The Blue Rose (11 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ROSE woke in the night feeling distinctly queer but was not able to put her finger exactly on what was the matter with her. She was stiflingly hot, her head was aching and she felt slightly sick. She pushed off the eiderdown and a blanket but she was still bu
rn
ingly hot, and when she felt her pulse she found that it was racing. She was not subject to headaches so she told herself that it must be the result of the wine she had drunk for dinner. It had seemed so light but it had probably been more intoxicating than she realized. It was no doubt a hangover she was suffering from. She had never had a hangover before. How very unpleasant it was, but probably she would sleep it off. The best thing to do would be to go to sleep again at once.

Easier said than done. She did doze off but the pain in her head kept waking her, and then quite suddenly she felt another pain—a sharp stab on her left side inside her ribs. She turned over on her right side but the pain caught her each time she breathed. It was most peculiar; she had never known anything like it. Eventually she turned over on to her left side and found that the pain stopped when she was lying on it.

In this position she fell soundly asleep again and did not wake until Stephen called her to tell her that it was time for breakfast. Would she order it over the telephone while he was shaving?

It was a great luxury just to be able to lift up the receiver by the bedside and ask for room service, and then order anything she wanted—especially as she could talk in English. In these big international hotels all the staff spoke English.

At Nancy they had supplemented the continental breakfast of
cafe complet
with a glass each of orange juice, and Rose ordered the same thing this morning.

Her head was still aching rather and she felt slightly feverish but the pain in her side had gone and she decided not to say anything about it to Stephen; she had been tiresome enough with her cold; if she complained now he would think that she was always ailing. She would take an aspirin with her coffee and no doubt she would be perfectly all right by the time they started. Thank goodness she didn’t feel sick any longer.

When breakfast came—it was wheeled in on a trolley
—
Stephen had finished shaving and they sat down opposite each other in their dressing-gowns. Stephen suggested that they should have a picnic lunch that day, an idea to which she readily responded. He would go out and buy it (there were the most wonderful delicatessen shops in Switzerland, he told her) while she was getting up. “And then we’ll start as soon as you’re ready,” he said. “There’s no hurry, but it’s a lovely day and such a lovely drive. It’s only two hundred and thirty miles from here to Milan but we want to drive slowly
...
Let me look at you. How are you? Is the cold really gone?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“Looking forward to your day?”

“Oh, so much.”

“Come here,” he commanded.

She got up and went to him at once.

“I only wanted to kiss you
...
Now you can go back and finish your breakfast!”

“Why didn’t
you
get up?”

“I wanted to see how obedient you were!”

“I’m your willing slave,” she replied, laughing. And then at the back of her mind a voice—Clare’s voice—admonished her: “Don’t let him think that. Don’t let him become too sure of you.” She said aloud, coquettishly: “No, I’m not. I’m not your slave. Next time you get up and kiss me.”

II

They had just reached the top of the St. Gotthard Pass when Rose felt that sharp, stabbing pain again in her side. What on earth was it? Had she hurt a rib? It was most strange and very unpleasant. At the same time a surge of heat came over her and a realization sprang into her mind with a horrible shock: “I am ill. I am going to be ill
...
No, what nonsense. Of course I’m not ill. I’ll fight it. I won’t give way to it. I refuse to be ill.” But she knew all the same without any doubt that at this moment she had a temperature. “But, mind
can
overcome matter,” she argued with herself. “I am not going to be ill.”

When they stopped for their picnic at the side of the road it was all she could do to swallow anything—and it was such a wonderful picnic too—a long loaf of fresh bread, delicious fresh butter and Gruyere cheese; ham rolls; bridge rolls filled with Russian salad; fruit, chocolate and a bottle of red wine.

Rose refused any wine, saying that she thought she had a slight hangover from the night before.

“Nonsense, you couldn’t possibly have got a hangover from the amount you drank,” Stephen said. “And that was superb wine. You didn’t have two glasses and you drank nothing else all day. I would never let you drink too much
...
But still, don’t have anything you don’t want. I have got some mineral water as well.”

Rose drank the water greedily, but as they were sitting on the grass she managed surreptitiously to secrete some of her food behind her. She mustn’t let Stephen know she was ill (by this time she had begun to feel really ill), for she was quite sure that with will power she would be able to overcome it.

The rest of that drive to Milan, which she had been looking forward to, was a nightmare to her as she felt her fever rising and the pain in her side becoming sharper and sharper so that now she had to breathe as shallowly as possible. But it was her mental even more than her physical state that was so uncomfortable. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to hide her illness from Stephen much longer, and she couldn’t bear his disappointment. He had seemed so happy that day that she had recovered from her cold. He so much wanted her to be well. How could she break it to him that now she had something worse the matter with her than just an ordinary cold? Well, she would keep it from him as long as she possibly could, and maybe it would still go off of its own accord. Fortunately they did not talk very much while they were driving so that it was much easier for her to disguise it from him than if they had been sitting in a room together.

They were wonderfully lucky, Stephen said, in having it fine and clear in the mountains. “You have brought me luck,” he told her. “We will call this
your
weather.” The character of the country began to change long before they got to the Italian frontier. The architecture changed, the people grew darker and the feeling became more and more Italian. Lugano was much more Italian than Swiss and the blue of the lake was of a picture-postcard brilliance. They stopped in the town for a lemonade at a cafe by the side of the lake and the air was caressingly soft with the softness of the South.

“We will come here in June one day when the limes are out,” Stephen said. “This part of the world is at its best in June when the roses and oleanders are in bloom, but I couldn’t wait for you until then.”

