“Well! or forty-two. Anyway you will admit I took a hint very quickly. I am going to leave you alone with your Corydon.”
“Caliban!”
“He is not bad-looking really, it is only his clothes. And if anything comes of it you will send him to Poole’s. Anyway his feet and hands are all right, and there is a certain grace about his ungainliness.”
“Really, Ella, I can’t bear any more. Love runs in your head; feeds your activities, agrees with you. But as for me, I’ve long outgrown it. I am tired, old, ill. Peter Kennedy is just not objectionable. Other doctors are. He is honest, simple....”
“I will hear all about his qualities next time I come. Only don’t think you are deceiving me. God bless you, dear.” She turned suddenly serious. “You know I would not go if you wanted me to stop or if I were uneasy about you any more. You know I will come down again at any moment you want me. I shall miss my train if I don’t rush. Can I send you anything? I won’t forget the sofa rug, and if you think of anything else....” Her maid knocked at the door and said the flyman had called up to say she must come at once. Her last words were: “Well, good-bye again, and tell him I give my consent. Tell him he gave the show away himself. I have known about it ever since the first night I was here when he told me what an interesting woman you were....”
“Good-bye ... thanks for everything. I’m sorry you’ve got that mad idea in your silly head....” She was gone. I heard her voice outside the window giving directions to the man and then the crunch of the fly wheels on the gravel as she was driven away.
CHAPTER IV
That night, the very night after Ella had gone, I tested my slowly returning strength. Benham gave me my codein, and saw that I was well provided with all I might need for the night; the lemonade and glycerine lozenges, a second codein on the table by my side, the electric bell to my hand. This bell had been put up since the night nurse left; it rang into Benham’s bedroom. I waited for a quarter of an hour after she had gone, she had a habit of coming back to see if I had forgotten anything, or to show me how thick and abundant her hair was without the uniform cap. I should have felt like a criminal when I stole out of bed. But I did not, I felt like an invalid, and a feeble one at that. It was only a couple of steps from the bed to the chest of drawers and I accomplished it without mishap, then was back again in bed, only to remember the seals were still unbroken and the string firm. A pair of nail scissors were on the dressing-table. I was disinclined for the journey, but managed it all the same. I was then so exhausted I had to wait for a quarter of an hour before I was able to use them. Only then was my curiosity rewarded. A small number of letters, not more than fifteen or sixteen in all, a bound diary, a very cursory glance at which showed me the disingenuousness, and half a dozen pages of MS. notes or chapter headings with several trial titles, “Between the Nisi and the Absolute,” “Publisher and Sinner,” headed two separate pages. “The Story of an Unhappy Woman” the third. The notes were all in the first person, and I should have known them anywhere for Margaret Capel’s.
Small as the whole cache was, I did not think it possible I could get through it all that night. Neither did it seem possible to get out of bed again. The papers must remain where they were, or underneath my pillow. I should be strong enough, I hoped, by the morning to put up with or confront any wrath or argument Benham would advance.
I had got up because I chose. That was the beginning and end of it. She must learn to put up with my ways, or I with a change of nurse.