An uncontrollable look of mingled rage and fear made its plain confession in f.a.n.n.y"s face. She had been discovered; she had heard herself called "drolesse;" she stood before the two men self-condemned.
Her angry master threatened her with instant dismissal from the house.
The doctor interfered.
"No, no," he said; "you mustn"t deprive Lady Harry, at a moment"s notice, of her maid. Such a clever maid, too," he added with his rascally smile. "An accomplished person, who understands French, and is too modest to own it!"
The doctor had led f.a.n.n.y through many a weary and unrewarded walk when she had followed him to the hospitals; he had now inflicted a deliberate insult by calling her "drolesse" and he had completed the sum of his offences by talking contemptuously of her modesty and her mastery of the French language. The woman"s detestation of him, which under ordinary circ.u.mstances she might have attempted to conceal, was urged into audaciously a.s.serting itself by the strong excitement that now possessed her. Driven to bay, f.a.n.n.y had made up her mind to discover the conspiracy of which Mr. Vimpany was the animating spirit, by a method daring enough to be worthy of the doctor himself.
"My knowledge of French has told me something," she said. "I have just heard, Mr. Vimpany, that you want a nurse for your invalid gentleman.
With my lord"s permission, suppose you try Me?"
f.a.n.n.y"s audacity was more than her master"s patience could endure. He ordered her to leave the room.
The peace-making doctor interfered again: "My dear lord, let me beg you will not be too hard on the young woman." He turned to f.a.n.n.y, with an effort to look indulgent, which ended in the reappearance of his rascally smile. "Thank you, my dear, for your proposal," he said; "I will let you know if we accept it, to-morrow."
f.a.n.n.y"s unforgiving master pointed to the door; she thanked Mr.
Vimpany, and went out. Lord Harry eyed his friend in angry amazement.
"Are you mad?" he asked.
"Tell me something first," the doctor rejoined. "Is there any English blood in your family?"
Lord Harry answered with a burst of patriotic feeling: "I regret to say my family is adulterated in that manner. My grandmother was an Englishwoman."
Mr. Vimpany received this extract from the page of family history with a coolness all his own.
"It"s a relief to hear that," he said. "You may be capable (by the grandmother"s side) of swallowing a dose of sound English sense. I can but try, at any rate. That woman is too bold and too clever to be treated like an ordinary servant--I incline to believe that she is a spy in the employment of your wife. Whether I am right or wrong in this latter case, the one way I can see of paring the cat"s claws is to turn her into a nurse. Do you find me mad now?"
"Madder than ever!"
"Ah, you don"t take after your grandmother! Now listen to me. Do we run the smallest risk, if f.a.n.n.y finds it her interest to betray us? Suppose we ask ourselves what she has really found out. She knows we have got a sick man from a hospital coming here--does she know what we want him for? Not she! Neither you nor I said a word on that subject. But she also heard us agree that your wife was in our way. What does that matter? Did she hear us say what it is that we don"t want your wife to discover? Not she, I tell you again! Very well, then--if f.a.n.n.y acts as...o...b..e"s nurse, shy as the young woman may be, she innocently a.s.sociates herself with the end that we have to gain by the Danish gentleman"s death! Oh, you needn"t look alarmed! I mean his natural death by lung disease--no crime, my n.o.ble friend! no crime!"
The Irish lord, sitting near the doctor, drew his chair back in a hurry.
"If there"s English blood in my family," he declared, "I"ll tell you what, Vimpany, there"s devil"s blood in yours!"
"Anything you like but Irish blood," the cool scoundrel rejoined.
As he made that insolent reply, f.a.n.n.y came in again, with a sufficient excuse for her reappearance. She announced that a person from the hospital wished to speak to the English doctor.
The messenger proved to be a young man employed in the secretary"s office. Oxbye still persisting in his desire to be placed under Mr.
