‘You need not be. It is no hardship to me. I have frequently helped to nurse my brothers.’
He attempted no further expostulation, but after a minute or two said again: ‘I must know. After I was hit –’
‘I am afraid,’ she interrupted apologetically, ‘that I can tell you nothing, for I have been almost continually in this room, you know. Chard saw no one, and, as I have said, he dared not stop.’
He moved restlessly, frowning. ‘Yes, but – Lucy must not – I seem to remember hearing him say something! To you, was it?’
‘He did say something to me, but there is no need for you to fret yourself, my lord. We are agreed that it would be most improper to give utterance to suspicions for which there may be no real grounds.’
A slight smile touched his lips. ‘You mean that you have prevailed upon Lucy to hold his peace. I might depend on you for good sense!’
‘Certainly you might, but it will be better if you think no more on this subject until you are a little stronger,’ she replied.
‘Don’t let Lucy quarrel with Martin!’
‘He will not do so.’
‘You don’t know him! He must not tax Martin with this, and that is what I fear he may have done.’
‘I assure you, upon my word, he has not.’
‘What has Martin said?’
She turned away to put the bowl back on the tray, and answered, without looking at him: ‘Nothing, my lord.’
‘Nothing?’
‘I have been busy,’ she reminded him. ‘I have not seen Martin.’
‘I daresay you might not, but –’
‘I can only tell you that there has been no quarrel with him.’
His eyes followed her as she carried the tray across the room. When she turned towards him again she perceived the strain in them, and she said: ‘I think your wound is paining you, my lord. Dr Malpas left a sedative draught for you, and if you will take it you will feel more comfortable.’
‘It is not that. But while I lie here, with no strength even to pull myself up, and quite shut off from the household –’
‘Tomorrow you will find yourself a good deal restored, if only you will be quiet now,’ she promised. ‘Nothing has happened at Stanyon that you would not wish, and, you know, it is past two o’clock now, so that even if you could rise from your bed there is nothing you could do, for everyone has been in bed these many hours.’
He was obliged to acknowledge the justice of this reminder, but murmured with something of his sweet, mischievous smile: ‘You have always a reasonable answer, Miss Morville!’
She returned the smile, but did not answer, merely going to the door into the dressing-room to summon Turvey to relieve her watch. She stayed only until she had seen the Earl swallow his sedative draught, and then, directing Turvey to remove two of the pillows that were propping him up, bade her patient sleep well, and went away to her own bedchamber.
She had not left it when Dr Malpas arrived, before nine o’clock, and it was Lord Ulverston who escorted the doctor to the Earl’s room. He found the patient, as Miss Morville had prophesied, very much more comfortable, though still very weak.
‘Weak, my lord! Ay, no wonder!’ the doctor said, taking the Earl’s pulse. ‘A trifle of fever, too, which was to be expected. I shall not cup you, however, for I think you will go on very well. But a bad business! I cannot conceive how it can have come about! There are poachers enough in the district, but they are not in general so careless as to fire across the roads – no, and I have never known them to go about their work in daylight before! I was speaking about it last night to Sir Geoffrey Acton, whom I was obliged to visit – just a touch of his old enemy, the gout! – and he gives it as his opinion that you might have been shot by one of these discharged soldiers we hear so much about. I daresay many of them are great rascals, and, you know, once they are turned loose upon the world, there is no saying what they will be up to.’
Lord Ulverston uttered an impatient exclamation, but the Earl engaged his silence by a look, and himself said: ‘Very true.’
The doctor, who had by this time laid bare the wound, seemed to be delighted with it. ‘Excellent! it could not be better!’ he declared. ‘As clean a wound as you would wish for, and has not touched the lung! I can tell your lordship, though, that it was a near-run thing! Ay, you had bled so freely by the time your man got you home that if it had not been for Miss Morville’s presence of mind and resolution, you might well have died before I had reached your side. She is a very good girl, and one that has a head on her shoulders besides. None of your squeaks and swoons at the sight of blood for her!’
‘By Jupiter, yes!’ the Viscount said. ‘I don’t know what we should have been at without her, Ger, for a gorier sight I’ve seldom seen, and how to stop the bleeding was more than I knew!’
‘Miss Morville is a very remarkable female,’ replied Gervase. ‘I am sorry, though, that she should have been confronted by such a hideous spectacle as I must have presented.’
‘Lord, she made nothing of that! It was her ladyship who went off into a swoon, right at the head of the stairs, when she saw you carried up!’ The Viscount gave a chuckle. ‘There was I, clean distracted, and telling Miss Morville to come to her ladyship, and all she said was that I should call her maid, for she had something more important to attend to! I was ready to have murdered her, for, y’know, Ger, swooning females ain’t in my line, but when I saw how cleverly she set to work on you I was bound to forgive her!’
At that moment a gentle knock fell on the door. Turvey moved to open it, and ushered in Miss Morville herself. The Viscount said gaily: ‘Ah, here she is! Come in, ma’am! I have been telling St Erth what a stout heart you have! And here is the doctor saying that you don’t squeak and swoon at the sight of blood!’