He had nothing more to say until he turned into a side-street and got out. ‘Stay there, I’ll be back,’ he told her and opened a side-door in a long brick wall. He came back almost at once with a burly, bearded man who nodded at Matilda and cast an eye over the dog.
‘Let’s have him in,’ he suggested, and lifted the cardboard neatly off her knees. ‘Coming too?’
Matilda got out of the car, but Roseanne shook her head. ‘I’d rather stay here…’
Mr Scott-Thurlow held the door open and they went in one after the other down a long passage with the surgery at its end. ‘You wait here,’ the vet told her. ‘I’ll do an X-ray first—you can give a hand, James.’
Matilda sat in the waiting-room on a rather hard chair, cherishing the knowledge that his name was James. It suited him, though she doubted if anyone had ever called him Jimmy or even Jim. Time passed unheeded since her thoughts were entirely taken up with James Scott-Thurlow; when he joined her she looked at him mistily, shaken out of her daydreams.
‘The little dog?’
‘A fractured pelvis, cracked ribs, starved and very, very dirty. He’ll live.’
‘May he stay here? What will happen to him? Will it take long? If no one wants him I’m sure Father will let me have him…’
‘He’ll stay here until he’s fit and he’ll be well looked after. I should suppose he’ll be fit, more or less, in a month or six weeks.’ Mr Scott-Thurlow paused and then went on in a resigned voice, ‘I have a Labrador who will be delighted to have a companion.’
He was rewarded by an emerald blaze of gratitude. ‘Oh, how good of you; I’m not sure what kind of a dog he is but I’m certain that when he’s well again you’ll be proud of him.’
Mr Scott-Thurlow doubted this but forbore to mention it. ‘Were you on your way back to Kensington? I’ll run you there; Mrs Venables may be getting anxious.’
‘Oh, I don’t suppose so,’ said Matilda airily. ‘We may do as we please during the day, you know, unless there is some suitable young man coming to lunch. Do you know Mrs Venables?’
They had reached the door but he made no move to open it. ‘I have a slight acquaintance. Rhoda knows her quite well, I believe.’
‘Oh, then I expect you will be at the dinner party next week—a kind of farewell before we go back to Abner Magna.’
He had categorically refused to accompany Rhoda when she had told him of the invitation. Now, on second thoughts, he decided that he would go with her after all.
He opened the door. ‘Then we shall meet again,’ he said as they reached the car. Before he drove off he reached for the phone and said into it, ‘I shall be half an hour late—warn everyone, will you?’
He drove off without a word, leaving Matilda guessing. Was he a barrister, defending some important client, she wondered, or someone in the banking world, making decisions about another person’s money? It would be a clerk at the other end, middle-aged, rather shabby probably with a large family of growing children and a mortgage. Her imagination ran riot until he stopped outside the Kensington house, bade them a polite goodbye and drove off.
‘He doesn’t talk much, does he?’ Roseanne wanted to know. ‘I think I’m a bit—well—scared of him.’
Matilda looked at her in astonishment. ‘Scared? Of him? Whatever for? I dare say he was wrapped up in some business transaction; of course he didn’t want to talk. Anyway you’ll change your mind next week—he’s coming to your godmother’s dinner party, so we shall see him then.’
She saw him before then.
The days had passed rapidly, too fast for Roseanne, not fast enough for Matilda; she wanted to go home—London, she felt, wasn’t for her. True, while she was there there was always the chance that she would see Mr Scott-Thurlow, but what was the use of that when he was going to marry Rhoda? A girl who was undoubtedly beautiful, clever and wore all the right clothes regardless of expense. She and Roseanne had gone shopping, gone to more exhibitions than she could count, seen the latest films and plays and accompanied Mrs Venables on several occasions when that lady, an enthusiastic member of several committees, introduced them to their various other members, mostly middle-aged and not in the least interested in the two girls. Roseanne found them a waste of time when she might have spent it in the company of her Bernard.
There were only a few days left now and preparations for the dinner party that night were well ahead. They were finishing their breakfast, which they took alone since Mrs Venables had hers in bed, when the dining-room door was thrust open and the kitchen maid—who should have known better, as Roseanne was quick to point out—rushed up to the table.
‘It’s Cook—cut herself something awful and the others down at the market getting the food for tonight. Whatever shall I do?’
‘My dear good girl,’ began Roseanne, looking alarmingly like her mother, but she was not allowed to finish.
‘I’ll come and look, shall I?’ suggested Matilda calmly. ‘If it’s very bad we can get her to the hospital, but perhaps it looks worse than it is.’
Cook was sitting at the table, her hand wrapped in a teatowel. She was a nasty green colour and moaning faintly. Matilda opened the towel gently, making soothing noises the while. There was a lot of blood, but if it was a deep cut she could tie the hand up tightly and get a taxi to the nearest hospital. Since both of her companions were on the edge of hysteria she told them bracingly to close their eyes and turned back the last of the towel. She would have liked to have closed her eyes too; Cook’s first and second fingers had been neatly severed just above the second joints. Matilda gulped and hoped her breakfast would stay down.
‘Milly—it is Milly?—please go and ring for a taxi. Be quick and say that it’s very urgent. Then come back here.’
‘Is it a bad cut?’ asked Roseanne from the door. ‘Should I tell Aunt Maud?’
‘Presently. I’ll go with Cook to the nearest hospital and perhaps you’ll tell her then.’ She glanced at the girl. ‘Would you get a shawl or something to put round Cook?’
‘There’s blood everywhere,’ said Roseanne, and handed over a cape hanging behind the door, carefully looking the other way.
Matilda hung on to her patience. ‘Thanks. Now find a table napkin or a scarf and look sharp about it…’
‘No one speaks to me like that,’ declared Roseanne.
‘Don’t be silly! I dare say you’ll find a cloth of some sort in that cupboard.’
Roseanne opened drawers in an aggrieved manner and came back with a small teacloth. It was fine linen and beautifully embroidered and Matilda fashioned it into some kind of a sling, draped the cloak round Cook’s shaking shoulders and propelled her gently out of the kitchen across the hall and out to the waiting taxi. They left a trail of red spots across the floor and Matilda heard Milly’s gasp of horror.
‘The nearest hospital,’ urged Matilda, supporting a half-fainting and sturdily built Cook, ‘as quick as you can.’
The
