Julia said, well anyway they had all got here in time, and that she had no maid to pack for her. ‘In fact,’ she said, because this news had upset her so she had to speak about herself, ‘Jemima the old thing who packs for me, you can’t call her a maid really, never can learn to put in my charms. You know,’ she said to Angela very seriously, ‘I simply can’t go anywhere without them, the most frightful things have happened if I haven’t brought them, and not to me only, but to everyone who was with me too. So you see it makes me most terribly nervous. You see I don’t know to this minute whether I have them with me or not, and nervous not only for myself but for all of you, my poor darlings.’
Miss Crevy did not take this well as she could not understand the calm with which they seemed to accept, not Amabel’s presence, which she thought natural, but the fact that Alex was in there with her. It made her furious they should make so little of it, and she burst out:
‘Oh, no, but I think it’s disgusting Ms being in there helping with her bath.’
This was so sudden it made Julia forget about her charms.
‘My dear,’ she said, ‘what do you mean, helping?’ And Angela who, as soon as she began to explain, felt in some way she was weakening her argument, had to say she did not know how he was helping, and at that she laughed, but he was in there and he ought not to in front of all of them.
‘He is not,’ said Max. Miss Crevy looked to see if he was jealous, but saw that he simply did not believe her.
‘But I tell, you I heard them.’
‘My dear, what did you hear about them?’ Julia said.
Feeling in some way she was making her argument still weaker Miss Crevy explained how Amabel had asked him in front of her not half an hour ago.
‘She did not,’ said Max, and Miss Crevy said no more. If they did not believe her then let them find out for themselves and then, rather late, it came over her that she had not seen for herself, it was possible Alex was still in the bedroom and she felt foolish until she thought, well anyway if he wasn’t in there now he soon would be.
On this Julia left them. She thought Miss Crevy an impossible girl and went to find Claire and Evelyn to tell them and ask after Miss Fellowes. This would be her way of apologizing for having gone off with Max. And Max, who wanted time to face up to this news began to make it by asking Angela if she had all she wanted. She would hardly answer him.
When Julia went into that bedroom where Miss Fellowes lay, she said to Evelyn and Claire, ‘Well there you are,’ in such tones she might have been telling them how hard it had been for her to find them, and as though she were saying she had been looking for them all that time she had been upstairs with Max. She asked after Miss Fellowes and they replied, all this in whispers, and then so soon as she decently could she said would they not leave Miss Fellowes to those nannies, she had something she must tell them. Both wondered if she were going to announce her engagement, but it seemed she was more angry than pleased, and for one moment Claire wondered if that idiot Robert, her idiotic husband, had tried to pounce on her.
When those nannies had been got in and they themselves were in the corridor outside, Julia began on Angela. ‘Children,’ she went on, using this word because Evelyn who was older than any of them always used it when she wanted their attention, ‘what do you think of Angela Crevy? And do you know what she has just accused my darling Alex of? Why of being with Amabel in her bath.’ At this Claire and Evelyn registered disgust. ‘Oh, my darlings,’ she went on, ‘isn’t it too despairing, why must Max out of pure good nature ask people like her to come with his oldest friends who have known each other for ages?’ ‘I know,’ they both murmured back. ‘And Amabel, what is she doing, and anyway, why can’t that great ninny Angela see she is trying to set us by the ears?’
‘Isn’t that just what I was saying to you?’ Claire said to Evelyn.
‘Yes, we were,’ said Evelyn.
At this they stood all three facing each other with serious faces, when Robert turned the corner and came down that corridor towards them.
‘What’s this?’ he says, ‘in a committee meeting?’ He smells faintly of whisky.
‘Go away,’ says Claire to him, ‘we’re busy. Run along now,’ she said, and as he went and was just opening the door to go in to Max and Angela, and as they stayed silent so that Max should not hear anything through that open door, the man who had followed Miss Fellowes and whom Alex had taken for a detective also came round that same corner and made after Robert. Julia whispered: ‘Oh dear, who’s this? What can he want?’ she said as he went in after Mr Hignam, ‘or is it another friend of Max’s we have to do with?’
Max, when he saw Hignam, thought it would be best to find out what he could about Amabel rather than pretend he had always known she would be coming, for there was no knowing what she might have said while she was alone with them, so he asked him, ‘What’s this about Amabel?’ Miss Crevy took this to mean that Max had believed her when she had, so she thought, told on Alex. But Mr Hignam had no time to reply that he knew nothing before that false detective was on to him. Putting his head inside he said, ‘I want you,’ in educated accents this time.
‘Yes,’ said Robert, taken aback. ‘Well, what for? Right you are, I’ll come outside,’ he said.
They walked up that corridor where his wife and those two others could not hear them and then Mr Hignam asked again what might be wanted of him.
‘How is she?’
‘How’s who? My aunt, you mean? I say, who are you?’
‘She were mortal bad I reckon when I see her took upstairs,’ this strange man said, speaking now in Brummagem. ‘Now don’t misunderstand me,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean any harm, just a civil inquiry, that’s all. You see I was sitting nigh her when she was taken bad,’ and by now he was speaking ordinarily, ‘and I think I’ll just ask after her.’
‘She’s better, thank you,’ Robert answered, and began to see how he could use this man.
‘Well, ‘ere’s a to-do if you like with this fog and none being able to get off to their own fireside like with no trains running on account of it. But I’m right glad to ‘ear from you as she’s better. Of course it’s different for the likes of you as can afford it, and thank God for it, I say. I’m not one of those as ‘olds there ought only to be the poor and no rich in this world, but it’s different for you so it is as can take rooms and be a bit comfortable like instead of ‘aving to stand like cattle waiting to be butchered in that yard beneath. Not but what I thought,’ he said going back to Miss Fellowes, ‘she looked terrible ill down there in that tea-room where I was just getting a bit of comfort down inside me. I remember it now,’ he said, smacking his lips.
‘What did she have down there?’
‘Why, bless my soul, not more than one small whisky on account of ‘ow strange she was feeling, I’ll be bound. The properest lady that ever stepped,’ he added. ‘I felt sorry for her, that I did; aye and I thought to myself, my lad, I thought, you can go and ask after her, you know a real lady when you sees one. She’s a goner.’
‘She’s what?’
‘Oh, aye, she’s a goner. She’s your aunt, you said. Yes, I don’t give her long.’
‘You know better than the doctor then.’
‘Aye she’s a goner.’
‘Look here, you doing anything just now, what? I mean if I slipped you ten bob, could you get outside?’