“There is certainly no question of her going to Egypt just yet,” said the doctor when he came downstairs. “She seems to have got a sort of nervous breakdown. Can you account for it in any way?”
Susie had come home just before he arrived, and was apparently greatly fluttered by the scene of confusion that she found, but, in fact, she was secretly rejoiced. “It clears the whole thing up in the most wonderful way,” she thought. “Really it almost seems as if Providence did interfere sometimes.” She came into the drawing-room with the doctor and found Cyril and Evan talking with perfect friendliness. She put them both down in her thoughts as “extraordinarily lacking in all feeling,” but she expressed nothing but cheerful propriety.
“Really I don’t know,” she said, in answer to the doctor’s question. “Evan, Dr. Clark wants to know whether you can account for Evangeline having broken down like this. You were here with her, Cyril, when it happened. Do either of you know of anything?” Both were silent, waiting for the other to speak. “Well?” said Susie impatiently. “You see, I have been out, and she seemed to be all right when she arrived.”
“I think it had to do with her leaving Ivor behind,” said Cyril at last. “Really, my dear, you are a mother; you ought to understand these feelings. She was about to sail on a long voyage, remember.”
Susie blushed. “There has been the move too, of course,” she said to the doctor. “Everything was arranged in a great hurry and there was a great deal of packing up; and as she told you, she is not strong just now.”
“No,” he said, “there’s that. But I should have thought there was more in it. However, it is not my affair, and if it is a family matter you must do as you like. But whatever it is must be put right somehow, or you may have very serious consequences to deal with. I will come back to-morrow morning, unless you want me before then. But please try to set her mind at rest on whatever it is that is worrying her. It would be much better if you had a trained nurse.”
“Little Ivor’s nurse is a splendid woman,” said Susie. “She has had a hospital training, and Evangeline is used to her. Do you think she could manage?”
“No, I think not,” he said. “She seems to be worrying about the child as it is. Have him in the house with her and let her know he is within reach with his own nurse, and I’ll send you round another woman, if you don’t mind.”
Evangeline slept that evening under the influence of some medicine the doctor ordered, and Cyril and Evan were left alone after dinner, while the household were carrying out the numerous requirements of the nurse and preparing another couple of rooms for Ivor.
It had been decided that Evan must sail with his regiment, but so far nothing had been said about Ivor’s future. Presently Cyril remarked, “We had better settle now about the boy, Evan. It looks pretty clear to me that you have got to wait for him to find his level in the ordinary way at a preparatory school. There aren’t many years to wait, and I can promise you that there will be nothing morbid about him so long as he is under my roof. You see, if I had had a son I should have had to check his tendencies and all that, and he will quite likely mind what I say more than he would the old women of Cornwall.”