of course you may be up and about again to-morrow. In the meantime I think we can safely leave you to Nurse Kettle. Good-night.”

When he had gone, Nurse Kettle said cheerfully, “You’ll have to put up with me, it seems, if you don’t want lovely ladies all round you. Now we’ll get you washed up and settled for the night.”

Half an hour later when he was propped up in bed with a cup of hot milk and a plate of bread and butter and the lamp within easy reach, Nurse Kettle looked down at him with her quizzical air.

“Well,” she said, “I shall now, as they say, love you and leave you. Be good and if you can’t be good, be careful.”

“Thank you,” gabbled Commander Syce, nervously. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

She had plodded over to the door before his voice arrested her. “I… ah… I don’t suppose,” he said, “that you are familiar with Aubrey’s
Brief Lives,
are you?”

“No,” she said. “Who was
he
when he was at home?”

“He wrote a ‘brief life’ of a man called Sir Jonas Moore. It begins: ‘Sciatica he cured it, by boyling his buttocks.’ I’m glad, at least, you don’t propose to try that remedy.”

“Well!” cried Nurse Kettle delightedly. “You
are
coming out of your shell, to be sure. Nighty-bye.”

During the next three days Nurse Kettle, pedalling about her duties, had occasion to notice, and she was sharp in such matters, that something untoward was going on in the district. Wherever she went, whether it was to attend upon Lady Lacklander’s toe, or upon the abscess of the gardener’s child at Hammer, or upon Commander Syce’s strangely persistent lumbago, she felt a kind of heightened tension in the behaviour of her patients and also in the behaviour of young Dr. Mark Lacklander. Rose Cartarette, when she encountered her in the garden, was white and jumpy; the Colonel looked strained and Mrs. Cartarette singularly excited.