The Meddlers (10 page)

“Hello! I’m Mrs. Briant. You must be Miss Quinn?” Marjorie said, with all the warm friendliness she could project. “It’s a foul morning, isn’t it? I’m drenched, just running from the car to the door!”

Isobel looked up, and her glance slid across Majorie to the window.

“How do you do, Mrs. Briant,” she said in a voice as neutral as her appearance. “Yes, it is raining a lot.”

“Now, let me see.” Marjorie cocked her head to one side and
smiled with a brightness she didn’t feel. It was most odd the way this woman had immediately made her feel as though she had to be conciliating. It was like interviewing someone who had answered one of her frequent advertisements for a daily maid, trying to create a spurious atmosphere of equality and friendship that would compensate for the low pay she had to offer. “You’re from… Scotland! But you had an Irish mother or father. Am I right?” She produced a tinkly little laugh. “I do rather a lot of amateur acting, you know, and I’m supposed to be rather good at accents.”

“I was born in Liverpool.”

“Oh! Oh, dear. Not so good after all, then! Though I don’t know. There is a strong Irish and Scottish element in the city, isn’t there? Whatever it is, it’s left a pretty burr in your voice.”

“It’s nice of you to say so, Mrs. Briant.” Still Isobel gave back no warmth at all, and Marjorie felt a stab of irritation. She was doing her best to be friendly, damn it, and she didn’t have to.

“Well, now, where’s the baby? I—”

The door opened, and George followed Barbara Hervey into the room. Marjorie turned to them with relief.

“Good morning, Barbara! How nice to see you again. Are you keeping well?”

“Very well, thank you, Mrs. Briant. And you?”

“Oh, I rub along, you know! It doesn’t do to worry about oneself, does it? Well, George? Do I have to put on a special overall or something? You all look so… well,
hospitally
, in those coats of yours! I feel the complete outsider!”

“There’s no need,” George said. “We don’t particularly want to protect him from infection. In fact, it’s quite useful to expose him to people from outside the Unit, within reason. He has to build his own resistance to infections and he can’t do that if he never meets them. But take your coat off, Marjorie. It’s warm in the nursery, and you’ll be uncomfortable. And it’s damp too, I imagine.”

“What’s this room for, George?” Marjorie turned her back to him so that he could help her out of her coat. “It all looks very intriguing! This is the first time I’ve come into the Unit, you know, Barbara! I feel rather like a visitor to a Stately Home who’s been
allowed to peep into the Duke’s private apartments.” And she looked over her shoulder at her husband. But he was hanging up her coat and appeared not to notice the edge on her voice.

Barbara became suddenly animated. “Oh, you should have come before, Mrs. Briant. We’re really very lucky in our equipment. George had to coax and nag and beg and borrow and almost steal to get most of it! He really has had to struggle to get this project under way. Though, of course, you know that as well as I do! Well, this is the main monitoring system. These screens are linked to the cot, which has a series of receptor units built into it. They pick up the infant’s heartbeat, respiration rate, body temperature, and so on. And this one is for the electroencephalogram, which records his brain impulses. The electrodes for that are only linked up at intervals, of course, since they have to be directly attached to his scalp. It was simpler to leave those
in situ
, as you’ll see. And this screen here, you see? This one links to the TV cameras. They’re really splendid. George got those from a commercial company, you know, in Germany. There wasn’t a single British company that would cooperate. They’re the last word in this sort of equipment. The screen’s dead at the moment, but the cameras are still operating, of course. But they’re taking a video tape—rather like a film, you know. We can rerun them whenever we want to. We only have this screen operating when we’re all in here and want to observe him directly—”

“Oh, my dear, stop!” Marjorie shuddered delicately. “It’s all too much for me to take in! It’s like one of those awful science-fiction films they do on television, too complicated for words. You’ve got everything but those great bubbling glass things they always have for the mad scientist!”

“We do all the chemical work in another part of the Unit,” Barbara said. “Not that we’ve got any retorts of that sort there! They’re not true at all, you know, those absurd laboratories you see in popular films. But it isn’t all that complicated, you know, really. Not like the computer unit we use at the university.” She seemed a little hurt suddenly. “I thought you wanted the equipment explained—”

“Well, I thought I did too, but I’m just not bright enough to cope with it, am I, George? Poor George gave up trying to explain to me years ago! I’m just too simple a soul altogether, really. I’m interested in the
baby
, of course, but then, what woman wouldn’t be?”