The Italian officers seemed very small and dark at the frontier and rather scruffy compared to the Swiss, and yet even through her pain and feverish discomfort Rose felt the romance of Italy take hold of her the moment they crossed the border. Italy! She was actually in Italy! Was it her imagination or was the sky a deeper blue, the air more scintillating and magical? They drove along by the side of the lakes Maggiore and Como. It was all so much like the travel posters she had seen that she could hardly believe it was real. The poster colours were no more vivid than the reality. Oh, if only she were feeling well. It was too hard; fate was too unkind. She began to feel angrily rebellious. Her own body had betrayed her.

They stopped again to have a drink at the charming little town of Como. It was getting warmer and warmer. It was not only her own fever because Stephen too had shed his coat. “It is so strange,” she said, “actually to find oneself in a place one has heard so much about. I can’t believe I am really here.”

“But you are all right, darling?” and his hand closed over hers. “You have been very silent all day.”

“It is only because I am drinking so much in.” Involuntarily she took a deep breath and then almost cried out from the sharpness of the pain. Her hand contracted violently on his. “What is the matter?” he asked. “Your hand’s very hot.”

She could disguise it from him no longer. “Oh, Stephen,” she cried, “it’s too, too dreadful but I’m afraid I’m ill.”

“Darling, what’s the matter? Tell me?”

She told him everything.

“You little idiot,” he said. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me before?”

“It’s so awful for you. I’m such a bore, I hoped it would pass off. Perhaps I haven’t really got a temperature. Perhaps it’s just because it has got much warmer.” She felt better already now that she had told him.

“You go back to the car,” he said, “and I’ll go and buy a thermometer. We might as well know at once whether you’ve got a temperature or not.”

He rejoined her at the car in a few moments with an Italian thermometer, almost as thick as one’s little finger, and with the degrees marked in centigrade, but “normal” was clearly there as a red arrow. He shook it down for her and made her keep it in her mouth for two minutes. She could not tell exactly what it was when she took it out but the mercury had certainly gone up well above the red mark.

He took it from her. “It’s the equivalent of about a hundred and two,” he said. “I’ll get you to Milan and we’ll get a doctor there. Do you feel you can make it? It’s a very quick run as there’s an
autostrada
all the way from here.”

“Oh, darling, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m being such a bore. I’m spoiling everything.”

“Don’t be silly. You can’t help being ill.”

“But one ought to be able to help it. One’s will ought to be able to triumph over it.”

III

They were booked at the Palace Hotel in Milan, one of the most modern in Europe. Stephen had thought it would amuse her to see a really
modern
hotel, as well as being a complete contrast from The Three Kings in Basle; and indeed it was a contrast. Their room was tiny, the sparse furniture was streamlined; the walls were completely bare and the doors could be opened and shut and even locked and unlocked by pressing an electric button by the bed. And then there was nothing inviting about the beds, which were made up into divans with the pillows slipped into covers to match the covering of the day-bed.

When they got to their room Stephen immediately rang for the maid. “Now you go straight to bed,” he said to Rose, “while I go and see about a doctor.”

How thankful she was to get into bed, but she hated this room and longed to be back at The Three Kings. Stephen could have sat with her in that huge beautiful room quite happily, but here, in this cramped little box, there was nowhere for him to sit. Oh, why hadn’t she had the courage to tell him that morning that she felt ill? A couple of days in Basle would probably have set her up again and then she could have enjoyed to-day’s drive as it should have been enjoyed. Oh, what a fool she had been.

She had hardly got into bed when Stephen returned. “The manager has sent for the hotel doctor,” he said. “He’ll be here shortly. And the manager is also sending up a girl from his office who speaks English perfectly, so she can interpret for us. I can get on all right in Italian but I don’t know any of the medical jargon.”

Italian doctor soon arrived, accompanied by a pretty dark girl to act as interpreter. He toot Rose’s temperature again and sounded her and looked at her throat, and then pronounced without any hesitation that she had pleurisy. “Will it be a long business?” Stephen asked. The doctor replied that she would have to be in bed for a week or ten days at least, though of course it depended on how she responded to treatment. He gave her an injection, wrote out a prescription, strapped up her chest to prevent her breathing deeply, shook hands and left, saying that he would return first thing in the morning. The dark girl stayed on to know whether there was anything they needed, anything she could do for them. Rose thanked her and said that there was nothing she wanted except a large jug of rather sour lemonade, and then the girl and Stephen went out of the room together, the girl to order the lemon and Stephen to take the prescription to the chemist.

Left to herself, it was all Rose could do to hold back her tears. She was really ill. A week or ten days! She didn’t know how to bear it. She did not know which was greater, her own disappointment or her pity for Stephen. In a way she was sorrier for him than for herself because being ill was an occupation in itself, but what was he going to do all day? But when he got back he laid her fears to rest on that score. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “There are wonderful pictures here—and there’s the Scala. I shall be all right. It’s you we must take care of. All that matters is that you should get well quickly. You concentrate on that.” He was seemingly quite cheerful and extremely gentle and kind to her but she could see that he felt the same about the room as she did. He tried sitting with her that evening but it was so palpably uncomfortable for him that she begged him to leave her, and in order to make it easier for him to do so she told him that she was very sleepy and would rather be alone. He kissed her good-night and said that he would creep in as quietly as he could when he came to bed so as not to wake her. After he had gone she could restrain her tears no longer. She did not cry violently but the tears ran down her cheeks and she could not stop them. She was so bitterly, bitterly disappointed, and when she compared this evening to the evening before her tears ran all the faster. To be in Italy for the first time and on, her honeymoon—and now this. It did seem too hard. But she mustn’t give way to self-pity. It was much worse for poor Stephen. It wasn’t like her to cry like this. It must be the effect of the illness. She felt so utterly low and forlorn. But she must remember that she wasn’t a child any longer. She was a married woman now.