Part 23 (1/2)
”Saxham.” Her eyebrows were knitted. ”I thought I knew the names of your Medical Staff men. But I can't recall a Saxham.”
”This Saxham is Civilian--and rather a big pot--M.D., F.R.C.S., and lots more. We're lucky to have got him.”
She stiffened, scenting the paragraph.
”Can it be that you mean the Dr. Saxham of the Old Bailey Case?”
”The Jury acquitted, let me remind you.”
”I believe so,” she said; ”but--he vanished afterwards. I think an innocent man would have stopped and faced the music, and not beaten a retreat with the Wedding March almost sounding in his ears. But--who knows? You have met his brother, Captain Saxham, of the --th Dragoons? It was he who stepped into the matrimonial breach, and married the young woman.”
”The young woman?”
”His brother's fiancee--an heiress of the Dorsets.h.i.+re Lee-Haileys, and rather a pretty-faced, silly person, with a penchant for French novels and sulphonal tabloids. I always shall believe that she liked the handsome Dragoon best, and took advantage of the Doctor's being--under the cloud of acquittal by a British Jury, to give him what the dear Irish call 'the back of her hand.'”
”The better luck for him!”
”It was mere instinct to let go when the man was dragging them both under water,” she a.s.serted.
”A Newfoundland b.i.t.c.h would have risen above it.”
”You hit back quick and hard.”
”I'm a tennis-player and a polo-player and a cricketer.”
”What game is there that you don't play?”
”I could tell you of one or two.... But I must really go and speak to some of these ladies. One of them is an old friend.”
”I know whom you mean. If I didn't, her glare of envy would have enlightened me. Did I tell you that _I_ encountered an old friend--or, at least, a friend of old--at the Hospital yesterday?”
”You mean poor Fraithorn?”
”Not at all. I'm only a friend of his mother. I had only heard of the boy, not met him, until I tumbled over him here. But this face--severely framed in a starched white _guimpe_ and floating black veil--belonged to my Past in several ways.”
He showed interest.
”Your friend is a nun? At the Convent here? How did you come across her?”
”She called to see the Bishop's son--while I was with him. It seems that, judging by the poor dear boy's religious manuals and medals, and other High Church contraptions, the Matron had got him on the Hospital books as a Roman Catholic. And, consequently, when my friend looked in to visit a day-scholar who was to be operated on for adenoids--I've no idea what they are, but a thing with a name like that would naturally have to be cut out of one--she was told of this poor fellow, and has shed the light of her countenance on him occasionally since. Yesterday was one of the occasions, and Heavens! what a countenance it is even now! What a voice, what eyes, what a manner! I believed I gushed a bit.... She met me as though we'd only parted last week. Nuns are wonderful creatures: _she's_ unique, even as a nun.”
He said: ”I believe I had the honour of meeting the lady of whom you speak when I called at the Convent yesterday afternoon. A remarkable, n.o.ble, and most interesting personality.”
Lady Hannah nodded. ”All that. But you ought to have seen her at eighteen.
We were at the High-School, Kensington, together, I a brat of ten in the Juniors' Division, she a Head Girl, cramming for Girton. She carried everything before her there, and emerged with a B.A. Degree Certificate in the days when it was thought hardly proper for a woman to go about with such a thing tacked to her skirts. And all the students idolised her, and the male lecturers wors.h.i.+pped the ground she trod. And when she was presented--what a sensation! They called her the 'Irish Rose,' and 'Deirdre,' for her skin of cream and her grey eyes and billowing clouds of black hair. Society raved of her for three seasons, until the fools went even madder about that little Hawting woman--a stiff starched martinet's frisky half--who bolted with the man my glorious Biddy had given her beautiful hand to. And the result! She--who might have married an Amba.s.sador and queened it in Petersburg with the best of 'em--she's in a whitewashed Convent, superintending the education of Dutch and Afrikander schoolgirls in Greek, Latin, French, Algebra and Mathematics, calisthenics, needlework, the torture of the piano, and the twiddle of the globes. He has something to answer for, that old crony of yours!”
Lady Hannah stopped for breath, giving the listener his opportunity.
”My dear lady, you have told me a great deal without enlightening me in the least. Who is my 'crony,' and who was your friend?”
Lady Hannah opened her round beady eyes in astonishment.