"And quite enough, too!" fumed Sir Philip, as, assisted by the chauffeur,
he lifted her with infinite care on to a couch. "Now, then, you clumsy
fool!" This to the unfortunate chauffeur, who had released his hold a
moment too soon, jarring the injured foot.
The man fled, pursued by his master's maledictions, and a few minutes
later, hot water and bandages being forthcoming, Ann busied herself in
tending the rapidly swelling ankle.
"What about a doctor? Don't you think you'd better have one?" asked Sir
Philip, fussing helplessly round and feeling as inadequate as most men in
similar circumstances. "You may have broken a small bone or something," he
added with concern.
"Doctor? Fiddlesticks!" returned Lady Susan. "Ann's all the doctor I want.
There's quite a professional touch about that bandage"--extending her foot
for him to see. "Thank goodness, most of our girls know how to give first
aid nowadays! Now, run along, Philip, and look after that harum-scarum
nephew of yours. I know you're aching to make sure he hasn't got into
mischief during your absence," she added with a touch of malice.
Sir Philip demurred a little, but finally went away, promising to look in
again in the evening. But when evening came Lady Susan had retired to bed,
feeling far too ill to receive visitors.
It was not until after Sir Philip's departure that she would allow herself
to admit that she was suffering acutely, and then she lay back against her
cushions, looking so white and exhausted that Ann was thoroughly alarmed
and despatched Marie in search of the doctor, who promptly prescribed rest
and quiet. By the following morning Lady Susan found herself too stiff even
to wish to move. She had tripped and fallen suddenly, without being able to
save herself at all, and she was more bruised and shaken than she or any
one else had suspected.
For the next few days, therefore, she was relegated to the role of invalid.
She was suffering a good deal of pain, and in the circumstances Ann felt
disinclined to worry her with an account of the predicament in which she
and Tony had found themselves during her absence at Evian. So that when
Lady Susan asked her how she had amused herself that day, she merely
vouchsafed that she had gone up to the Dents de Loup and stayed the night
there in order to see the sunrise. Afterwards, it seemed simpler to let it
rest at that, rather than enter into fresh explanations. The whole incident
had come to assume much smaller proportions in retrospect, and the fact
that she and Tony had not encountered any other visitors at the hotel had
served to reassure her considerably.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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