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Page 72
Hobson lay fast asleep in the next room, which had a communicating door
with that of her mistress. Knowing nothing of nerves or of
temperament, she had dropped asleep as soon as her head, with scanty
locks tortured into a _chevaux-de-frise_ of steel pins, had touched the
pillow; her strong hands were clenched on the frill of her stout calico
nightdress; her powerful face looked grim in the dim light of the moon,
which, high in the heavens, flung a silver shaft through the open
window straight across the bed. There was absolutely no sound when,
just as, so many miles away, Damaris made her passionate appeal, as she
stood by the window, Hobson, dour, stolid, unimaginative, yet with a
streak of Scotch blood in her veins, sat straight up in bed. Her eyes
were wide open as she stared in front of her, then she passed her
powerful hand over her grim face and flung the bedclothes to one side.
"She's in trouble." She spoke very clearly, sat for a moment thinking,
then reached for a puce dressing-gown trimmed mulberry. "I'll go and
tell her," and the infinite love in the pronoun was good to hear.
"She'll understand."
The duchess turned: her head as the door opened slowly, but made no
movement, although her heart suddenly quickened its beat.
"Yes?" she said quietly.
Hobson walked up to the bed and took one of the little old hands
between her own powerful ones.
"Miss Damaris wants you, ma'am." She spoke with certain conviction;
then added, "I've had a dream, ma'am. I saw nothing, but I heard Miss
Damaris calling you. It woke me up. '_Marraine_,' she said, 'I want
you.' That was all. And she does, ma'am."
She stood patting the hand of her mistress, who lay for a moment quite
still; then the faithful creature put a Shetland shawl round the bent
shoulders as the old lady sat straight up in bed.
"Would you please find Miss Jill's maid," (she used the term of the
past, when Jill Carden had stayed at the Castle and had teased Hobson
to death) "and ask her to tell her mistress that I should be pleased if
she could find it convenient to come to my room for a moment."
Hobson found the aged body-servant lying asleep outside her mistress's
door.
Ameena had learned a few words of the English language in the last
twenty years, but not enough to allow her to understand the terrifying
person who stood over her; so that she shook her head whilst Hobson
repeated her request over and over again, and ever more distinctly,
until it ended at last in a veritable shout which brought Jill, who had
not slept for the ache in her mother-heart, to the door.
For a moment she stood, a beautiful picture, with big questioning eyes
and two great plaits of auburn hair hanging down over her satin wrap;
then she ran down the corridor and into her godmother's bedroom.
In an hour those two forceful women had made their plans, acting
without hesitation upon what might so easily have been the outcome of
digestive trouble on Maria Hobson's part.
Fully clothed, the two maids entered her grace's bedroom, the one
carrying the tea-tray and the other a plate of biscuits.
"Ameena," said Jill, who was sitting on the end of the bed, "please go
and find Mustapha. Tell him to go to the station, find the
station-master and give him this letter. We want a special train as
soon as possible. Mustapha is to bring me a written reply from the
station-master."
She spoke with the authority of the Eastern potentate and took no
notice of the maid when she knelt and kissed the hem of her satin wrap.
"Give me a cigarette, Hobson," said her grace, in the depths of whose
eyes twinkled the star of humour. "We shall be starting as soon as
possible, maybe directly after breakfast, for Luxor."
"Yes, your grace. I will begin the packing," said the imperturbable
Hobson, placing the tray on the table beside the bed. "And when you
have had your tea, ma'am, will you try and get a little sleep? You can
leave everything safely to me."
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