Barbie said nothing. She allowed herself to be hauled out of bed, laid upon the stretcher and wrapped up in blankets.
‘It’s all right – really –’ declared Nell in a strangled voice, for having accomplished her object she was almost in tears. She had spent hours telephoning and arranging for Barbie’s departure and now she was not at all sure that it was the right thing to do. Was Barbie well enough to stand the journey? She looked ghastly – she looked as if she were going to die.
‘Darling, it’s all right,’ repeated Nell. ‘Lady Steyne is delighted. You’ll get better much quicker. Barbie, say you’re pleased – or something –’
Sister Smart had finished tucking in the blankets, the men had lifted the stretcher.
‘Barbie, you love Underwoods!’ cried Nell. ‘It will be lovely for you – no fog! Sunshine –’
Barbie’s lips moved. She said, ‘You’ve forgotten something, Nell.’
‘What?’
‘The stamp,’ said Barbie with the ghost of a smile.
The men moved off and carried her away.
‘She was wandering,’ declared Sister Smart.
‘Oh no, she wasn’t,’ said Nell, trying to decide whether to laugh or cry. ‘She wasn’t wandering … and now I know it’s all right. She’s going to get better.’
Sister Smart said nothing in reply. She was watching the two young nurses tearing the sheets off the bed and preparing it for another occupant.
‘Not like that!’ she exclaimed. ‘You know perfectly well that’s not the right way to fold the corners – and do hurry! They’ll be bringing her any minute –’
CHAPTER THREE
The fog was still very thick, though not quite so impenetrable as it had been last night. Traffic was moving slowly with a good deal of grinding and hooting but, considering everything, with remarkably few accidents and remarkably little bad temper. The ambulance nosed its way carefully through the streets. Its occupant lay upon the bunk with her eyes shut.
No use worrying, she thought. Parcels don’t worry. You do them up and send them off and presently they arrive at their destination.
Barbie was not exactly worrying but she could not help wondering vaguely what Aunt Amalie would do when the parcel arrived. Aunt Amalie was a darling, there was nobody like her, but did she realise what a nuisance the parcel would be? Had Nell explained that the parcel contained a helpless invalid?
Poor Nell, thought Barbie. I should have been nicer. I should have said I was pleased.
The despatch had been so absolutely unexpected and so rapid that she had had no time to think, no time to examine her feelings, and of course she was not pleased. Indeed if she had been asked whether she would like to be hauled out of bed and sent to Underwoods she would have been horrified at the idea. All she wanted was to be left in peace. Peace, thought Barbie. Why can’t people leave you in peace?
Presently the pace of the ambulance increased and Barbie realised that the atmosphere was clearing. They were leaving the fog behind. Fog, hospital, complaining voices and Sister Smart were all left behind. In front was Underwoods and Aunt Amalie. Something inside Barbie stirred and she drew a long breath.
The ambulance rolled along smoothly but already Barbie was at Underwoods. Her thoughts had arrived before her body. It was winter now, of course, but Barbie’s inward eye saw the place as it was in summer-time.
The house was not large. It was a ‘Queen Anne’ house, of rose-coloured brick with small-paned windows. Like so many houses of that period it had been built quite near the road so that its inhabitants might have the pleasure and excitement of seeing the world go by; the daily coach thundering past with its four horses; an occasional post-chaise; covered wagons and horsemen and all the rest. To be ‘near the road’ nowadays was less agreeable, but it was no longer a Main Road and there was not a great deal of traffic on it. A high wall and some well-grown trees gave the house sufficient privacy. When you opened the wooden door and passed beneath the archway you found yourself upon a rose-red brick path which led to the front-door with the brass knob in the middle and the fanlight overhead. Above and on either side were pink walls and windows with small leaded panes. The front garden was always a mass of colour; sweet-scented stock, wall-flowers, hollyhocks, sweet williams and tiny purple pansies and a host of other old-fashioned flowers which smelt delicious in the enclosed space. Behind the house there were lawns and flowering shrubs; beyond were the woods which gave the place its name.