Barbara pushed her hands into her overall pocket and flushed slightly, and Marjorie smiled kindly at her and turned to George again.

“I’ve already introduced myself to Miss Quinn, George. If you’re too busy with all your equipment, I’m sure she can take me to see the baby. And she won’t bewilder me with all sorts of complicated science. I’m sure—”

“I want to come up anyway. I see him every morning,” George said. “Not that Miss Quinn couldn’t take you, of course. I’ve explained why you’re here this morning, Marjorie.”

“Oh, have you?” Marjorie turned back to Isobel. “I’m really quite privileged, aren’t I, Miss Quinn? After all the fuss in the papers this morning, I feel positively part of this project! To be the legal mother of so important a baby—it’ll be quite something, don’t you think?”

“Yes, Mrs. Briant,” Isobel said, and again Marjorie felt the chill of the rejection in her voice.

“I’ll start the collation of yesterday’s material, George,” Barbara said. “Mr. Kegan phoned over at nine to say he wanted to talk to you as soon as possible, and you won’t have time to do it yourself before he comes.”

“Mmm? Oh, yes. Get Peter in from Histology to help you. He should have finished matching the chromosome analyses with the projections by now. And Davis can help too. He finished the metabolism checks early yesterday evening. Elsa and Vernon can get on with checking the endocrine levels this morning, and that will leave young Isaacs to monitor today’s stuff. Can you all cope without me? With all this flap going on, it’s very unlikely I’ll get much peace to do any real work today.”

Barbara’s rather narrow cheeks reddened with pleasure. “Of course, George. And I hope it won’t be too grim.”

“So do I, but I’m not very sanguine. It’ll probably be Godawful.”

Marjorie moved edgily. That’s the worst thing about being so perceptive, she thought. It makes me a good actress, but I’m too sensitive to atmosphere. That dried-up Hervey creature throwing her brain at George the way any other woman worth her salt’d throw her looks, and this Quinn woman glowering. What the hell have I done to upset her? She’s sending out great waves of nastiness. I wonder if Ian’s heard yet? He said they’d call at eleven if they were going to call him at all. I want to get home.

“Shall we go, then, George?” she said and opened the door.

“Yes, yes. And thank you, Barbara.”

They went up the stairs in a little procession, Marjorie following George, very aware of Isobel behind her. She moves very lightly for someone of her size, Marjorie thought. What
have
I done to make her so chilly? Or is it that she’s like Barbara Hervey? I swear that woman has a
tendre
for George, not that she’d know it, bloodless creature. And not that George would know it either. I almost wish he would. I’d know what I was dealing with then. Oh, God, I wish—

“This way, Marjorie.” George pushed a door open and stood back, and she walked into the room and stood in the center of it looking around with curiosity.

“How odd! I suppose I thought it would be like a hospital ward, but it’s quite like an ordinary nursery, really, except it’s so dull. I’ll have a look in the loft, shall I, for those little Kate Greenaway pictures that used to be in Hilary’s room? Or are they too girlish? Ian had some rather nice animal ones—”

“We don’t want to provide anything of that sort just yet. We have to take great care to select the visual environment so that its effect can be measured. Thank you for thinking of it, though—”

“Oh, dear! Poor little scrap.” Marjorie made a
moue
at Isobel, who had walked over to the cot in the far corner of the room and was standing in the same apparently relaxed but watchful posture she had displayed downstairs. “Isn’t that just like a man?” And for the first time, she got a response, for Isobel bobbed her head slightly and then looked down at the infant in the cot.

Marjorie went over too and stood looking at the baby. He was asleep, lying on his front with his head turned to one side.

She frowned sharply. “What are those things on his head?”

“Electrodes. For the electroencephalograms.”

“But don’t they hurt him? They look as though they’re… embedded in his scalp!”

“They are. But they don’t perturb him in the least.” George had come to stand beside her, also looking down at the baby. “As you can see, he is sleeping perfectly well.”

Marjorie shuddered slightly. “All the same, they look—I don’t know. If I really were his mother, I’d hate to see them there. How long must they stay there?”

