Grasp a Nettle. Бетти Нилс
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can fix things here. Will you ask someone to leave the side door open please—I ought to be with you by two o’clock.’
‘Good girl! I shall be here, Jenny, with your aunt.’
She rang off and raced out of the home and across to the hospital, Night Super would be on duty by now, but heaven knew how far she had got with her first round. Jenny took five precious minutes tracking her down, and ran her to earth at last in the children’s ward, where she held a hurried whispered conversation with her. Mrs Dent was a sensible, kindly woman, who listened without interruption before saying that of course Jenny must go at once and she would see that all the right people were informed in the morning. She even asked Jenny if she had enough money and if she would like a hot drink before she went. Jenny said yes, thank you and no, thank you with real gratitude and went back through the quiet hospital to her room, to fling clothes into a bag, explain her sudden departure to Celia, and go to the car park behind the hospital where she kept the Morgan.
She thanked heaven silently as she turned into the almost empty street that she had filled up on her way into London; there was enough petrol in the tank to get her to Dimworth. It was getting on for eleven o’clock by now, but once clear of London she made good time on the motorway; the clock tower bell chimed two as she stopped the car outside the private wing of the house. There was a light showing through the transom over the side door, and when she turned the handle, it opened silently under her hand. She stopped to bolt it before running up the stairs and along the corridor to her aunt’s room. The door was slightly open and when she pushed it wide she saw Doctor Toms there, sitting in an arm-chair by the bed. He got up when she went in, but before he could speak Aunt Bess, her commanding voice a mere thread of hesitating sound, spoke.
‘Jenny! You made good time. Don’t let Doctor Toms frighten you. All this fuss about a headache…’
Jenny went to the bed and looked down at her aunt. She didn’t like what she saw. Her aunt had looked off colour when she had left only two days earlier, but now she looked ill; her breathing was bad, her colour ghastly, and the pupils of her pale blue eyes were fixed and small. All the same, the lady of the house hadn’t lost any of her fire. She spoke now in a snappy voice. ‘Doctor Toms wants me to be seen by some puffed-up professor or other—he happens to be staying with him. I won’t hear of it.’
‘Why not, Aunt Bess?’
‘He’s a foreigner for a start,’ Miss Creed’s voice was slightly slurred. ‘He’s bound to be too big for his boots and make something out of nothing and then charge me a small fortune.’
Jenny had perched on the bed beside her aunt. Now she took one of the hands lying idle on the coverlet and held it between her own. ‘Look,’ she said persuasively, ‘why not let this man take a look at you? If you don’t like him you can say so and then you need not see him again—and as for the small fortune, you know quite well that you could pay a dozen professors and hardly notice it.’ She lifted her aunt’s hand up to her cheek for a moment. ‘To please me?’ she coaxed.
‘Oh, very well,’ agreed her aunt grumpily. ‘You’re just like your mother, she could charm water from a stone. But mind you, if I don’t like him, I shall tell him so.’ She stared at Jenny for a moment and added in a confused way: ‘I don’t feel very well, Jenny.’
‘No, I know, my dear, but you will feel better, I promise you, and I’ll stay with you. Now will you rest for a little while? I’m going to talk to Doctor Toms for a few minutes and then I’ll come back and sit with you.’
Miss Creed nodded, seeing nothing unusual in the fact that someone should forgo their night’s sleep in order to keep her company; she wasn’t a selfish woman, but she had been used to having her own way and people to carry out her wishes without question for so long that the idea that it might be inconvenient for them to do so never crossed her mind.
Jenny waited until her aunt had closed her eyes and then followed the doctor out of the room, closing the door softly for her aunt had sharp ears.
‘She’s ill, isn’t she?’ she whispered, and when the doctor nodded. ‘Can you get this professor quickly?’
Doctor Toms nodded again. ‘By sheer good fortune he happens to be spending some days with me—we’ve been friends for some years and he has been lecturing at Bristol; he still has several lectures to give, so he won’t be going back for a week or so.’
‘Back where?’
‘Holland. He’s Dutch.’
Jenny frowned, her mind vaguely filled with windmills, canals and bottles of gin. ‘Oh—Is he all right? Clever, I mean.’
‘Brilliant,’ said Doctor Toms. ‘You know what I suspect your aunt has?’
‘Subdural haematoma,’ hazarded Jenny.
He looked surprised and then said: ‘Of course you come across them pretty often. I’m not sure, of course, that’s why I would like Professor van Draak te Solendijk to see her.’
Jenny’s eyes opened very wide. ‘Good grief, what a frightful name!’
The doctor smiled faintly. ‘Everyone calls him van Draak.’
‘Thank goodness for that. Aunt may not like him.’
Her companion smiled again. ‘I fancy she will. Now I must get back home. I’ll be here round about nine o’clock in the morning, but telephone if you’re worried. What about your sleep?’
‘I’ll doze and get Florrie up between six and seven—that’ll give me a chance to have a bath and breakfast.’ She smiled at him. ‘Thanks for letting me know, Doctor Toms. Poor Aunt Bess, we must get her better.’
Her aunt was dozing restlessly when she went back into the room. Jenny settled herself in a chair, kicking off her shoes and arranging the table lamp so that it didn’t disturb the bed’s occupant. She was hungry and longed for a cup of tea, but she would have to wait for it. She had no intention of disturbing Florrie or anyone else at that hour. They must have had a busy, worrying time of it—besides, she had told Aunt Bess that she would stay with her. She settled herself as comfortably as possible and prepared to sit out the rest of the night.
CHAPTER TWO
MISS CREED SEEMED a little better in the morning, but Jenny, making her ready for the day, wasn’t too happy about her, but there were things she had to do. She left Aunt Bess in Florrie’s capable hands and went away to unpack her things, have a bath and change her clothes. Doctor Toms arrived just as she was finished breakfast and took her back upstairs with him while he examined his patient again, made a few non-committal remarks which only served to make her snort indignantly and then took Jenny aside to explain worriedly that there was an urgent maternity case he had to go to, but that the professor would be over at the earliest possible moment on his return from Yeovil hospital where he had been delivering a series of lectures to post-graduates. He went away then, warning Jenny that it seemed very likely that her aunt would have to go to hospital herself.
Jenny set about making her aunt as comfortable as possible while she kept an ever watchful eye on her condition. There was no dramatic change, but certainly it was deteriorating steadily. Soon after one o’clock Florrie came to relieve her for her lunch, and stayed while Jenny did a brisk round of the old house, making sure that everything was ready for the visitors. The clock tower chimed twice as she went through the door in the entrance hall and up the circular stairs which led to the lobby on the next floor, and the private wing.
There was someone in the lobby and the small apartment seemed crowded by reason of the vast size of the man standing there, and he wasn’t only large, but tall too, with iron-grey hair and bright blue eyes, and although he wasn’t young he was nonetheless handsome. Jenny spared a second to register that fact before saying pleasantly:
‘I think you must have missed your way; this leads to the private part of the house.’
She was affronted by his cool: ‘I am well aware of that, young lady—perhaps you