EMILY, the Napiers’ nurserymaid, was expert at telling fortunes in tea-cups. Her prophecies always came true, but she had to make them when Muffy’s back was turned, because Muffy did not approve of such things.
On the third day of Dick’s disappearance, there was a good deal of by-play in the keep at breakfast time. Emily, looking into the bottom of her cup, gave a little squeak:
“Well, I never!”
“Whatever’s the matter now?” asked Muffy irritably. “Is a dark stranger going to send you a pea-green elephant for a Christmas present, or what?”
“No, but there’s going to be a fatal illness in the house. I’ve never seen it so plain before. Look there, Rosie.”
“Oh, stuff and nonsense. I will not have such nonsense talked in my nursery.”
Public opinion was against Muffy, who had been as cross as two sticks ever since it began to rain. The children crowded round to look into Emily’s cup.
“A fatal illness!” said Peter. “That means somebody will die, doesn’t it, Emily? How soon will it happen?”
“Within three days,” said Emily, with gloomy relish. “Sure to. I’ve only seen it once before so plain and then my stepfather fell off a ladder. He was …”
“That’s enough about that. I won’t have it.”
Emily and Rosie were cowed, but Peter continued defiantly.
“Emily said that Rosamund would get a letter and she did. And she said that Mrs. Ames would hear something that surprised her very much …”
“Peter, be quiet! I’ve said we’ve had enough of it.”
“Could a person die of lumbago?” asked Rosamund in a sudden panic.
“Another word of this … the first person who mentions tea-leaves or illnesses again will go upstairs.”
“All right,” said Peter. “But if the things—we mayn’t—mention in Emily’s cup are right, and somebody does get a fatal what-we-don’t-talk-about will they be buried here, or will they have to take the coffin home?”
“Upstairs you go, young man.”
“But I didn’t …”
“You’ll go upstairs for impudence and that’s all about it.”
Peter went upstairs as slowly as he could, and was presently joined by Hope and Charles, who had taken up the game of inventing periphrases for the forbidden topics. They were all in revolt. Muffy had no right to treat them as if they were nursery children, just because they took their meals with the babies. All day they baited her, bringing the conversation back to ill-health at every possible opportunity until she announced that the next offender would be sent to bed. So that nothing could exceed their glee when Maude bustled into the keep, while they were having tea, and said that Barny was ill.
“Ssssh!” shrieked the children. “You mustn’t! Muffy says you mustn’t!”
“Be quiet, children, I wish you’d come, Muffy. He’s got a ghastly pain.”
“Got another chill,” said Muffy, hunting for her goloshes, without which it was impossible to cross the courtyard.
“No, no. I don’t think it’s a chill. He was sick this morning, but that seems to have gone off. And the pain seems to be getting more to one place.”
Maude looked white and scared, and her face, without its bright, fixed smile, seemed unfamiliar. The children were sobered. In the fun of baiting Muffy, they had forgotten the origin of this tabu. Now that they remembered, they were frightened. Only Rosamund had the courage to ask if it was appendicitis, like the King had, whereat Maude, suddenly losing control of herself, boxed her ears.
“Serve you right for talking nonsense,” said Muffy, as they hurried out of the keep.
Barny lay groaning upon his bed, doubled up and ashyfaced. His eyes looked feverish. He had, as usual, refused to let Maude take his temperature. But when Muffy produced her thermometer he submitted. Nor did he take much interest in their verdict. He was too much occupied with his pain.
One glance at the thermometer was enough to banish the scepticism in Muffy’s bearing. She went out with Maude on to the landing.
“I’ll get hot bottles and help you to put him to bed,” she said. “And I’ll tell them to send for a doctor. You go back to him.”
“Muffy … you don’t think …”
“With that temperature we’d better be sure.”
Maude leant for a second against the wall and closed her eyes. The one thing which she had always dreaded most was really going to happen to her. She had always felt that she could face any emergency but one, and that God, knowing this, would not let Barny get appendicitis in some remote place. A feverish voice called her from the bedroom. She braced herself and went back to him.
“Maude!” He clutched her hand. “Don’t go away. Don’t leave me like that again.”
“That’s all right, darling. I won’t. You’ll be better soon. We’ll get you to bed with hot bottles. We’re sending for a doctor.”
“Maude! Do you suppose I’ve got appendicitis?”
“No, no, no! It’s probably a frightfully bad chill.”