“We haven’t yet decided.” George sounded irritable suddenly. “Really, Marjorie, you mustn’t let yourself be infected by the hysterical nonsense in this morning’s papers. He is not being treated in any way that need worry you. We are simply observing him, which is a very different thing from actually doing anything
to
him. He lives and feeds and is handled just like any other baby. Such specimens as we collect are obtained without bothering him in the slightest—smears for chromosome checks, the occasional blood sample, and so on, that’s all. There’s no element of vivisection in the work, no matter what those overemotional reports may suggest.”

Marjorie looked up at Isobel and, surprisingly, she nodded. “He’s a very good baby, Mrs. Briant,” she said. “He takes his feeds very well, not like a fretful one would.”

“Ian was a very fretful baby.” Marjorie looked at the sleeping infant again. “I had a frightful time with him. Not like Hilary. She was very placid.”

She shrugged then. “Well, I’ve seen him. Will that satisfy these various people on the adoption question? I told you last night, George, I can’t do more than merely agree. I’ve done my share of baby care. I really can’t start again. Not at my age.” And she looked at Isobel, almost defiantly. “It’s not that I don’t care. I was devoted to my own two, you know. But they were my own. I’m not really cut out for adoption. I’m past forty, after all.” She laughed a little tinkling laugh again. “Even if I do play girls in their twenties, and just about get away with it.”

“Your age has nothing to do with it,” George said, and then remembered to add, “Not that you look it.”

“Maybe, but I haven’t the patience any more. Besides, I couldn’t cope with all this… science.” She waved her hand comprehensively, as though to take in the room downstairs with its monitor screens, as well as the cameras built unobstrusively into the walls around them.

“Well, the question doesn’t arise. All we need from you is your token consent to the legalities. Miss Quinn is here to look after him. Which she is doing very well indeed.”

“I’m sure she is.” Marjorie smiled again at the other woman. “It’s a big job you’ve taken on, isn’t it? Looking after someone else’s child can’t be easy.”

“I never think about it,” Isobel said. “A baby is a baby. And he’s very easy.”

“All the same, sooner you than me! Though he’s a nice baby, to look at, I mean. So often very young babies are perfectly hideous, aren’t they? I know Ian was! He looks very handsome now. He’s an actor, you know.”

“His eyes are a very nice color,” Isobel said, still staring at the sleeping baby. “A real blue.”

“They will lighten, of course,” George said. “As his hair will. By the end of his first year he’ll be light-haired, but it will change again so that in maturity he’ll be quite definitely dark. We have an artist’s projection made on the basis of our early work, and from the results we’ve had so far, I have every reason to hope we’ve pulled it off. We could have been very mistaken in our early extrapolations, you know. Working on so small a piece of basic material, it was remarkably difficult to be sure we had correctly identified the genes. I’m beginning to be quite confident that we were right, though it will be some years before we can be really certain we’ve made the breakthrough. If you’d care to see some of the early results, Marjorie, I could explain them.”

“Would there be much poin?”

“What? Oh. Well, perhaps… it is complex material, of course.”

The sudden surge of enthusiasm which had given his words a clipped speed subsided, and he turned toward the door.

“And time is pressing. Kegan will be waiting for me downstairs. Miss Quinn, Miss Hervey will deal with all today’s work.”

“Yes, Dr. Briant.”

“And I must hurry too. Ian will be waiting for me,” Marjorie said. “He’s waiting to hear whether or not he’s been cast, and he’ll be feeling like a caged bear, poor darling. I’d like to take the car, George.”

At the door Marjorie looked back over her shoulder at Isobel. “Goodbye, Miss Quinn. Thank you. I hope he’ll go on being easy.”

And for the first time, Isobel smiled at her. “Goodbye Mrs. Briant. I expect he will. Dr. Briant says he was born to have a nice way with him.”

As they went downstairs, Marjorie said thoughtfully, “I think I know why, now.”

“What?”

“Why she seemed to dislike me the moment she set eyes on me.”

“Who? Miss Quinn? Oh, really, Marjorie! How can you say that? Was she impertinent?”

“No, of course not. But she did dislike me, really she did. And it was because you told her I was to be the baby’s legal mother when the adoption went through.”