Inside the house was beautiful and comfortable. There had been alterations of course, for modern ideas of comfort are somewhat different from those of the early eighteenth century and include such luxuries as electricity, bathrooms and central heating but the atmosphere of serenity remained. The drawing-room on the ground floor was L-shaped with an Adam fireplace and cushioned window-seats. It was rather a dimly-lighted room, owing to the small windows, but you looked out on to sloping lawns and sunshine. Here, too, there was a pleasing marriage of comfort with beauty. The comfortable chairs and sofa had made friends with the bow-fronted rose-wood cabinet displaying Dresden shepherds and shepherdesses; the rose-wood tables stood upon the reseda-green fitted carpet and seemed quite at home.
The house was full of lovely things but the loveliest was its mistress, Charlotte Amalie Steyne. She was over sixty now and her hair was silver, but her skin was smooth, her eyes bright and her movements as graceful as ever. She tired rather more easily of course; she could not dig in the garden as she used to do, and it took her a good deal longer to walk up the steep path to the top of the hill, but she accepted these signs of advancing age with equanimity.
There were people who said that Lady Steyne was spoilt; it was true that she had led a sheltered life with very few troubles, but she was so sweet-natured that no amount of spoiling could spoil her. She had been born at exactly the right moment (her parents already had two sons and were longing for a daughter) so the little daughter completed the France family delightfully and was as welcome as the flowers of spring. At that time Mr France owned a sugar estate in the Virgin Islands and it was in Charlotte Amalie, the capital, that the little daughter was born. Long before she had made her appearance in the world she had been named Charlotte Amalie.
‘Charles, if it’s another boy,’ said Mr France.
‘It isn’t another boy,’ said Mrs France confidently.
Mrs France was right, of course. It was Charlotte Amalie, and while she was a baby everyone called her by her full name, but as she grew older it became too much of a mouthful and the ‘Charlotte’ was dropped. There are many Charlottes in the world but few Amalies and the somewhat exotic name seemed to suit her.
Amalie spent her childhood in an earthly paradise of sunshine and flowers, warm blue seas and glistening white beaches. It was a lovely childhood and, although the family left the island of St Thomas when Charlotte Amalie was nine years old, she still remembered it clearly. She remembered the riot of bougainvillæa in the garden, and the pools where she had watched the tropical fish swimming amongst the corals, and she remembered the smiling black faces of the Negroes who worked on the estate. Oddly enough as she grew older she remembered even more clearly and it was one of her pleasures when she lay awake at night to evoke these childhood memories.
The France family came home to England to educate their children and bought a little property near Oxford. They made friends with their neighbours and there was a pleasant round of gaieties in which Amalie took part. One of her brothers went into the Army, the other was at Oxford and brought his friends home to be introduced to his family. It was surprising how many of them fell in love with his sister!
Amalie always said she did not want to marry, she was much too happy at home, but she changed her mind when she met Sir Edward Steyne. He was ‘different’ from her brother’s friends. He was a good deal older than herself – older and wiser and full of integrity. She always thought of him as ‘steel true and blade straight.’ Some years before his meeting with Charlotte Amalie
France he had lost his young wife in an accident; she had left him with a little son.
Sir Edward had always been called Ned by his family and his friends, but the little son was called Edward. Amalie fell in love with them both and she fell in love with Underwoods as well. The place, which had belonged to the Steyne family for years, was a most delightful home and Amalie settled down. Her life was sheltered and happy, it would have been perfect if she had had a child of her own, but that was not to be.
Fortunately she had little Edward to care for. She also had Barbie, her niece; for her elder brother (who had made the Army his career) died in India and his wife did not survive him very long. Barbie had had no recollection of her parents, she had come to Underwoods when she was an infant and it had been her home ever since.
Time was, when Underwoods had been run with a staff of four and it had not seemed too many, but now it was impossible to maintain a staff of well-trained servants and to tell the truth the house seemed just as comfortable without them, and much more peaceful. Amalie had a companion-housekeeper, Miss Penney, and a woman who came in daily from Shepherdsford village. Sometimes Amalie wondered what all those servants had done – except quarrel amongst themselves and make her life a burden. It seemed odd.
