The Blue Diamond

by Annie Haynes

  “The Cottage Hospital is out of the question,” Sir Arthur interrupted brusquely. “I beg your pardon, doctor. But this young lady is in some sort our guest. We could not entertain such a suggestion for an instant. Still, if you think she requires further care, by all means let her have a trained nurse here. Can you get one for us?”

  Dr. Grieve stroked his chin thoughtfully.

  “They can’t spare one at the Cottage Hospital, I am sure of that. I might telegraph to Exeter, but I doubt our being able to get one from there to-day. I know they are very busy. Well, we must do our best.”

  Garth Davenant had taken no part in the conversation after the first; he had been looking abstractedly through the window and fidgeting about from one foot to the other, but as the doctor spoke his face lighted up. He turned round.

  “Upon my word, I believe I can help you there, doctor. You remember Mary Marston?”

  “Yes, I remember Mary—she has been trained at one of the London hospitals. You don’t mean—‘‘

  “She is at home now, I know—or was yesterday afternoon. She has been nursing on her own account lately—has severed her connection with the hospital, I believe. She has been at home for a holiday, but I heard she was anxious to be at work again. I dare say she would come.”

  “The very thing!” Dr. Grieve exclaimed. “If you approve, Sir Arthur, you could send for her. She could come up to-day and the worst of our difficulty would be over.”

  “Certainly,” Arthur said heartily. “I remember Mary Marston well; she was always a nice, reliable woman. My mother will like it better than having a stranger.”

  “I will go down and ask her to come if you like,” Garth interposed.

  “The very thing!” the doctor said again as he rose.

  “Then you will tell her to be here as soon as she can, Mr. Davenant?”

  “One moment, doctor,” Garth went on, as the little man turned to the door. “Wouldn’t you be inclined to suggest a consultation? It seems to me such a strange case!”

  Dr. Grieve did not look quite pleased.

  “Not the least necessity for that! Any doctor would only tell you, as I do, that rest and quiet are the best things for her. We can do no more at present. Ah, here comes Miss Dorothy! My dear, you are a sight for sore eyes this morning!” as the girl, looking very fresh and sweet in her simple morning-gown, came running down the stairs.

  She laughed and blushed.

  “You have not forgotten how to pay compliments, I see, Dr. Grieve. Mavis, Aunt Laura wants you for one moment,” with a laughing glance at Garth, whose expression at the moment was by no means attractive.

  The long morning with Mavis upon which he had been reckoning was out of the question now, and his stay at Lockford was limited. But the cause of his dissatisfaction lay deeper than the mere disappointment; the more he heard of it the more inexplicable did the discovery of last night appear to him, and the less did he relish the idea of this unknown girl being brought into daily contact with Mavis.

  Mavis’s whispered promise to come down again when he returned from Nurse Marston’s house served to dissipate the clouds for the moment, however, and while she ran upstairs he turned to Dr. Grieve, and, chatting with him, turned down the steps.

  Arthur was left alone with his cousin; he crossed to her as she stood near the fireplace with Nero lying at her feet, his eyes upturned with an expression of ridiculous devotion.

  “Dorothy, I wanted to ask you—”

  The girl’s eyes glanced round nervously; the pretty faint colour in her cheeks flickered.

  “I—I don’t think I must stay now, Arthur. I told Aunt Laura I would sit with that poor girl a while this morning. Dr. Grieve says she ought not to be left alone.”

  “That is very good of you!” Arthur said heartily. Not for a moment did he glance at the girl’s downcast face—his eyes were straying absently to the door and watching Dr. Grieve as he bent down from his dog-cart for a last word with Garth Davenant. “It was about her that I wanted to speak to you,” he went on. “Have you seen her already? How does she strike you this morning?”

  “I hardly know,” Dorothy said, vaguely chilled by his manner. “She has not spoken when I have been in the room, and Minnie says that for the most part she lies quite still with her eyes wide open, though every now and then she will moan or cry mournfully to herself.”

  Her cousin’s face looked very pitiful.

  “Poor girl! I wish we could do more for her.”

