“I’ll go and get the car,” Michael said.
He disappeared, and Mona said to Stella,
“One can’t pretend to be very sorry about Mrs. Gunther, but I’m thankful he’s alright.”
“So am I,” Stella answered. “He’s been so awfully nice to us Land Girls. We should have felt it terribly if anything had happened to him.”
Mona walked through the house to the front door, but she hadn’t been waiting on the steps more than a moment before Michael drove up. They said very little to each other as he speeded towards the Towers, which was only a mile and a half from the Park.
When they arrived, they saw the doctor’s car outside and before they could ring the bell, he opened the door.
“I thought I heard you, Merrill,” Arthur Howlett said. “I hoped you would come, in fact I rang up the Park and they told me you’d just left.”
“Stella brought me your message,” Michael replied. “I’m terribly sorry about it.”
“It was a bad smash. I saw the car soon after it happened and there’s nothing much left of it. Mrs. Gunther must have been going at quite a considerable speed when she hit the lorry.”
“She was driving, was she?” Mona asked.
The doctor turned to her.
“Yes, she was driving.”
“Stella Fairlace said there was little hope of saving her life. Is that true?”
“She died half an hour ago,” Arthur Howlett said briefly. He turned to Michael again. “There’s a lot to be done Merrill, I want you to help me.”
They walked into the house in silence, feeling, as people always do in the presence of death, the futility of words.
“Come in here,” the doctor said opening the door of the big drawing room. Furnished in imitation Louis XIV style, it was a pretentious room, redolent of its owner.
“Where’s Mrs. Skeffington-Browne?” Mona asked, lowering her voice.
Arthur Howlett grinned.
“I’ve sent her to bed,” he said, “and given her a sedative.”
His twinkling eyes told them just how difficult and excitable the lady in question had been.
“She’s not a good person to be with Stanley at the moment.”
“Is he hurt?” Michael asked.
“Not physically,” the doctor replied, “but mentally the shock’s been a knock-out blow. I’m so glad you’ve come Mona. I think you’re just the person to deal with him.”
“I?” Mona questioned.
“Yes, you. I want you to talk to him. Let him confide in you. He seems sort of ‘keyed-up’. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that at the moment you could help him more than I can.”
“I’ll go and talk to him,’’ Mona said somewhat apprehensively. “But don’t blame me if I can do no good.”
“He’s in the study. Do you know your way?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well go and see what you can do.”
Mona left the room and the doctor turned to Michael.
“If anyone can help poor old Stanley now it’s Mona.”
“What makes you think that?” Michael asked curiously.
“Haven’t you noticed Mona’s extraordinary capacity for revitalising people, for making them come alive? I’m not expressing myself well because there isn’t a word in the English language which describes what I mean, but she’s not only vivid in herself – many people are that – but she gets some response, a reaction I suppose one should call it, from those with whom she comes in contact. In my profession we often meet healers and people who have a calming effect on others. Nurses are excellent when they have that quality. Mona has the opposite complement.
“She, well, how shall I put it? She makes people give out to their full capacity, or at least inspires them with the idea that they might do so. It’s an inestimable gift and, at this moment, I’m glad to be able to use it.”
“Yes, I agree with you,” Michael said slowly as if he were considering the doctor’s theory. “I’d never thought of it quite like that before, but now I am sure you’re right.”
“It’s very obvious when Mona joins a party,” Dr. Howlett went on. “The tempo rises. People become more easily excited, their voices are raised, laughter is easier. She’s a tonic, and a better one than I can prescribe!”
He laughed at his joke. Michael said nothing, but Arthur Howlett knew that he was pleased. The expression on his face was almost one of pride.
‘By Jove!’ the doctor thought. ‘I believe Dorothy’s right! And if those two do get married it will be a fine thing for us all. We need a family at the Park.’
With a tact that was unusual, he did not labour the point, but started to talk of the arrangements for Mrs. Gunther’s funeral, saying to Michael,
“We’d better arrange them in detail as the Vicar’s in no state to see to them himself.”
