The Secret Woman (14 page)

“Well, perhaps not entirely so. Young Edward is a charming child.”

She smiled indulgently. “He's going to be just like his father.”

It was very pleasant talking to her but I got the impression that she would give little away. There was a definite air of wariness about her. I suppose it was natural considering her past. I remember my sister Selina's calling me the Inquisitor because she said I was completely ruthless when I was trying to prize information out of people who didn't want to give it. I must curb my inquisitiveness. But, I assured myself, it was necessary for me to know what was in my patient's mind; I had to save her from exerting herself, worrying about anything—and how could I do that unless I knew what she was troubled about.

Then Jane came in with a letter for her mistress.

Valerie took the letter and as her eyes fell on the envelope I saw her face turn a grayish color. I went on talking to her, pretending not to notice, but I was fully aware that she was paying little attention to what I was saying.

She was a woman under strain. Something was bothering her. I wished I knew what.

She quite clearly wanted to be alone and I could not ignore the hint she gave me; so I left her.

Ten minutes later, Jane was calling me. I went back to Valerie and gave her the nitrite of amyl. It worked like a miracle and we staved off the attack while it was merely an iron vise on her arms and was over before it reached the chest and the complete agony.

I said there was no need to call Dr. Elgin; he would be looking in the next day. And I thought to myself: It was something in that letter that upset her.

The next day a most unpleasant incident occurred. I disliked the Beddoes woman right from the start, and it seems she felt similarly about me. Valerie was feeling so much better that she was taking a short walk in the garden with Jane, and I was in her room making her bed with the special bed rest Dr. Elgin had suggested to prop her up when her breathing was difficult.

The drawer of her table was half-open and I saw a photograph album in it. I couldn't resist taking it out and looking at it.

There were several photographs in it—mostly of the boys. Underneath each was lovingly inscribed: Redvers aged two; Rex two and a half. There was a picture of them together and again with her. She was very, very pretty in those days, but she looked a little harassed. She was obviously trying to make Redvers look where the photographers wanted him to. Rex stood leaning against her knee. It was rather charming. I was sure she loved them both dearly; I could tell by the way she spoke of them and I imagined her trying not to show favoritism to her own son; they were both Sir Edward's children anyway.

I put the album back and as I did so I saw an envelope. I immediately thought of what had upset her and wondered if this was the letter; I couldn't be sure because it was an ordinary white envelope like so many. I picked it up. I was holding it in my hand when I was aware that someone was in the room watching me.

That sly rather whining voice said: “I'm looking for Edward. Is he here?”

I swung round holding the letter and I was furious with myself because I knew I looked guilty. The fact was I hadn't looked inside the envelope. I had only picked it up and I could see by her expression that she thought she had caught me red-handed.

I put the envelope back on the table as nonchalantly as I could and I said calmly that I thought Edward was in the garden. He was probably walking with his grandmother and Jane.

I felt furious with her.

I shall never forget the night of the fancy dress ball. I was very daring, but then I always had been. It was Monique oddly enough who goaded me to it. I fancied she was becoming rather fond of me; perhaps she recognized in me something of a rebel like herself. I encouraged her to confide in me because my policy was that the more I knew about my patients the better. She had started to talk to me about the house where she had lived with her mother on the Island of Coralle. It sounded like a queer, shabby old mansion near the sugar plantation which her father had owned. He was dead and they had sold it now but her mother still lived in the house. As she talked she gave me an impression of lazy steamy heat. She told me how as a child she used to go down to watch the big ships come in and how the natives used to dance and sing to welcome them and to say good-bye. The great days were when the ships arrived and the stalls were set up on the waterfront with the beads and images, grass skirts and slippers, and baskets which they had made in readiness to sell to the visitors to the island. Her eyes sparkled as she talked and I said: “You miss it all.” She admitted she did. And talking she began to cough; I thought then: She would be better back there.

She was childish in lots of ways and her moods changed so rapidly that one could never be sure in one moment of abandoned laughter whether she would be on the edge of melancholy in the next. There was no contact whatever between her and Lady Crediton; she was much happier with Valerie, but then Valerie was a much more comfortable person.

She would have liked to go to the fancy dress ball but she had had an asthmatic attack that morning and even she knew it would be folly.

“How would you dress?” I asked her. She said she thought she would go as what she was, a Coralle islander. She had some lovely coral beads and she would wear flowers in her hair which would be loose about her shoulders.

“You would look magnificent, I'm sure,” I told her. “But everyone would know who you were.”

She agreed, and said: “How would you go…if you could go?”

“It would depend on what I could find to wear.”

She showed me the masks that were being worn. Edward had taken them from the big alabaster bowl in the hall and brought them to her. He had come in wearing one, crying “Guess who this is, Mamma.” “I did not have to guess,” she added.

“Nor would anyone have to if you went as you suggest,” I reminded her. “You would be betrayed at once and the whole point is to disguise your identity.”

“I should like to see you dressed up, Nurse. You could go as a nurse perhaps.”

“It would be the same thing as your going with your coral beads and flowing hair. I should be recognized immediately and drummed out as an imposter.”

She laughed immoderately. “You make me laugh, Nurse.”

“Well, it's better than making you cry.”

I was taken with the idea of dressing up. “I wonder how I
could
go?” I asked. “Wouldn't it be fun if I could so completely disguise myself that that were possible.”

She held out one of the masks to me and I put it on.

“Now you look wicked.”

“Wicked?”

“Like a temptress.”

“Rather different from my usual role.” I looked at myself in the glass and a great excitement possessed me.

She sat up in bed and said: “Yes, Nurse. Yes?”

“If you had a dress that I could wear…”

“You would go as an island girl?”