  “It is very queer that we cannot hear of her friends,” Dorothy said thoughtfully. “She is very pretty, Arthur.”

  “It is the most beautiful face I have ever seen!” he declared enthusiastically. “The features are perfect, and her colouring—did you notice what glorious masses of hair? Just the colour Titian would have loved to paint! One can only imagine what she would be like in health; but even last night—” He broke off suddenly. “Well, I must not keep you from her, Dorothy. If she will only let me paint her later on—”

  For in the intervals unoccupied by his different crazes he was wont to devote himself to painting, and was by no means destitute of artistic abilities.

  The vague unrest in Dorothy’s eyes deepened, her lips quivered a little.

  “It—oh, I should think she will!” she said simply. “For the Elaine, you mean, don’t you? I—we must all try to persuade her, Arthur.”

  “Thank you! Hasn’t she exactly the ideal face for which I have been waiting? I knew you would understand,” he said heartily. “Thank you for all you are doing for her, Dorothy.”

  Chapter Four

  “MINNIE, can I speak to her ladyship?” said the nurse.

  The maid looked doubtful.

  “Her ladyship has just gone downstairs; she told Mrs. Parkyns and me to see that you had all you wanted.”

  The nurse paused a moment in indecision. She was a pleasant, capable-looking woman, nearly thirty years of age, with dark hair, already beginning to be streaked with grey, drawn back from her face and braided smoothly beneath her cap. “It isn’t anything of that kind. I have everything I need, thank you. But I should like to speak to her.”

  Minnie shook her head as the sound of wheels became audible.

  “It is no use now. We have a big dinner-party to-night and the guests are arriving. I couldn’t go to her ladyship. If Miss Mavis—”

  “Miss Mavis wouldn’t do,” Nurse Marston said decidedly, frowning as if in perplexity. “I must see her ladyship to-night. It is about my patient.”

  “Is she worse?” the girl asked in consternation. “We thought she was going on so nicely, and Dr. Grieve said—

  “She is doing very well,” the nurse said absently. “It wasn’t about that I wanted to speak. It—well, I suppose you know how to keep a still tongue in your head, Minnie?”

  “I should hope I do,” returned Minnie in an affronted tone. “I should hardly have risen from waiting on the schoolroom to being Miss Mavis’s own maid if I didn’t, let me tell you that, nurse.”

  “Well, well, I dare say you wouldn’t,” conceded the nurse in a conciliatory tone. “The fact of the matter is I am so bothered that I hardly know what I am saying or what to do. But I understand that nothing has been found out about my patient, or who she is, since I saw Dr. Grieve this morning?”

  “Not a word. I heard Sir Arthur tell Miss Mavis as much not half an hour ago on this very spot,” glancing down the corridor and at the door leading into the pink- room, which the nurse had carefully closed behind her when she came out. “None of the people around here know anything of her, and nobody seems to have met her on the way or seen her come into the park. We can’t see daylight in it—not Sir Arthur or any of us,” concluded Minnie breathlessly.

  The nurse bit her lips nervously and glanced at the closed door behind her.

  “Minnie, it is in this way—if nobody else has seen that young lady before, I believe I have,” she whispered. “Now you know that I must see her ladyship to-night and why.”
r />   Minnie’s eyes opened to their fullest extent.

  “You don’t mean it, nurse! Are you sure?”

  “Sure enough!” the nurse replied with a significant nod. “We come across many folk, do we nurses, and little think how we shall see them again, some of them.”

  “But where did you see her? Do you know who she is?” asked Minnie.

  “I don’t know who she is, any more than you do yourself, but I may know what will lead to its being found out!’ the nurse replied enigmatically. “That will do, Minnie—the rest is for her ladyship’s ear only. Now, can you get a message to her? Tell her Nurse Marston must speak to her, and alone, to-night.”

  “I don’t quite see how it is to be managed,” debated Minnie slowly, “but I will do my best. I’ll speak to Mr. Jenkins—or perhaps it would be better if you wrote a bit of a note, nurse, so as to let Mr. Jenkins give it to her ladyship.”

