The Quiet Gentleman (27 page)

‘Thank you,’ said Gervase meekly, climbing into the curricle.

‘What did he say to you? Did he admit it?’ Martin asked, setting the grays in motion.

‘To tell you the truth,’ said Gervase, ‘we did not speak of it.’

‘Good God! Well, does he mean to go to Jamaica?’

‘Oh, yes!’

‘He may count himself fortunate! And who is to fill his place? What a pickle it all is! He was devilish good at looking after our affairs, you know!’

‘I fancy you might become as good.’

‘I?’ Martin exclaimed. ‘Are you asking
me
to become your agent?’

‘No, that would be unsuitable. I shall employ an agent, but Theo was more than that. You could do much that he did – if you chose to!’

‘If I chose to! Why, there’s nothing I’d liefer do!’ Martin said. He added, in a burst of unwonted humility: ‘Mind, I may make mistakes! But if I do – I mean,
when
I do! – you will just have to tell me!’

Mr Leek, when he found himself deserted by his employer, and with an unconscious lady on his hands, became a little flustered. Several agitated shouts for help having elicited no response, he knelt down, somewhat ponderously, beside Miss Morville, and tried to ascertain whether she was alive, or whether she had, as he was much inclined to fear, broken her neck. He was not without experience in such matters, and after he had cautiously raised her head, he felt reasonably assured that this ultimate disaster had not befallen her. He could not discover that she was breathing, but after a good deal of fumbling he managed to find the pulse in her wrist. It was certainly beating, so, heaving a sigh of considerable relief, he rose, puffing, to his feet, and went off to ring the iron bell which hung beside the entrance-doors. So vigorously did he tug at it that its summons brought not only a footman, but Abney also, hurrying from the servants’ quarters. It then became manifest to Mr Leek that although the domestic staff might, if suitably adjured, render assistance, no constructive effort need be expected. Abney was so much appalled that he seemed unable to do anything but wring his hands, and demand distractedly what was to be done; and the footman merely waited for orders.

‘The first thing as has to be done,’ said Mr Leek, ‘is to take and carry her to a sofy! You catch hold of her head, young feller, and I’ll take her feet!’

‘Ought she to be moved?’ Abney asked nervously. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, she’s very pale!’

‘Well, don’t start to nap your bib!’ said Mr Leek, with a touch of asperity. ‘Anyone would look pale as was gone off into a swound! Her neck ain’t broke, that I do know, so that’s a comfort, anyways. If you was to lope off and fetch a female to her, you’d be doing more good than what you are now, standing about as like as ninepence to nothing, and asking whether she ought to be moved! O’ course she ought! Nice thing it would be if we was to leave a swell mort like she is laying about at the bottom of the stairs for anyone to tread on as wasn’t looking where they was going! Now, you lift your end, young feller, and gently does it!’

Thus encouraged, the footman carefully raised Miss Morville’s shoulders from the floor. Between them, he and Mr Leek bore her into the Great Hall, and laid her down on one of the sofas. The footman thought she would be more comfortable if he placed a cushion beneath her head; Abney hovered about, wondering whether he should fetch the housekeeper, feathers, or a glass of water; and Mr Leek, with great delicacy, smoothed Miss Morville’s dress carefully about her ankles. Having informed Abney that persons in her condition stood in more need of eye-water than Adam’s ale, he told the footman to call Mrs Marple, and made a discovery. Miss Morville had broken her arm.

‘Well,’ said Mr Leek philosophically, as he disposed the limb across her bosom, ‘that’s what you might call Dutch comfort, because it might ha’ been worse.’

‘I will send a message to the stables at once!’ said Abney. ‘One of the grooms must ride for the doctor! Oh dear, I am sure I don’t know what has come over Stanyon! It seems to be one thing after another!’

He then hurried away; and after a considerable lapse of time, during which Mr Leek first fanned Miss Morville, and then, with some misgiving, wondered whether he ought to cut her laces, the housekeeper, who had been enjoying a nap in her room, bustled in, armed with smelling-salts and sal volatile, and followed by a couple of chambermaids. Mr Leek would have been glad to have resigned Miss Morville to their care, but after he had watched Mrs Marple’s singularly unsuccessful attempts to administer a dose of sal volatile, and had forcefully dissuaded one of the chambermaids from moving the broken arm, for the amiable purpose of chafing Miss Morville’s hand, he decided that it was not the part of a chivalrous man to abandon his post.

By the time Abney came fluttering back to the Great Hall, several more persons had assembled there, including Turvey; and the housekeeper, alarmed by Miss Morville’s prolonged swoon, was threatening spasms.

‘I fancy, Mrs Marple, that she may have sustained a blow on the head,’ said Turvey. ‘Pray do not become agitated! It frequently happens, in such cases, that the sufferer does not regain consciousness for some appreciable time.’