I opened the door of her wardrobe; I knew that she had some exotic clothes. She had bought them on the way home from Coralle at some of the eastern ports at which they had stopped. There was a robe of green and gold. I slipped out of my working dress and put it on. She clapped her hands.

“It suits you, Nurse.”

I pulled the pins out of my hair and it fell about my shoulders.

“Nurse, you
are
beautiful,” she cried. “Your hair is red in places.”

I shook it out. “I don't look so much like the nurse now, do I?”

“They will not recognize you.”

I looked at her startled. I knew that I was going down there; but I was surprised that she did.

I looked round the room.

“Take anything…anything,” she cried. I found a pair of golden slippers. “I bought those on my way over,” she added.

They were loose but that did not matter. They matched the green and gold robe perfectly.

“But what am I supposed to represent?” I picked up a piece of thin cardboard which Edward used for his drawing lessons—he had brought his latest picture in to show her—and twisted it into the shape of a steeple hat. “I have an idea,” I said. I took a needle and thread and in a moment I had my steeple hat. Then I took one of her sashes—a gold-colored chiffon—and I draped it about the hat and let it flow down in cascades.

She was sitting up in bed rocking on her heels.

“Put on the mask, Nurse. No one will know you.”

But I had not quite finished. I had seen a silver chain girdle which she often wore about her negligee so I put it round my waist and picking up a bunch of keys which were lying on the dressing table I attached them to the girdle.

“Behold the Chatelaine of the Castle!” I said.

“The Chatelaine?” she asked. “What is this?”

“The lady of the house. The one who guards the keys.”

“Ah, that becomes you.”

I put on the mask.

“Will you dare?” she said.

There was a recklessness in me. Selina had noticed it and warned me about it. Of course I was going.

What a night it was—one I am sure I shall never forget. I was down there, among them; it was so easy for me to slip in. I felt a wild excitement grip me. Selina had said that I ought to be an actress; and I certainly acted that night. It was scarcely acting—I really felt that I was the Chatelaine of the Castle, that I was the hostess and these were my guests; I was quickly seized by a partner. I danced, resisted his attempts to discover my identity and joined in the game of mild flirtation which seemed to be the purpose of the affair.

I wondered how Rex was getting on with Helena Derringham. I could be certain that if he saw through her disguise he would do his best to avoid her.

It was almost inevitable that he should discover me in time. I was dancing with a portly Restoration nobleman when I was seized and wrested from him. Laughing I looked into the masked face and knew that my troubadour was Rex.

I thought: If I know him will he know me? But I flattered myself that I was more completely disguised. Besides, I was expecting to see him; he certainly was not expecting to see me.

“I'm sorry for the rough treatment,” he said.

“I think a serenade first of all would have been more appropriate.”

“An irresistible urge possessed me,” he said. “It was the color of your hair. It's most unusual.”

“I shall expect you to make a ballad about it.”

“I won't disappoint you. But I thought we should be together—after all we belong.”

“Belong?” I said.

“Just about the same period. The medieval lady…the Chatelaine of the Castle and the humble troubadour who waits outside to sing of his devotion.”

“This troubadour seems to have found his way into the Castle.”

He said: “You might have come as a nurse.”

“Why?” I asked.

“You would have played the part to perfection.”

“You might have come as the shipping lord. How would that be, I wonder? A nautical uniform with a string of little ships hanging round your neck.”

“I see,” he said, “that there is no need to introduce ourselves. Did you really think I shouldn't know you? No one else has hair that color.”

“So it was my hair which betrayed me! And what are you going to do? Dismiss me…in due course?”

“I reserve judgment.”

“Then perhaps you will allow me to retire gracefully. Tomorrow morning I shall expect to receive a summons from her ladyship. ‘Nurse, I have just heard of your most
inconvenient
conduct. Pray leave at once.'”

“And what of your patients if you deserted them in that cruel way?”

“I should never desert them.”

“I should hope not,” he said.

“Well, now you have caught me red-handed, as they say, there is nothing more to be said.”

“I think there is a great deal to be said. I do apologize for not sending you an invitation. You know that had those matters been left to me…”

I pretended to be relieved, but I had known all along that he was pleased I was here.

So we danced and we bantered together, and he stayed with me. It was pleasant and I know he thought so, too. But if he had forgotten Miss Derringham, I had not. In my impulsive way I asked if he knew what she was wearing. He said he had not inquired. And is there to be an announcement? I wanted to know. He replied that it certainly wouldn't be tonight. The Derringhams were leaving on the seventh and on the night of the sixth there was to be a very grand ball. This would be more ceremonious than tonight.

“Opportunities will
not
be given to intruders?” I asked.

“I'm afraid not.”

“The announcement will be made, toasts will be drunk; there'll be feasting probably in the servants' hall; and those neither below stairs nor quite above—such as the nurse and the long suffering Miss Beddoes—perhaps even may be allowed to enter into the general rejoicing.”

“I daresay.”

“May I say now, that I wish you all the happiness you deserve.”

“How do you know that I deserve any?”

“I don't. I wish that if you deserve it you may have it.”

He was laughing. He said: “I enjoy so much being with you.”

“Then perhaps my sins are forgiven?”

“It depends on what you have committed.”

“Well—tonight for instance. I am the uninvited guest. The Chatelaine with false keys…and not even an invitation card.”

“I told you I am pleased you came.”

“Did you tell me that?”

“If I did not I tell you now.”

“Ah, Sir Troubadour,” I said, “let us dance. And have you seen the time? I suppose they will unmask at midnight. I must disappear before the witching hour.”

“So the Chatelaine has turned into Cinderella?”

“To be turned at midnight into the humble serving wench.”

“I have never yet been aware of your humility—although I admit you have many more interesting qualities.”