Of course Miss Penney was extremely capable. She had been at Underwoods only a few months but already she had become a fixture. She had fallen in love with Underwoods at first sight and also with Lady Steyne … and if Lady Steyne had not exactly fallen in love with Miss Penney in the same headlong manner she was certainly very fond of her now. Miss Penney was short and stout with a curiously flat face and pale-blue eyes and sandy hair. She was no beauty but for all that she was a treasure and worth her not inconsiderable weight in gold.
When Miss Penney had been at Underwoods for little more than a week her employer had asked permission to call her by her Christian name, explaining that it seemed more friendly.
‘Just call me Penney,’ said Miss Penney smiling.
Amalie hesitated. It was not what she had intended.
‘Penney Plain,’ explained Miss Penney. ‘It suits me. When my parents decided to call me Diana they had no idea what I was going to look like when I grew up.’
Amalie was a diplomatic woman and seldom found herself at a loss but even she could find no suitable comment.
Usually Underwoods was a very quiet house but today there was a ‘stir.’ Penney had been busy getting the spare room ready; sweeping, dusting and airing the bed.
‘You haven’t seen her, have you?’ said Amalie as they made the bed together. ‘She’s my elder brother’s daughter, but she has always been like my very own child. She came to us when her mother died. She was such a sweet baby; so good and happy. It seemed dreadfully sad that she had no mother, but Ned and I both loved her so dearly. I don’t believe even her own parents could have loved her more.’
Penney made a suitable rejoinder and then said, ‘If you would just go and rest I could finish this quite easily.’
‘I know you could, my dear. You’re the most capable creature under the sun, and I don’t know what I did without you, but honestly I’m not a bit tired and far too excited to rest. Of course she has been terribly ill. I wonder if we ought to get a nurse to look after her.’
‘I could look after her,’ suggested Penney. ‘If we got a little more daily help I could manage quite easily; but you must do as you think best.’
‘Yes,’ said Amalie doubtfully. ‘We had better wait and see how she is. Miss Babbington said …’
‘What did she say?’ asked Penney after a little silence.
‘Such a lot that it was difficult to sort out,’ replied Amalie in a puzzled tone of voice. ‘She seemed awfully upset, and the line was not very clear. First she said Barbie was better and that her friend Dr Headfort thought she should be moved to the country – the fog in town is simply horrible – and then she said she was sure nobody realised how ill Barbie was … and then she began to sob and said “You won’t let her die, will you? She’s lying there like a rag doll. She’s made up her mind to die.” Then we were cut off and I couldn’t get through again. There was no answer. I could hear the bell ringing and ringing in the flat but nobody answered it.’
‘Perhaps Miss Babbington had rung up from somewhere else,’ suggested Penney sensibly.
‘I never thought of that!’ exclaimed Amalie. ‘I thought she was phoning from the flat.’
‘You were worried and upset.’
‘Yes, I was. It seemed so queer. Barbie is such a vital sort of creature. How could she have “made up her mind to die”?’
‘People do, sometimes – when things get them down,’ said Penney with a sigh.
By this time the spare room was ready and they were making Amalie’s bed. Here, in Amalie’s room, a coloured photograph of Barbara France stood upon the mantelpiece. Penney had seen it before – she saw it every morning when she was dusting the room – and the face had always fascinated her: not a beautiful face but certainly ‘vital’ with its wide generous mouth and broad brow and springing copper-coloured curls.
‘So like her!’ said Amalie.
You could tell that. The photographer had caught her leaning forward a little and the expressive eyes were full of humour – as if she had just thought of something very amusing and could scarcely wait to tell you about it, thought Penney.
‘It was done by Arnold Fairbrother,’ said Amalie. ‘He did Edward too, but it isn’t quite so good.’
The other photograph on the mantelpiece was of Amalie’s step-son. Penny had seen him in the flesh for he had visited Underwoods not long ago. He was ‘in business’ and lived in London; an attractive young man, extremely good-looking and with most delightful manners. Edward Steyne had been friendly and kind to his step-mother’s companion and she appreciated it greatly; some young men would not have bothered to be charming to a middle-aged spinster.
‘They’re both nice,’ said Penney inadequately.
