The Reluctant Widow Read online

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Nicky said, with a warning glance cast in Elinor’s direction. ‘Well, what’s the damage? It’s only a scratch, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ay, you were born under a lucky star, sir, as I have told you before,’ said Greenlaw, opening a case of horrid-looking instruments.

  ‘Yes, when I fell off the stable-roof, and broke my leg,’ said Nicky, eyeing his preparations with some misgiving. ‘What are you meaning to do to me, you murderer?’

  ‘I must extract the ball, Mr Nicky, and I fear I shall hurt you a trifle. Some hot water, ma’am, if I might trouble you!’

  ‘I have it here,’ Elinor said, picking up the brass can from before the fire, and hoping that she did not look as queasy as she was beginning to feel.

  But she and Nicky alike underwent the ordeal with great fortitude, Elinor by dint of turning her eyes away from the doctor’s probing hands, and Nicky by gritting his teeth, and bracing every muscle. The doctor encouraged them both with a gentle flow of irrelevant conversation to which neither attended. Elinor was glad to discover that he was deft and quick. The ball was not deeply lodged, and was soon extracted, and the wound washed, and dressed with basilicum powder. Greenlaw bound it up comfortably, measured out a cordial, and obliged Nicky to swallow it. ‘There, you will do very well, sir!’ he said, drawing the bedclothes over his patient. ‘I shan’t bleed you.’

  ‘No, that you won’t!’ retorted Nicky, faint but indomitable.

  ‘Until to-morrow,’ finished Greenlaw grimly.

  He then beckoned Elinor out of the room, gave her a few instructions, told her that as Nicky would in all probability sleep soundly now for several hours she might as well go back to her bed, and, after promising to return later in the day, took himself off. Nicky did indeed seem sleepy, so as soon as she had taken the precaution of locking the door into the room that gave access to the secret stair, Elinor retired to her own room again, and once more went to bed.

  It was long before she slept, however. Setting aside his desperate behaviour, the return of her mysterious visitor most seriously alarmed her. That he did indeed want something from Highnoons was now established, and since his conduct clearly indicated that he would stop at nothing to obtain it she was unable to view with the smallest equanimity a continued sojourn in the house. The scutter of a mouse across the floor made her jump nearly out of her skin, and she was kept awake for a long time by an uncontrollable anxiety to strain her ears on the chance of catching any alien noise in the house. Her dreams, when she did at last fall asleep, were troubled, and she arose in the morning feeling very little rested, and considerably incensed with Carlyon for having placed her at Highnoons.

  Nicky, whom she found sitting up in bed and partaking of a substantial breakfast, seemed to be little the worse for his adventure. Mrs Barrow had fashioned a sling for his left arm, and whenever he did not need the use of this arm he gratified her by slipping it into the sling. He too had been thinking over the night’s adventure, and he greeted Elinor with the pleasing suggestion that his assailant had been a French spy.

  ‘A spy!’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh, do not say so!’

  ‘Well, one of Boney’s agents,’ he amended. ‘John says he has any number of them, and we do not know them all by any means.’

  ‘But what should a French agent want with your cousin?’

  ‘I don’t know, and, to tell you the truth, I should not have thought Eustace was the kind of fellow to be of the least use to anyone,’ he replied. ‘But depend upon it, that is what it is!’ He inserted a generous portion of cold beef into his mouth, and added, somewhat thickly: ‘I dare say we have not seen the last of that fellow, not by a very long way. Why, for anything we know we have stumbled upon a really bang-up adventure!’

  It was plain that he viewed the prospect with enthusiasm. Elinor could not share it. She said, with a shiver: ‘I wish you will not talk so! If it were true, only consider what might happen to us in this dreadful house!’

  ‘Just what I was thinking,’ nodded Nicky, spreading mustard over another portion of beef. ‘There is no saying indeed! I shall stay here.’

  ‘Well, I shall not!’ declared Elinor tartly. ‘I have no desire to lead a life of such adventure!’

  ‘You would not like to catch one of Boney’s agents?’ said Nicky incredulously.

  ‘Not at all. I should not know what to do with him if I did. Yes, I should, though! I should set your horrid dog to guard him!’

  ‘Yes, and he would do so, wouldn’t he?’ grinned Nicky. ‘Oh, Cousin Elinor, would you be so very obliging as to let the old fellow out of the stables? I told Barrow to do so, but he would not. He is a paltry creature!’

  ‘Will he bite me if I do?’ demanded Elinor.

  ‘Oh, I should not think he would do so!’ Nicky said encouragingly. ‘But pray do not let him make off! I should not like Sir Matthew’s curst keepers to shoot him.’

  ‘I should!’ retorted Elinor, going off to release the prisoner.

  Bouncer, so far from offering to bite her, greeted her as a benefactress from whom he had been parted for years. He jumped up at her several times, barking on a high, ear-splitting note, dashed three times round the stable-yard at speed, and finally brought her an unwieldy branch of wood which he seemed to think she might like to throw for him. She declined to enter upon a sport of which, she guessed, he would not readily tire, and invited him to accompany her to the house. Picking up his branch, he trotted along beside her. He would have carried his toy into the hall had she not prevented him. Since he remained deaf to her adjurations to him to drop it, she laid hold of one end, and tried to pull it away from him. Pleased that she was ready to play a game he knew and liked, he threw himself whole-heartedly into a tug-of-war, growling in a blood-curdling way, and wagging his tail furiously. Fortunately, since Elinor was no match for him, the groom came round the corner of the house just then, and Bouncer, perceiving him, let go of the branch in order to chase him back to his proper quarters. Elinor hastily threw the branch into a thicket of brambles. Bouncer soon returned to her, prancing along in the manner of a dog who has acquitted himself well, and cocked his ears at her expectantly. He consented to accompany her into the house, but obviously thought poorly of her taste in choosing to be indoors on a fine morning. But when she took him upstairs to Nicky’s room nothing could have exceeded his joy at being reunited with the master whom he had not seen for ten hours. He leaped up on to the bed, uttering screaming barks, and ecstatically licked Nicky’s face. After that, being forcibly adjured thereto, he jumped down again, cast himself down by the fire, and lay panting.

  ‘What he needs, of course, is a good run,’ said Nicky, fondly regarding him.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ said Elinor politely.

  ‘I was only thinking, cousin, that if you did happen to be going out for a walk you might like to take him with you,’ he explained.

  ‘I know that that is what you were thinking,’ she returned. ‘I am well able to imagine what that walk would be like, I thank you!’

  ‘Oh, but he is quite well-behaved now!’ Nicky assured her. ‘I have very nearly trained him not to kill chickens, or chase sheep, and if only you do not meet any other dogs you will not have the least trouble with him.’

  ‘He has already had a very nice run, chasing the groom,’ said Elinor hard-heartedly. ‘And I do not mean to go out walking to-day.’

  ‘Oh, well, I dare say I shall be able to take him myself presently!’ he said.

  ‘You will not get up to-day!’

  ‘Not get up? Good God, of course I shall! There is nothing amiss with me beyond this hole in my shoulder!’

  She extracted a promise that at least he would not get up until Dr Greenlaw had seen him, and went off to confer with Mrs Barrow. By the time she had emerged from the kitchen the doctor’s gig was at the door, and he was taking off his greatcoat in the hall. She was able to give him a comfort