  Nurse Marston hesitated a moment; then she tore a leaf from the notebook hanging at her side, and, after hastily scribbling a line or two, folded it up and handed it to the girl.

  “There, if you can get that to her!” she said.

  “I will try. And—and”—Minnie detained her—“won’t you tell me a bit more, nurse?” wheedlingly.

  “Not a word!” said the nurse positively. “I dare say I’ve said more than I ought now.”

  “But—”

  With her finger on her lips to enjoin silence, and with a farewell nod, the nurse turned the door-handle and slipped quietly into her patient’s room.

  Minnie went slowly down the passage, stopping a moment to peep over the banisters and get a glimpse of the gaily-attired ladies who were passing through the hall below before she made her way to the backstairs to perform Nurse Marston’s errand.

  With the note in her hand she tapped lightly at the door of the housekeeper’s room, blushing as she caught the sound of voices and saw a man standing with his back to her when she entered.

  “I’ve come with a message from the nurse to her ladyship. Could you send it to her, do you think, Mrs. Parkyns?” holding it out.

  The housekeeper looked important.

  “Well, I think I might take it on myself, seeing it is marked ‘Immediate.’ You wait a minute, Minnie. I will speak to Mr. Jenkins.”

  She bustled off and Minnie was left tête-à-tête with her sweetheart.

  Mr. Gregory was distinctly inclined to make the most of his opportunity; he caught hold of Minnie round the waist with both hands before the girl had time to raise any objection.

  “Well, and what have you been doing with yourself all day, Minnie?” he said. “Not talking to Mr. Thomas Greyson, I hope?”

  Minnie raised her eyes reproachfully.

  “Jim, how can you? As if I should! I have been sitting with the poor young lady they found in the park last night for the biggest part of the day.”

  Gregory held her from him at arm’s length.

  “That’s why your eyes look heavy,” he declared. “I can’t have you put upon. What is the good of that fine nursing madam that I saw talking for a good half-hour to Mr. Garth Davenant in the avenue this afternoon if she can’t look after the lady herself?”

  “Oh, I haven’t had anything to do since Nurse Marston came—” Minnie was beginning.

  Gregory interrupted her, his eyes regarding her keenly from beneath his narrowed lids.

  “Nurse—what did you say her name was—Marston?”

  “Yes, Marston. She is Mrs. Marston’s daughter down at Lockford. Do you know her, Jim? She has been in London.”

  “Not that I know of,” he said carelessly. “Mr. Garth seemed pretty thick with her this afternoon, to my way of thinking. That note you gave Mrs. Parkyns was from her, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. She wants to see her ladyship most particular to-night,” said Minnie, forgetting her promise. “Something about the young lady—”

  Jim glanced obliquely at her a moment.

  “What about her? She doesn’t know anything of her, this Nurse Marston, does she?”

  “She thinks she does, but I don’t know what. She said she wouldn’t tell anyone but her ladyship,” Minnie said carelessly; then in an altered tone, “There! She charged me I wasn’t to say a word to anybody and here I am telling you all about it!”

  “Don’t you fret yourself, I shan’t say anything. For the matter of that, telling you is the same thing as telling me, for ain’t you and me going to be one, Minnie?” responded Mr. Gregory, his clasp growing tighter. “I have got something better than that to talk about to-night. There’s a little cottage down against the common at Lockford to let. How’d that do—Ah, Mrs. Parkyns, you do come into the room quiet! I never so much as heard a step!”

  The housekeeper laughed meaningly.

  “Ay, maybe I am a bit too quiet for some folks! Bless me, Minnie, there’s no need to put yourself about!” for the girl had sprung away from Gregory and thrown up her hands to her flaming face. “We have all of us been young once, my lass. Where are you off to now, may I ask?”

  “There’s some lace to be put on Miss Mavis’s gown for to-morrow,” faltered Minnie. “I—I must be off, Mrs. Parkyns.”