‘Darlings,’ agreed Amalie. ‘Quite different of course. You see they aren’t related to each other at all, but they grew up together as if they were brother and sister, playing in the garden and running about in the woods. I’ve always hoped and prayed that some day … but perhaps they know each other too well.’
It was at this moment that the front-door bell pealed loudly and the two ladies dropped everything and rushed downstairs to receive their guest.
CHAPTER FOUR
When the fuss and bustle of arrival was over and the guest safely in bed the two older ladies sat down to a belated tea. Penney noticed that her employer’s hand was shaking so she poured it out herself.
‘Don’t worry too much,’ said Penney. ‘She looks fragile, but we’ll feed her up –’
‘Fragile!’ echoed Amalie. ‘It just – isn’t Barbie. It’s a ghost! Penney, I’m frightened.’
‘I don’t think you need be.’
‘She couldn’t even speak!’
‘She was tired and upset. But after you had gone away and I had given her the milk she snuggled down and very next moment she was fast asleep – fast asleep and breathing like a child. I think she’ll be a lot better tomorrow.’
‘Dr Ladbrooke might –’
‘Not tonight,’ said Penney firmly. ‘You can send for him tomorrow if you want to, but I won’t allow her to be wakened tonight – not for any doctor under the sun.’
Amalie smiled a little tremulously. ‘So you’re taking over?’
‘With your permission,’ nodded Penney. ‘I’ll sleep on the sofa in her room – just in case she wants anything in the night – but I’m pretty certain she’ll sleep for hours. That’s what she needs.’
Penney hesitated, for she was a very reserved sort of person and never said more than was absolutely necessary, and then she decided that she really must go on talking. Perhaps if she went on talking it would help to relieve the strain.
‘Hospitals are wonderful,’ said Penney. ‘They give you everything they can think of;
they give you oxygen and blood transfusions and all the drugs in the chemist’s shop, but they never seem to think of giving you enough sleep. I’ve often wondered why.’
Amalie was interested. ‘Wouldn’t it be difficult?’ she asked. ‘I mean there’s so much coming and going, isn’t there?’
‘Oh, they can’t help the noise and bustle but they could help wakening you at crack of dawn and washing your face,’ said Penney bitterly.
Barbie was not wakened at crack of dawn to have her face washed. It was nine o’clock when she opened her eyes – and the room was full of pale winter sunshine. Barbie stretched herself luxuriously like a wakening cat – and yawned.
There was absolute silence. The window was open, and cool air drifted in, swaying the chintz curtains. For a few minutes Barbie lay there, not bothering about anything, not thinking about anything. Sweet fresh air and heavenly silence was enough. Then, far away in the distance she heard the chimes of a clock; it was the clock on the church-tower in Shepherdsford village.
Underwoods! thought Barbie. That’s where I am! So I really did come; it wasn’t all a dream. I’m here – at Underwoods!
The door opened and somebody entered very quietly. Barbie expected to see Aunt Amalie, but it was a strange face that bent down to look at her (yet not altogether strange for she had a vague feeling she had seen it before). It was a flattish sort of face framed in sandy hair. The face wore an anxious expression; truth to tell, Penney was beginning to be a little anxious about her patient, who had slept solidly for sixteen hours. Sixteen hours seemed a bit too much.
‘Hallo!’ said Barbie.
‘So you’re awake!’
‘Only just,’ said Barbie with another yawn.
‘Well, please stay awake until you’ve had breakfast,’ said Penny firmly.
Penney had said she was taking over the case and she did so in her usual capable manner. The bag, which had arrived with the patient, was found to contain a number of little boxes full of pellets and labelled with instructions. Some of the drugs were to be given at four-hourly intervals, others after meals. Penney had got up several times during the night and looked at her patient and wondered. Should she be wakened and given a pill – or not? But how could you disturb anybody sleeping so peacefully? Sister Smart could have done it quite cheerfully of course – but Penney couldn’t. Penney thought sleep was – somehow sacred (it was one of God’s greatest blessings to a weary world); so she left her patient sleeping and returned to her own not very comfortable couch.
The Tall Stranger Page 3