He turned to her, slightly surprised. "Of course, Elinor."
"I want you, if you will, to follow my advice."
"And what is your advice?"
Elinor said calmly, "You are not particularly tied? You can always get a holiday, can't you?"
"Oh, yes."
"Then do - just that. Go abroad somewhere for - say, three months. Go by yourself. Make new friends and see new places. Let's speak quite frankly. At this moment you think you're in love with Mary Gerrard. Perhaps you are. But it isn't a moment for approaching her - you know that only too well. Our engagement is definitely broken off. Go abroad, then, as a free man, and at the end of the three months, as a free man, make up your mind. You'll know then whether you - really love Mary or whether it was only a temporary infatuation. And if you are quite sure you do love her - well, then, come back and go to her and tell her so, and that you're quite sure about it, and perhaps then she'll listen."
Roddy came to her. He caught her hand in his.
"Elinor, you're wonderful! So clear-headed! So marvellously impersonal! There's no trace of pettiness or meanness about you. I admire you more than I can ever say. I'll do exactly what you suggest. Go away, cut free from everything - and find out whether I've got the genuine disease or if I've just been making the most ghastly fool of myself. Oh, Elinor, my dear, you don't know how truly fond I am of you. I do realize you were always a thousand times too good for me. Bless you, dear, for all your goodness."
Quickly, impulsively, he kissed her and went out.
It was as well, perhaps, that he did not look back and see her face.
III
It was a couple of days later that Mary acquainted Nurse Hopkins with her improved prospects.
That practical woman was warmly congratulatory. "That's a great piece of luck for you, Mary," she said. "The old lady may have meant well by you, but unless a thing's down in black and white, intentions don't go for much! You might easily have got nothing at all."
"Miss Elinor said that the night Mrs. Welman died she told her to do something for me."
Nurse Hopkins snorted. "Maybe she did. But there's many would have forgotten conveniently afterward. Relations are like that. I've seen a few things, I can tell you! People dying and saying they know they can leave it to their dear son or their dear daughter to carry out their wishes. Nine times out of ten, dear son and dear daughter find some very good reason to do nothing of the kind. Human nature's human nature, and nobody likes parting with money if they're not legally compelled to! I tell you, Mary, my girl, you've been lucky. Miss Carlisle's straighter than most."
Mary said slowly, "And yet - somehow -I feel she doesn't like me."
"With good reason, I should say," said Nurse Hopkins bluntly. "Now, don't look so innocent, Mary! Mr. Roderick's been making sheep's eyes at you for some time now."
Mary went red.
Nurse Hopkins went on: "He's got it badly, in my opinion. Fell for you all of a sudden. What about you, my girl? Got any feeling for him?"
Mary said hesitatingly, "I -I don't know. I don't think so. But, of course, he's very nice."
"H'm," said Nurse Hopkins. "He wouldn't be my fancy! One of those men who are finicky and a bundle of nerves. Fussy about their food, too, as likely as not. Men aren't much at the best of times. Don't be in too much of a hurry, Mary, my dear. With your looks you can afford to pick and choose. Nurse O'Brien passed the remark to me the other day that you ought to go on the films. They like blondes, I've always heard."
Mary said, with a slight frown creasing her forehead, "Nurse, what do you think I ought to do about Father? He thinks I ought to give some of this money to him."
"Don't you do anything of the kind," said Nurse Hopkins wrathfully. "Mrs. Welman never meant that money for him. It's my opinion he'd have lost his job years ago if it hadn't been for you. A lazier man never stepped!"
Mary said, "It seems funny when she'd all that money that she never made a will to say how it was to go."
Nurse Hopkins shook her head. "People are like that. You'd be surprised. Always putting it off."
Mary said, "It seems downright silly to me."
Nurse Hopkins said with a faint twinkle, "Made a will yourself, Mary?"
Mary stared at her. "Oh, no."
"And yet you're over twenty-one."
"But I -I haven't got anything to leave - at least I suppose I have now."
Nurse Hopkins said sharply, "Of course you have. And a nice tidy little sum, too."
Mary said, "Oh, well, there's no hurry."
"There you go," said Nurse Hopkins dryly. "Just like everyone else. Because you're a healthy young girl isn't a reason why you shouldn't be smashed up in a charabanc or a bus, or run over in the street, any minute."
Mary laughed. She said, "I don't even know how to make a will."
"Easy enough. You can get a form at the post office. Let's go and get one right away."
In Nurse Hopkins's cottage the form was spread out and the important matter discussed. Nurse Hopkins was enjoying herself thoroughly. A will, as she said, was next best to a death, in her opinion.
