The Man with the Double Heart Part 50

"It will be an excellent opportunity to break her of this Suffrage nonsense." She caught McTaggart's look of alarm. "Don't be afraid--I'm a capital nurse--I mean, of course, when she's convalescent. What she wants now is rest and sleep--and good food.

Did you say they hadn't a cook?"

"I don't think so--I understand she left, furious, on the day Mrs.

Uniacke went to prison."

"I don't blame her." The silk dress rustled. "Then there's only that slatternly housemaid left to help Jill?"

"So I gather--unless Stephen condescends to black the boots!"

"Ha!" The little lady snorted--"So _he's_ about still, is he?"

McTaggart was conscious of a slip. He wished he hadn't mentioned the man.

"I can't say. I know he's at large. I don't fancy prison fare appeals to him--he's rather dainty."

"Not a friend of yours, I see."

Miss Uniacke's bright eyes surveyed him almost lovingly--"Well--he won't enter that house while I'm there," she decided tartly.

"Now, to business"--she went on, after a pause, "I'll shut up the flat as soon as I can. I always do for the Summer months and it's only a few weeks earlier--and take both my maids with me. Anyhow, until I can get the house in order and find a cook for Mary. Maria's a good nurse.

She's been with me eighteen years and Mrs. Belsey understands invalid soups--she's an excellent woman and a strict teetotaller. So you can set your mind at rest--about Jill, I mean." She smiled as McTaggart rose to his feet. "Come and see us when you like. I'm very much obliged to you. It's not often nowadays you find young men with any sense. The world's all upside down, with feeble boys and manly women!"

McTaggart held her pretty hand in his beyond the orthodox time.

"Perhaps," he asked, "you'd come for a spin now and then in my car?"

"And chaperone my niece--eh?"

The speech was not without malice. She saw his slightly guilty look and laughed outright.

"I understand--I was young once myself, you see."

"Aunt Elizabeth--you're a brick!" He dared the familiarity with his charming smile.

"Well--of all the impertinence!" her thin cheeks flushed a little.

"We'll see. I make no rash promises. I shall try and get to Mary on Friday."

Her face suddenly clouded over.

"I'm glad now poor Edward's gone. It's a bad business for the children."

McTaggart felt immensely sorry. He saw she took it keenly to heart.

"I suppose"--his voice was very gentle--"you wouldn't care..." he hesitated--"to come and dine with me to-night--if you're disengaged--have nothing better? I'm only just back from abroad and find so many friends away. Won't you take pity on my loneliness?"

The little lady was inwardly flattered, but she laughed aside the invitation.

"Nonsense!--it's very kind, I'm sure ... but you don't want an old woman like me!"

"I do"--he smiled back at her. "Say you will?" He saw her glance furtively at the clock beyond. "There's loads of time--I'll change and return to fetch you. What about a theatre?"

Aunt Elizabeth was tempted.

"Well ... then--some quiet place without a band. As it happens I have a good ear for music and I won't risk my digestion by swallowing to Tango time! And--Marie Tempest, for choice--there's no nonsense about her!"

Her voice was brisk. "I'm tired of having sermons preached at me from the stage, or so-called 'Comedies'--which are nothing but an excuse for extravagant dress. I want to be amused, you see, not stunned by mere colour and light, and rows of common, simpering girls advertising for a husband."

With a characteristic gesture she straightened the wayward brown fringe.

"In _my_ young days we went to the play to see people really _act_.

But now everyone's attention is riveted on the production! A sort of marionette show in which the performers seem to count as auxiliaries to the epigrams parcelled out by the author. You don't hear people praise the art of the actor. Oh, dear, no. It's: 'Isn't it well put on?' or 'Aren't the dresses simply _sweet_?'"

McTaggart laughed heartily.

"There's a great deal in what you say. Well, I'll be back within the hour. I'm so glad you can come." He foresaw that the evening might prove a quaint experience in the company of his new friend with her sharp eyes and caustic tongue.

The little old maid smiled at him.

"You'll find me quite ready," she replied, "and looking forward to my treat."

But in her heart she was saying: "I believe the boy's fond of Jill.

And Mary's such an utter fool! I must see into this myself. Edward, I know, would thank me for it. He seems a nice, manly fellow..."

Little McTaggart guessed her thoughts, nor the impulse prompting her to accept.

As he left the room he heard the parrot, shrouded and sulky, drawing corks!

CHAPTER XXIII

A month pa.s.sed quickly away. Almost every day McTaggart's car drew up at the house near Primrose Hill, and Jill and Roddy joyfully mounted in it, with an occasional fourth in the shape of Aunt Elizabeth. Then off they went out of London into the cooler country air, a trio of gay explorers armed with maps and a pic-nic hamper.

_Such_ cakes! For Mrs. Belsey had fallen a victim to Roddy's charms, his wheedling voice and jolly laugh and "Cookie--just _one_ jam-puff?"

Miss Uniacke, too, had thoroughly enjoyed what she was pleased to call her "bounden duty."

From attic to cellar the musty old house had been turned literally inside out. For the invalid had improved at a surprisingly quick rate.

No longer the household moved on tiptoe. Good food and the sense of all responsibility shelved on to the shoulders of the capable little old maid; her careful nursing and cheerful common sense had gone far to hasten the cure.

With her two devoted well-trained servants and a charwoman (forbidden "chatter!") Aunt Elizabeth had probed into every hole and corner.

The episode of the dead mouse (in a disused cupboard under the stairs) had proved the culminating point in her campaign against disorder.

Jill had been summoned to find her Aunt, rigid, holding between finger and thumb the tail of the moral offender: not unlike a small rodent herself, with her sharp nose and pointed chin framed in a grey check duster.

Her brown fringe was frankly awry, her grey eyes had steely points.