‘Ah! And sometimes, when they
do
, they find themselves dicked in the nob!’ said Mr Leek. ‘Addled!’ he explained, for the benefit of one of the maids, who was looking at him in frightened enquiry.

Mrs Marple gave a faint scream, and pressed a hand to her bosom. Mr Leek thoughtfully offered her the sal volatile; and Turvey said, with a superiority his more forthright colleague found odious, that he apprehended no such melancholy sequel to the accident.

‘Well, when she does come to herself, what you better do is to keep out of sight!’ recommended Mr Leek. ‘She’ll be all to pieces, and it won’t do her no good if the first thing she gets her ogles on is that hang-gallows face o’ yours!’

‘Miss Morville,’ said Turvey glacially, ‘is perfectly familiar with my countenance.’

‘That don’t make it no better!’ retorted Mr Leek. ‘Nor you don’t have to use all them breakteeth words to me, because I ain’t the sort as can be gammoned easy! I knew a cove as talked the way you do – leastways, in the way of business I knew him! In fact, you remind me of him very strong. I disremember what his name was. He was on the dub-lay, and very clever with his fambles. He ended up in the Whit, o’ course.’

Fortunately, Miss Morville, at this perilous moment, stirred, and uttered a faint moan, which distracted everyone’s attention from the rival valets. Turvey at once picked up the sal volatile, and skilfully raised her sufficiently to enable her to swallow, while Mr Leek, not to be outdone, held her broken arm. At first she paid no heed to Turvey’s request to her to open her mouth, but he persevered, and after a minute or two she seemed to collect herself, for she whispered something, and opened her eyes. Turvey then obliged her to drink the restorative, and she said, quite distinctly: ‘Oh, my head hurts me so!’

Turvey laid her down again, and turned away to direct one of the maids to procure a bowl of water, and some cloths.

‘Martin!’ uttered Miss Morville. ‘No! Don’t let him go!’

‘That’s right, miss!’ said Mr Leek hastily. ‘No one won’t let him go nowhere! Don’t you raise a breeze now!’

She raised one wavering hand to her head, but, to his relief, said no more. When the water was brought, and a wet cloth was laid over her brow, it was perceived that she had quite regained her senses, for she murmured a thank-you, and seemed perfectly to understand Turvey when he informed her that she had broken her arm, and must lie still until the doctor arrived to set the bone.

Long before Dr Malpas reached Stanyon, the Dowager had been made aware of the fresh disaster which had overtaken her, and had descended the stairs to the Great Hall. She expressed concern over her young friend’s plight, and said that she did not understand how such a thing could have happened. She then announced her intention of sending a message instantly to Gilbourne House, and of herself remaining beside the sufferer.

‘I should not wish Mrs Morville to feel that any attention had been grudged,’ she said. ‘But I do not know why there should be so many persons here. I do not understand how you came to allow it, Marple.’

This remark caused everyone except the housekeeper, Turvey, and her ladyship’s own maid, to withdraw from the Hall as unobtrusively as possible. The Dowager, seating herself majestically in a chair near the sofa, then recalled the various accidents which had befallen the members of her family, and the remedies which had been applied to their hurts; Turvey continued, unmoved, to renew the wet cloths about Miss Morville’s head; and Miss Morville lay with closed eyes, enduring a good deal of pain, but making no complaint.

Both Mr and Mrs Morville had arrived at the Castle before the doctor’s gig at last bowled up the avenue. Their daughter was able to smile at them, albeit rather wanly; and Mrs Morville told her, with what the housekeeper thought a distressing lack of sensibility, that she would be better presently, and should be taken home as soon as the doctor had set her arm.

‘Not yet!’ Miss Morville said, for the first time showing signs of agitation. ‘Indeed, Mama, I could not!’

‘No, my dear,’ said her mother soothingly. ‘When you are better!’

The setting of the broken bone tried Miss Morville’s fortitude, but she bore it very well, only begging not to be moved for a little while, since she felt too faint to lift her head. The doctor said that the place for her to be was in her bed, but this suggestion was again productive of suppressed agitation.

‘I think,’ said Mrs Morville, ‘that if she were to remain quietly on the sofa for a little while it would perhaps be best.’

‘Ay, that’s it,’ agreed the doctor, packing his bag again. ‘I have given her something which will make her very soon feel more the thing. No need for alarm, ma’am!’

At this moment, the Viscount walked into the Castle, and, perceiving that a large number of persons were gathered in the Great Hall, very naturally joined the party. He was much surprised to learn that Miss Morville had fallen downstairs, exclaiming, sympathizing, and asking so many questions that Mrs Morville was provoked into telling him that what her daughter needed most was quiet.