Vimpany"s care; one last responsibility rested on the official gentlemen now in charge of him. They could implicitly trust the medical a.s.sistance and the gracious hospitality offered to the poor Danish patient; but, before he left them, they must also be satisfied that he would be attended by a competent nurse. If the person whom Mr. Vimpany proposed to employ in this capacity could be brought to the hospital, it would be esteemed a favour; and, if her account of herself satisfied the physician in charge of Oxbye"s case, the Dane might be removed to his new quarters on the same day.
The next morning witnessed the first in a series of domestic incidents at the cottage, which no prophetic ingenuity could have foreseen. Mr.
Vimpany and f.a.n.n.y Mere actually left Pa.s.sy together, on their way to Paris!
CHAPTER XLIII
FICTION: ATTEMPTED BY MY LORD
THE day on which the doctor took his newly-appointed nurse with him to the hospital became an occasion a.s.sociated with distressing recollections in the memory of Iris.
In the morning, f.a.n.n.y Mere had asked for leave to go out. For some time past this request had been so frequently granted, with such poor results so far as the maid"s own designs were concerned, that Lady Harry decided on administering a tacit reproof, by means of a refusal.
f.a.n.n.y made no attempt at remonstrance; she left the room in silence.
Half an hour later, Iris had occasion to ring for her attendant. The bell was answered by the cook--who announced, in explanation of her appearance, that f.a.n.n.y Mere had gone out. More distressed than displeased by this reckless disregard of her authority, on the part of a woman who had hitherto expressed the most grateful sense of her kindness, Iris only said: "Send f.a.n.n.y to me as soon as she comes back."
Two hours pa.s.sed before the truant maid returned.
"I refused to let you go out this morning," Lady Harry said; "and you have taken the liberty of leaving the house for two hours. You might have made me understand, in a more becoming manner, that you intended to leave my service."
Steadily respectful, f.a.n.n.y answered: "I don"t wish to leave your ladyship"s service."
"Then what does your conduct mean?"
"It means, if you please, that I had a duty to do--and did it."
"A duty to yourself?" Iris asked.
"No, my lady; a duty to you."
As she made that strange reply the door was opened, and Lord Harry entered the room. When he saw f.a.n.n.y Mere he turned away again, in a hurry, to go out. "I didn"t know your maid was with you," he said.
"Another time will do."
His permitting a servant to be an obstacle in his way, when he wished to speak to his wife, was a concession so entirely unbecoming in the master of the house, and so strangely contrary to his customary sense of what was due to himself, that Iris called him back in astonishment.
She looked at her maid, who at once understood her, and withdrew. "What can you possibly be thinking of?" she said to her husband, when they were alone. Putting that question, she noticed an embarra.s.sment in his manner, and an appearance of confusion in his face, which alarmed her.
"Has something happened?" she asked; "and is it so serious that you hesitate to mention it to me?"
He sat down by her and took her hand. The loving look in his eyes, which she knew so well, was not in them now; they expressed doubt, and something with it which suggested an effort at conciliation.
"I am fearing I shall surprise you," he said.
"Don"t keep me in suspense!" she returned. "What is it?"
He smiled uneasily: "It"s something about Vimpany."
Having got as far as that, he stopped. She drew her hand away from him.
"I understand now," she said; "I must endeavour to control myself--you have something to tell me which will try my temper."
He held up his hands in humorous protest: "Ah, my darling, here"s your vivid imagination again, making mountains out of molehills, as they say! It"s nothing half so serious as you seem to think; I have only to tell you of a little change."
"A little change?" she repeated. "What change?"
"Well, my dear, you see--" He hesitated and recovered himself. "I mean, you must know that Vimpany"s plans are altered. He won"t any longer occupy his bedroom in the cottage here."
Iris looked inexpressibly relieved. "Going away, at last!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Harry, if you have been mystifying me, I hope you will never do it again. It isn"t like you; it"s cruel to alarm me about nothing. Mr. Vimpany"s empty bedroom will be the most interesting room in the house, when I look into it to-night."
Lord Harry got up, and walked to the window. As a sign of trouble in his mind, and of an instinctive effort to relieve it, the object of this movement was well-known to Iris. She followed him and stood by his side. It was now plain to her that there was something more to be told--and that he was hesitating how to confide it to his wife.