Mary said, "Who'd get the money if I didn't make a will?" Nurse Hopkins said rather doubtfully, "Your father, I suppose."
Mary said sharply, "He shan't have it. I'd rather leave it to my auntie in New Zealand."
"It wouldn't be much use leaving it to your father, anyway - he's not long for this world, I should say."
Mary had heard Nurse Hopkins make this kind of pronouncement too often to be impressed by it.
"I can't remember my auntie's address. We've not heard from her for years."
"I don't suppose that matters," said Nurse Hopkins. "You know her Christian name?"
"Mary. Mary Riley."
"That's all right. Put down you leaving everything to Mary Riley, sister of the late Eliza Gerrard of Hunterbury, Maidensford."
Mary bent over the form, writing. As she came to the end she shivered suddenly. A shadow had come between her and the sun. She looked up to see Elinor Carlisle standing outside the window looking in.
Elinor said, "What are you doing so busily?''
Nurse Hopkins said with a laugh, "She's making her will, that's what she's doing."
"Making her will?" Suddenly Elinor laughed-a strange laugh - almost hysterical.
She said, "So you're making your will, Mary. That's funny. That's very funny." Still laughing, she turned away and walked rapidly along the street.
Nurse Hopkins stared. "Did you ever? What's come to her?" IV
Elinor had not taken more than half a dozen steps - she was still laughing - when a hand fell on her arm from behind. She stopped abruptly and turned. Dr. Lord looked straight at her, his brow creased into a frown. He said peremptorily, "What were you laughing at?"
Elinor said, "Really -I don't know."
Peter Lord said, "That's rather a silly answer!"
Elinor flushed. She said, "I think I must be nervous or something. I looked in at the District Nurse's cottage and - and Mary Gerrard was writing out her will. It made me laugh; I don't know why!"
Lord said abruptly, "Don't you?"
Elinor said, "It was silly of me -I tell you - I'm nervous."
Peter Lord said, "I'll write you out a tonic."
Elinor said incisively, "How useful!"
He grinned disarmingly. "Quite useless, I agree. But it's the only thing one can do when people won't tell one what is the matter with them!"
Elinor said, "There's nothing the matter with me."
Peter Lord said calmly, "There's quite a lot the matter with you."
Elinor said, "I've had a certain amount of nervous strain I suppose."
He said, "I expect you've had quite a lot. But that's not what I'm talking about." He paused. "Are you - are you staying down here much longer?"
"I'm leaving tomorrow." "You won't - live down here?"
Elinor shook her head. "No - never. I think -I think -I shall sell the place if I can get a good offer."
Dr. Lord said rather flatly, "I see."
Elinor said, "I must be getting home now."
She held out her hand very firmly. Peter Lord took it. He held it. He said very earnestly, "Miss Carlisle, will you please tell me what was in your mind when you laughed just now?"
She wrenched her hand away quickly. "What should there be in my mind?"
"That's what I'd like to know."
His face was grave and a little unhappy.
Elinor said impatiently, "It just struck me as funny, that was all!"
"That Mary Gerrard was making a will? Why? Making a will is a perfectly sensible procedure. Saves a lot of trouble. Sometimes, of course, it makes trouble!"
Elinor said impatiently, "Of course - everyone should make a will. I didn't mean that."
Dr. Lord said, "Mrs. Welman ought to have made a will."
Elinor said with feeling, "Yes, indeed."
The colour rose in her face.
Dr. Lord said unexpectedly, "What about you?"
"Me?"
"Yes, you said just now everyone should make a will! Have you?"
Elinor stared at him for a minute, then she laughed. "How extraordinary!" she said. "No, I haven't. I hadn't thought of it! I'm just like Aunt Laura. Do you know, Dr. Lord, I shall go home and write to Mr. Seddon about it at once."
Peter Lord said, "Very sensible."
V
In the library Elinor had just finished a letter:
DEAR Mr. Seddon, - Will you draft a will for me to sign? Quite a simple one. I want to leave everything to Roderick Welman absolutely.
Yours sincerely,
Elinor Carlisle.
She glanced at the clock. The post would be going in a few minutes. She opened the drawer of the desk, then remembered she had used the last stamp that morning. There were some in her bedroom she was sure. She went upstairs. When she re-entered the library with the stamp in her hand, Roddy was standing by the window.
He said, "So we leave here tomorrow. Good old Hunterbury. We've had some good times here."
Elinor said, "Do you mind its being sold?"
"Oh, no, no! I quite see it's the best thing to be done."
There was a silence. Elinor picked up her letter, glanced through it to see if it was all right. Then she sealed and stamped it.