“It’s exactly in the right place,” said Barny, who knew just enough anatomy to ruin his peace of mind. “I’m pretty certain myself. In which case I shall die.”
“Nonsense. Wait till the doctor …”
“Not a bit of good.”
Barny, always possessed by an insatiable curiosity, had a way of picking up information concerning the whole population in any place where he stayed.
“The doctor here is a museum piece. The country people swear by him and there aren’t enough well to-do inhabitants to make it worth while for a younger man to come. He happens to be nearly eighty, and is said to drink. I shouldn’t think he’s ever heard of an appendix. We’d probably get on better without him. Oh, Christ!”
He doubled up again and clutched Maude’s hand. When the spasm was over she assured him that he could not die because she would not allow it. This seemed to comfort him a little.
Louise came to the door and asked if she could do anything. She said that Kerran was going at once to Killross in search of a doctor.
“It’s no use,” gasped Barny. “He drinks and he’s nearly eighty. A major operation …”
Maude was making signs to Louise. She could not leave Barny because he was grasping her hand.
“What?” said Louise stupidly. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s trying to tell you,” said Barny, “that you must tell him to bring his tools and chloroform and all that, in case—oh, Jesus Christ!”
“Why?” Louise looked frightened. “What …”
“It’s such a long way to send for things,” said Maude. “He’d better come prepared. If … if …”
“I’ll tell Kerran. I’ll catch him before he goes.”
When Louise had gone Barny said:
“She thinks this is just another of your scares.”
“Let’s hope it is.”
They both knew that it was not. Maude’s mind stood still, appalled. But Barny’s lively imagination pranced ahead. He thought of his own death as inevitable, saw Maude a widow, and remembered that he had only been able to save two thousand pounds.
“If only I’d stuck to Gilt Edge,” he groaned.
“Oh, Barny, don’t!”
“I wish I knew exactly how I stand over my mother’s marriage settlement. I know I should have had five thousand pounds out of her jointure on her death, and if we’d had children, of course …”
“Barny, please …”
“My darling, we’ve got to face it.”
Maude did not call this facing it, and said so. And as she got him out of his clothes and into bed, they had a stimulating dispute as to which of them was taking the more sensible line. He was not nearly so frightened as she was, and that comforted her. He could still dramatise his situation.
When Ellen came up to offer help, he was estimating the possible value of his furniture.
“I just came to tell you,” said Ellen, “that I’ve sent for Dick.”
There was a moment’s stupefied silence, and then Maude, flushing to a deep crimson, caught hold of Ellen’s arm. She scarcely knew what she was doing.
“Oh, Ellen! …” she stammered. “Oh, Ellen!”
She wanted to hug Ellen and kiss her. She felt like a drowning man to whom a rope has been flung. If Dick could not save Barny, then nobody could.
“You’ve what?” demanded Barny, confused between his pain and the effort to remember what his sideboard had cost when it was new.
“Mr. Fletcher is going to fetch him back,” explained Ellen. “Gordon can’t because of his lumbago. I thought we’d better have Dick here, in case … don’t you think so, Maude?”
“Oh, Ellen … but where … how …”
“Oh, what I said was, he’d better go over to Killross and ask at the inn. All the country people go in there, and everything is known that happens for miles round. Any stranger gets noticed in those parts. You can’t walk half a mile without a dozen people seeing you, though it seems so deserted. Dick can’t be very far off. I told Mr. Fletcher if he gives ten shillings to some little herd boy they’ll probably produce Dick in a very short time. It’s astonishing how quickly news travels.”
“And you think he’ll come?” asked Maude anxiously.
“Come? But of course he will, when he knows that Barny is ill.”
“I don’t want him,” announced Barny. “I’d rather die.”
“Sssh!” said Maude. “Ellen, this is very, very good of you.”
She hurried Ellen out of the room before he could say any more.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she repeated.
“But it’s Guy Fletcher you must thank,” said Ellen, a little surprised.
“I know. I know. And Ellen … you mustn’t mind Barny.”
Barny was so indignant that he almost forgot his pain.
“I’d much rather die,” he kept saying, when Maude went back to him. “I don’t want him.”
Which cheered Maude up considerably, because it showed how far Barny still was from any real apprehension of death. She had seen people die. She had seen people come to that point when they no longer worry about the price of sideboards or the morals of their relations. Barny was still a long way off dying, even when, after a little while, he changed his mind and began to ask anxiously if Dick had come yet.