‘Ay, I’ll be bound she does!’ said the Viscount, with ready understanding. ‘Head aching fit to split, eh, Miss Morville? Don’t I know it! Took a nasty toss myself once – forget the name of the place: somewhere near Tarbes, it was. Head didn’t stop aching for three days.’

‘Well, I’ll come and see you again tomorrow, Miss Morville!’ said Dr Malpas bracingly. ‘I know I leave you in good hands.’

‘Yes, and so many of them!’ said Mrs Morville, with a bright smile.

The doctor then went away, and Lord Ulverston, looking round the Hall, suddenly demanded: ‘But where’s Ger? Not still abed, is he?’

‘No, my lord,’ said Turvey. ‘His lordship is not, so far as I am aware, within the Castle.’

‘What’s that?’ said Ulverston. ‘He was feeling his wound – said he would rest!’

Miss Morville opened her eyes. ‘He went to Evesleigh,’ she said.

‘Evesleigh! Good God, why?’

The Dowager, who had been regaling the unwilling Mr Morville with a long, and apparently pointless, anecdote about a set of persons whom he had neither met nor wished to meet, broke off to explain that if her son-in-law had gone to Evesleigh, it was to visit his cousin.

‘I know that, ma’am!’ said the Viscount impatiently. ‘How came you to let him go, Miss Morville? What can have possessed him to undertake the journey? He will be quite knocked up! Who accompanied him? That young groom of his?’

‘No. I think –’ Miss Morville stopped. ‘I don’t know!’ she ended uncommunicatively.

He looked down at her rather narrowly. ‘Know why he went, ma’am?’

‘I – No.’

‘Well, it sounds a havey-cavey business to me!’ he said. He glanced round again, frowning. ‘Martin not home yet?’

‘No,’ she said, and resolutely closed her lips.

‘Late, ain’t he?’

She was silent.

‘Think I’ll ride to meet Ger!’ said the Viscount.

‘A very excellent idea!’ said Mrs Morville warmly. ‘If I were you, I would go at once!’

‘I will!’ said the Viscount, and strode off without ceremony.

He reached the head of the terrace steps in time to see the Earl’s curricle come sweeping through the vaulted arch of the Gate-tower. The grays were being driven at a spanking pace, and the Viscount was thunderstruck to perceive that it was Martin who held the reins. He was still standing staring incredulously when the curricle drew up at the foot of the steps, and Martin, whose new-found humility had not deterred him from arguing hotly with his brother on certain of the finer points of driving, said triumphantly: ‘Now own I have not overturned you!’

‘Oh, I do! How thankful I am I didn’t bring a high-perch phaeton into Lincolnshire!’ said the Earl, preparing to alight.

Martin grinned, but merely said that he would drive the curricle to the stables. The Viscount ran down the steps, exclaiming wrathfully: ‘I’ll teach you to hoax me, Ger! What the devil have you been about?’

‘Minding my own business,’ replied Gervase, with one of his mischievous looks.

The Viscount helped him to descend from the curricle. ‘You deserve to be laid-up for a week! Let me tell you, I was just about to come in search of you!’

‘Unnecessary, Lucy! Martin was before you, and, as you see, has driven me home. I am not in the least knocked-up, I assure you.’

‘Just as well!’ said the Viscount. ‘There’s another on the sick-list now!’

‘Oh?’ said the Earl, beginning to mount the steps. ‘Who?’

‘Miss Morville. Fell downstairs, or something. Sick as a cushion!’

‘Miss Morville?’ said Gervase quickly. ‘Is she much hurt?’

‘Broken her arm. Can’t think how she came to do it!’

‘Good God!’ exclaimed Gervase, swiftly mounting the remaining steps.

‘They carried her into the Great Hall,’ said Ulverston, catching up with him. ‘But what’s all this, Ger? Come on, now! No humdudgeon! What tricks has that brother of yours been playing on you? Out with it!’

‘None at all. I’ll explain it to you presently, Lucy, but not now! Only don’t look daggers at Martin! It wasn’t he who tried to murder me!’

‘I suppose he told you so! Upon my word, Ger – ! And what about that Leek of his?’

‘Lucy, how can you be such a greenhorn?’ demanded Gervase, casting his hat and his gloves on to the settle in the vestibule. ‘Did you never see a Bow Street Runner before?’

He then strode towards the Great Hall, checked for an instant on the threshold, blinking at the unexpected number of persons assembled there, and then perceived Miss Morville, lying on one of the sofas, interestingly pale, and with one arm in a sling. She had raised herself from her supporting cushions, and was looking towards the doorway, so painful an expression of anxiety in her white face that the Earl forgot his surroundings, and, wholly ignoring everyone else in the Hall, quickly crossed the floor, exclaiming: ‘My poor dear! Why, what has happened to you, my poor child?’