"It’s a marvel", said Adeline, but she did not look.
Gussie laid the doll in the bath and pressed it firmly down. As it sank, an odd look came into her eyes. She remembered something. She turned to her mother.
"Huneefa", she said.
Adeline was startled, almost horrified. What did the child remember? Why had she said the ayah’s name?
"There she goes, at her naughtiness!" exclaimed the nurse. "All day long I can’t keep up to her. If it isn’t one thing it’s another. If you would punish her, Ma’am, it might do some good".
Gussie began to cough from whooping-cough, ending in that strange crowing noise. The cough shook her tiny frame. It was pathetic to see her supporting herself by grasping the arm of a chair. When the paroxysm had passed, her face was crimson and her forehead moist with sweat. Adeline wiped it with her own handkerchief.
"Poor little Gussie", she murmured, bending over her. "How you do cough! This is what comes, Nurse, of her going to tea with the young Pinks".
"Well, Ma’am, it was your own wish. I didn’t like the idea myself. You can’t be too careful-not with a baby in the house".
"Good heavens, how was I to know the little Pinks were taking whooping-cough?"
"You never can tell what clergymen’s children will be taking, Ma’am".
A step came on the stair. There was a quick knock at the door.
"It is the doctor", said Nurse, enfolding Nicholas’ nakedness in a huge bath-towel.
Adeline opened the door and Dr. Ramsay came in. He was a young man of just under thirty, of bony frame but particularly healthy appearance. His high cheek-bones and firmly cut lips gave him a look of endurance, even defiance. His manner was somewhat abrupt. After greeting Adeline he turned to his little patient.
"Hullo", he said. "Another bout of coughing, eh?"
Gussie gravely assented. She passed her hand across her forehead, putting back the curls that clung moistly there.
Dr. Ramsay sat down and took her on his knee. He laid his fingers on her tiny wrist but his eyes were on Adeline.
"I wish", he said, "we had some way of isolating her. I shall be very sorry if you develop whooping-cough, Mrs. Whiteoak".
"There is little likelihood of that, since I did not take it when five of my brothers had it at one time".
"I wish you had taken it then", he returned.
"Indeed then, I don’t, for I should have missed the races in Dublin to which my grandfather took me, and all my five brothers whooping away at home!"
"Better the miss of some races", he returned, "than the miscarriage of a child".
Adeline varied between having complete trust in Dr. Ramsay and disliking him. The dislike did not impair the trust but it tarnished it. She said:
"All I worry about is my baby. He has never yet had a day’s illness".
Dr. Ramsay turned to Nicholas, sprawling in supreme comfort in his nurse’s lap.
"If he contracts this cough", he said, "it will take off some of that fine flesh of his".
"If only Miss Augusta would keep away from him", said the nurse, "but she won’t".
"If only Mrs. Whiteoak would keep away from Augusta!" said Dr. Ramsay.
Philip found Adeline dressing in their room. Between Mrs. Vaughan’s criticism of her visits to Wilmott’s house and a certain irritation provoked by Dr. Ramsay, Adeline’s mood was not an amenable one. Her head in the wardrobe, her voice came out to Philip on a note of dissatisfaction.
"I declare", she said, "I am sick and tired of considering other people’s feelings. From morning to night I am put to it not to give offence. My clothes are all in a heap. My children are in a heap. You and I are in a heap".
"What’s up?" asked Philip, laconically, unbuttoning his waistcoat.
"It’s all very well for you! You live unhampered. You are free as air. You are not chided for visiting your neighbour. You are not going to have a baby. You haven’t seventeen crinolines hanging on one hook!"
"I have to sit with my head out of the window or up the chimney when I smoke a cigar", he returned mildly. "Was it about going to Wilmott’s that Mrs. Vaughan spoke to you?"
She withdrew her head from the wardrobe and faced him with dishevelled locks and flushed cheeks. "Yes. Who told you?"
"Vaughan. He thinks it is rather too unconventional of you and I expect he is right. I have given you a loose rein, Adeline, because I think it is the best way with you, and I believe Wilmott is a decent fellow. I told Vaughan I would speak to you".
"You needn’t have troubled. I’ve told Mrs. Vaughan I shall not go to Wilmott’s again while I am here… Dr. Ramsay says it will go hard with me if I get whooping-cough".
Philip looked aghast at the thought. "You are to keep away from those children. I command you".
"I am not worrying. It is just that I don’t very much like Dr. Ramsay. I wish Dr. St. Charles were here. Do you think perhaps he would come and look after me if we asked him?"
"I’m afraid it is rather too far. For my part, I think Ramsay is a very capable fellow. What is that you are putting on?"
She had taken a green taffeta dress from the wardrobe. It was cut very low and to Philip seemed extreme in fashion for such an occasion. He told her so.
Adeline threw it on the floor and desired him to find her something hideous enough to grace the moment. He looked at his watch.
"We are going to be late for dinner", he said. "Your head is like a hayrick. If you want to appear with your head like a hayrick and your body overdressed, I shall try to endure it, but I promise you, I shall be ashamed".
She sat down gloomily, looking out of the window. "How sweet it is in County Meath at this time of the year", she said.
"Ay", he returned, "and it’s nice in Warwickshire, too".
"Ah, you English have no heart for your country! You don’t know the deep, dark hungering love we Irish know for ours".
"And a very good thing, too. Else we should be where Ireland is".
"It is you English who have made us what we are!" she flared.
"We can do nothing with you and you well know it".
She laughed, a little comforted. She began to play a tune on the window-sill. "How out of practice I am!" she exclaimed. "I can feel my fingers getting quite stiff and I used to be able to play ’The Maiden’s Prayer’ with only three mistakes".
Philip came behind her chair, put his hands beneath her arms and raised her to her feet.
"Now", he said, "you dress for dinner or I’ll take a stick to you!"
She leant back against his shoulder and sighed. "I’m tired", she said. "If only you knew the day I’ve had!"
She did not wear the green dress to dinner but a much simpler dress of maize-coloured India muslin, and had time only to twist her hair into a sleek knot. But she was able to show off a little with long, yellow, diamond earrings and a late yellow rose in her hair.
Wilmott was extraordinarily lively at table. He was always either more or less animated than those about him. His mood never quite fitted into the mood of the moment. When his eyes met Adeline’s they would exchange a look of understanding. The image of Henrietta flashed between them. Mrs. Vaughan intercepted one of these glances and she had a disconcerting sense of being surrounded by intrigue. The behaviour of her niece did not make her any happier. Daisy so obviously was straining to capture the attention of Dr. Ramsay. She had made up for the simplicity of her dress by an elaborate arrangement of her hair that hung in a glossy dark waterfall to her shoulders. Mrs. Vaughan had a dreadful suspicion that Daisy had rouge on her cheeks. She laughed too much, showing too many teeth. She leaned too far across the table to attract the young doctor’s eye. He had just returned from a hunting trip and Philip was eager to hear its details. He planned next year, when he had his family installed at Jalna, to join the party. Daisy cried out to hear of the hazards endured by the hunters, and the magnificence of the quarry. Deer, a moose and a bear had been killed. Wilmott maintained that no man had a right to kill more than he could eat and he also maintained that, sitting in his own boat on his own river, he had as good sport as any man needed. Daisy took sides almost fiercely with the doctor and declared that if she were a man, she would go to India and shoot tigers as Captain Whiteoak had. She had a mind to marry some big-game hunter and accompany him on his expeditions.