The Quiet Gentleman Read online

  Fortunately, Miss Morville, at this perilous moment, stirred, and uttered a faint moan, which distracted everyone’s attention from the rival valets. Turvey at once picked up the sal volatile, and skilfully raised her sufficiently to enable her to swallow, while Mr Leek, not to be outdone, held her broken arm. At first she paid no heed to Turvey’s request to her to open her mouth, but he persevered, and after a minute or two she seemed to collect herself, for she whispered something, and opened her eyes. Turvey then obliged her to drink the restorative, and she said, quite distinctly: ‘Oh, my head hurts me so!’

  Turvey laid her down again, and turned away to direct one of the maids to procure a bowl of water, and some cloths.

  ‘Martin!’ uttered Miss Morville. ‘No! Don’t let him go!’

  ‘That’s right, miss!’ said Mr Leek hastily. ‘No one won’t let him go nowhere! Don’t you raise a breeze now!’

  She raised one wavering hand to her head, but, to his relief, said no more. When the water was brought, and a wet cloth was laid over her brow, it was perceived that she had quite regained her senses, for she murmured a thank-you, and seemed perfectly to understand Turvey when he informed her that she had broken her arm, and must lie still until the doctor arrived to set the bone.

  Long before Dr Malpas reached Stanyon, the Dowager had been made aware of the fresh disaster which had overtaken her, and had descended the stairs to the Great Hall. She expressed concern over her young friend’s plight, and said that she did not understand how such a thing could have happened. She then announced her intention of sending a message instantly to Gilbourne House, and of herself remaining beside the sufferer.

  ‘I should not wish Mrs Morville to feel that any attention had been grudged,’ she said. ‘But I do not know why there should be so many persons here. I do not understand how you came to allow it, Marple.’

  This remark caused everyone except the housekeeper, Turvey, and her ladyship’s own maid, to withdraw from the Hall as unobtrusively as possible. The Dowager, seating herself majestically in a chair near the sofa, then recalled the various accidents which had befallen the members of her family, and the remedies which had been applied to their hurts; Turvey continued, unmoved, to renew the wet cloths about Miss Morville’s head; and Miss Morville lay with closed eyes, enduring a good deal of pain, but making no complaint.

  Both Mr and Mrs Morville had arrived at the Castle before the doctor’s gig at last bowled up the avenue. Their daughter was able to smile at them, albeit rather wanly; and Mrs Morville told her, with what the housekeeper thought a distressing lack of sensibility, that she would be better presently, and should be taken home as soon as the doctor had set her arm.

  ‘Not yet!’ Miss Morville said, for the first time showing signs of agitation. ‘Indeed, Mama, I could not!’

  ‘No, my dear,’ said her mother soothingly. ‘When you are better!’

  The setting of the broken bone tried Miss Morville’s fortitude, but she bore it very well, only begging not to be moved for a little while, since she felt too faint to lift her head. The doctor said that the place for her to be was in her bed, but this suggestion was again productive of suppressed agitation.

  ‘I think,’ said Mrs Morville, ‘that if she were to remain quietly on the sofa for a little while it would perhaps be best.’

  ‘Ay, that’s it,’ agreed the doctor, packing his bag again. ‘I have given her something which will make her very soon feel more the thing. No need for alarm, ma’am!’

  At this moment, the Viscount walked into the Castle, and, perceiving that a large number of persons were gathered in the Great Hall, very naturally joined the party. He was much surprised to learn that Miss Morville had fallen downstairs, exclaiming, sympathizing, and asking so many questions that Mrs Morville was provoked into telling him that what her daughter needed most was quiet.

  ‘Ay, I’ll be bound she does!’ said the Viscount, with ready understanding. ‘Head aching fit to split, eh, Miss Morville? Don’t I know it! Took a nasty toss myself once – forget the name of the place: somewhere near Tarbes, it was. Head didn’t stop aching for three days.’

  ‘Well, I’ll come and see you again tomorrow, Miss Morville!’ said Dr Malpas bracingly. ‘I know I leave you in good hands.’

  ‘Yes, and so many of them!’ said Mrs Morville, with a bright smile.

  The doctor then went away, and Lord Ulverston, looking round the Hall, suddenly demanded: ‘But where’s Ger? Not still abed, is he?’

  ‘No, my lord,’ said Turvey. ‘His lordship is not, so far as I am aware, within the Castle.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Ulverston. ‘He was feeling his wound – said he would rest!’

  Miss Morville opened her eyes. ‘He went to Evesleigh,’ she said.

  ‘Evesleigh! Good God, why?’

  The Dowager, who had been regaling the unwilling Mr Morville with a long, and apparently pointless, anecdote about a set of persons whom he had neither met nor wished to meet, broke off to explain that if her son-in-law had gone to Evesleigh, it was to visit his cousin.

  ‘I know that, ma’am!’ said the Viscount impatiently. ‘How came you to let him go, Miss Morville? What can have possessed him to undertake the journey? He will be quite knocked up! Who accompanied him? That young groom of his?’

  ‘No. I think –’ Miss Morville stopped. ‘I don’t know!’ she ended uncommunicatively.

  He looked down at her rather narrowly. ‘Know why he went, ma’am?’

  ‘I – No.’

  ‘Well, it sounds a havey-cavey business to me!’ he said. He glanced round again, frowning. ‘Martin not home yet?’

  ‘No,’ she said, and resolutely closed her lips.

  ‘Late, ain’t he?’

  She was silent.

  ‘Think I’ll ride to meet Ger!’ said the Viscount.

  ‘A very excellent idea!’ said Mrs Morville warmly. ‘If I were you, I would go at once!’

  ‘I will!’ said the Viscount, and strode off without ceremony.

  He reached the head of the terrace steps in time to see the Earl’s curricle come sweeping through the vaulted arch of the Gate-tower. The grays were being driven at a spanking pace, and the Viscount was thunderstruck to perceive that it was Martin who held the reins. He was still standing staring incredulously when the curricle drew up at the foot of the steps, and Martin, whose new-found humility had not deterred him from arguing hotly with his brother on certain of the finer points of driving, said triumphantly: ‘Now own I have not overturned you!’

  ‘Oh, I do! How thankful I am I didn’t bring a high-perch phaeton into Lincolnshire!’ said the Earl, preparing to alight.

  Martin grinned, but merely said that he would drive the curricle to the stables. The Viscount ran down the steps, exclaiming wrathfully: ‘I’ll teach you to hoax me, Ger! What the devil have you been about?’

  ‘Minding my own business,’ replied Gervase, with one of his mischievous looks.

  The Viscount helped him to descend from the curricle. ‘You deserve to be laid-up for a week! Let me tell you, I was just about to come in search of you!’

  ‘Unnecessary, Lucy! Martin was before you, and, as you see, has driven me home. I am not in the least knocked-up, I assure you.’

  ‘Just as well!’ said the Viscount. ‘There’s another on the sick-list now!’

  ‘Oh?’ said the Earl, beginning to mount the steps. ‘Who?’

  ‘Miss Morville. Fell downstairs, or something. Sick as a cushion!’

  ‘Miss Morville?’ said Gervase quickly. ‘Is she much hurt?’

  ‘Broken her arm. Can’t think how she came to do it!’

  ‘Good God!’ exclaimed Gervase, swiftly mounting the remaining steps.

  ‘They carried her into the Great Hall,’ said Ulverston, catching up with him. ‘But what’s all this, Ger? Come on, now! No humdudgeon! What tr