  “And her ladyship’s message to the nurse?” remarked the housekeeper, chuckling at the girl’s confusion. “There, if I don’t believe you have forgot all about it! What can you be thinking of, I wonder!” with a laugh at Gregory. “Her ladyship says if Nurse Marston’s business is very important she is to come to her in the small library when all the guests are gone. She does not think they will be very late to-night.”

  “The small library? I haven’t seen that, I think,” Gregory remarked, moving a little nearer the girl but keeping his eyes on the housekeeper.

  “Well, I dare say you haven’t,” she remarked a trifle condescendingly. “It hasn’t been, so to speak, in general use, though it has been kept aired, since Sir Noel died. He always sat there in the morning when he was indoors. It is that small room that opens into the conservatory to the right of the drawing-room.”

  “Oh, ah, I think I have seen it,” Jim said absently, edging nearer the door through which Minnie had already vanished. “I’ll be pleased to do what I can for you at any time, Mrs. Parkyns; but if there is nothing more tonight—”

  “I should be sorry to keep you if there was,” the housekeeper said with a significant laugh. “You are to let us have the cattleyas for the table to-morrow night, Sir Arthur said.”

  “Very good, m’m,” and Jim made his escape without, more ado.

  In the wide stone-flagged passage outside he caught a glimpse of Minnie’s black skirt as she hurried round the corner, and gave chase at once.

  “Why, Minnie,” he said reproachfully as he came up with her, “you are never going off like this without a word? I want to talk to you about that Cottage; but I haven’t finished with Mrs. Parkyns yet. However, you come round while they are at dinner and I will tell you all about it.”

  Minnie looked frightened.

  “I don’t know as I dare. It would be as much as my place is worth if her ladyship or Mrs. Parkyns got to hear of it.”

  “You won’t need to keep the place much longer if we settle on the cottage,” Jim reminded her. “You must come, Minnie; there’s the dearest little sitting-room and the regular picture of a kitchen.”

  Minnie hesitated, but the wish to hear more of her future home overcame her scruples.

  “Well, just this once,” she conceded. “You won’t keep me long, Jim?”

  A light gleamed in the man’s eyes.

  “Not a minute longer than you want to stop, Minnie. Now I must go back to Mrs. Parkyns.”

  Minnie’s face was still flushed as she walked slowly up the backstairs; half-way down the corridor leading to the sick-room one of the other maids ran after her.

  “This parcel has just come up from Lockford for Nurse Marston; will you give it to her, Minnie?”

  Minnie took it and tapped at the pink-room door.

  “Her
ladyship will see you in the small library when the guests have gone, nurse,” she announced. “This has come for you.”

  Nurse Marston stepped into the passage, pulling the door to behind her.

  “Ah, my things for the night!” she said as she took the parcel from the girl’s hands. “Mother said she would send them; but I don’t think I shall go to bed, though they have given me this room,” nodding to the door of that next the one occupied by her patient. “However, I can’t decide that till I have seen her ladyship. But I will put my things out”—unfastening the parcel—“and here’s my knitting. If I do sit up I like a bit of work in my hand, and I am anxious to get mother’s stockings done before winter. I knit them all myself, Minnie.”

  “Do you really?” The girl looked much impressed. “You will ring if you want anything, nurse,” she went on. “Wright will bring your supper up; and I will let you know when the folk are going.”

  “Thank you, Minnie!” the nurse responded as she laid her modest belongings in the big wardrobe and the drawers that looked so ludicrously out of proportion with their contents.

  A few minutes later she was back with her patient, who was apparently asleep, and stood regarding her with a puzzled expression.

  “I cannot be mistaken,” she murmured, “and yet—”

  She shrugged her shoulders as she crossed the room and, taking her knitting in her hand, sat down before the fire, watching the flames with absent eyes, while her fingers clicked the steel pins with mechanical regularity.

  She had scarcely moved, save to give her patient the required nourishment, when several hours later Mavis tapped at the door.

  “You wanted to see mother, nurse,” she began. “The people are going now, so if you—”

  The nurse came softly across the room.

  “I would go at once, Miss Mavis, but Minnie promised to come and sit with the young lady while I went. I hardly care to leave her alone.”

  Mavis came into the room.