Chapter 6
Letter from Nurse O'Brien to Nurse Hopkins, July 14th: Laborough Court.
Dear Hopkins,
Have been meaning to write to you for some days now. This is a lovely house and the pictures, I believe, quite famous. But I can't say it's as comfortable as Hunterbury was, if you know what I mean. Being in the dead country it's difficult to get maids, and the girls they have got are a raw lot, and some of them not too obliging, and though I'm sure I'm never one to give trouble, meals sent up on a tray should at least be hot, and no facilities for boiling a kettle and the tea not always made with boiling water! Still, all that's neither here nor there. The patient's a nice quiet gentleman - double pneumonia, but the crisis is past.
What I've got to tell you that will really interest you is the very queerest coincidence you ever knew. In the drawingroom, on the grand piano, there's a photograph in a big silver frame, and would you believe it, it's the same photograph that I told you about - the one signed Lewis that old Mrs. Welman asked for.
Well, of course I was intrigued - and who wouldn't be? And I asked the butler who it was, which he answered at once saying it was Lady Rattery's brother - Sir Lewis Rycroft. He lived not far from here, and he was killed in the War. Very sad, wasn't it? I asked casual like was he married, and the butler said yes, but that Lady Rycroft went into an asylum, poor thing, soon after the marriage. She was still alive, he said. Now, isn't that interesting? And we were quite wrong, you see, in all our ideas. They must have been very fond of each other, he and Mrs. W., and unable to marry because of the wife being in an asylum. Just like the pictures, isn't it? And her remembering all those years and looking at his photograph just before she died. He was killed in 1917, the butler said. Quite a romance, that's what I feel.
No movies anywhere near here! Oh, it's awful to be buried in the country. No wonder they can't get decent maids!
Well, good-by for the present, dear, write and tell me all the news.
Yours sincerely,
ElLEEN O'BRIEN.
Letter from Nurse Hopkins to Nurse O'Brien, July 14th: Rose Cottage.
Dear O'BRIEN,
Everything goes on here much as usual. Hunterbury is deserted - all the servants gone and a board up: For Sale. I saw Mrs. Bishop the other day, she is staying with her sister who lives about a mile away. She was very upset, as you can imagine, at the place being sold. It seems she made sure Miss Carlisle would marry Mr. Welman and live there. Mrs. B. says that the engagement is off! Miss Carlisle went to London soon after you left. She was very peculiar in her manner once or twice. I really didn't know what to make of her! Mary Gerrard has gone to London and is starting to train for a masseuse. Very sensible of her, I think. Miss Carlisle's going to settle two thousand pounds on her, which I call very handsome and more than what many would do.
By the way, it's funny how things come about. Do you remember telling me something about a photograph signed Lewis that Mrs. Welman showed you? I was having a chat the other day with Mrs. Slattery (she was housekeeper to old Dr. Ransome who had the practice before Dr. Lord), and of course she's lived here all her life and knows a lot about the gentry round about. I just brought the subject up in a casual manner, speaking of Christian names and saying that the name of Lewis was uncommon and among others she mentioned Sir Lewis Rycroft over at Forbes Park. He served in the War in the 17th Lancers and was killed toward the end of the War. So I said he was a great friend of Mrs. Welman's at Hunterbury, wasn't he? And at once she gave me a look and said, Yes, very close friends they'd been, and some said more than friends, but that she herself wasn't one to talk - and why shouldn't they befriends? So I said but surely Mrs. Welman was a widow at the time, and she said. Oh, yes, she was a widow. So, dear, I saw at once she meant something by that, so I said it was odd then, that they'd never married, and she said at once, "They couldn't marry. He'd got a wife in an asylum!" So now, you see, we know all about it! Curious the way things come about, isn't it? Considering the easy way you get divorces nowadays, it does seem a shame that insanity shouldn't have been a ground for it then. Do you remember a good-looking young chap, Ted Bigland, who used to hang around after Mary Gerrard a lot? He's been at me for her address in London, but I haven't given it to him. In my opinion, Mary's a cut above Ted Bigland. I don't know if you realized it, dear, but Mr. R - - W - - was taken with her. A pity, because it's made trouble. Mark my words, that's the reason for the engagement between him and Miss Carlisle being off. And, if you ask me, it's hit her badly. I don't know what she saw in him, I'm sure - he wouldn't have been my cup of tea, but I hear from reliable sources that she's always been madly in love with him. It does seem a mix-up, doesn't it? And she's got all that money, too. I believe he was always led to expect his aunt would leave him something substantial.
