No Love Lost (12 page)

‘Very sensible and very thorough, Doctor.' He gave me a brief smile as he spoke and it occurred to me that even I was no longer a real person to him either. I tried to achieve some of his detachment.

‘Is there anything else?'

‘I have used strychnine.'

There was a long silence. I knew that some authorities advocated large doses at comparatively frequent intervals, but the danger was tremendous.

‘I thought of it only as a last resort,' I said at last.

He moved his head sharply towards the patient. His voice was very quiet.

‘I don't think there's all that time.'

Nurse stood behind him, digesting every word, and I saw her nod to herself vigorously. So it was two to one, and I was overruled. Nurse's opinion carried weight with me. If she saw death, it was coming: I had no illusions about that. She had more experience of it than either of us, and there is something about it which does not belong to doctors or books. Its ways are known only to those who have watched for it and seen it steal in again and again through the years.

When John spoke of the size of the dose I felt the sweat break out on my forehead. I had hesitated to give a sixteenth: he was mentioning a sixth. I was on the other side of the bed watching Francia all the time he was talking, and I thought I saw a faint deterioration, an almost imperceptible change. I knew then there was nothing for it. We should have to take the risk.

We made the decision, John and I, with Francia Forde lying senseless between us, and the whole picture was very clear to me. Once we were committed there was a lot to be done, and I found that it was a return to our childhood, and that once again
John, with his careful hands and cautious eyes, was the leading spirit and I his faithful assistant. Nurse found it extraordinary. She kept looking at us, her plump face curious but impressed.

Once, when she and I happened to meet at the washbasin, she ventured to remark on it.

‘A grand man. A grand man,' she whispered. ‘You'll have known him before, no doubt?'

‘All my life,' I murmured back, and let her make what she would of it.

At the last moment there was a hitch. The kettle of freshly boiling water went over in the hearth and Nurse, in a flurry, hurried downstairs for another. John and I were left waiting. It was a trying moment and neither of us spoke. The room seemed to have grown larger and more bare, and I could hear the tick of my wrist watch where it lay on the mantelshelf.

Nurse was a long time and presently I began to walk up and down the rug, aware that my hands were growing wet and that my eyes were sticky. John did not move. He was quite steady. He was looking absently at the expanse of chintz curtains over the windows, his eyes introspective and the muscles of his jaw relaxed and easy. He was worried but not keyed up in any way. I was ashamed of myself.

Nurse returned with a rustle, a steaming kettle in her hand.

‘This is a madhouse,' she whispered. ‘The servants have gone to their beds and there's no one in the kitchen but a perfect stranger talking to that dratted old cat of a Miss Luffkin of all people.'

I nearly dropped the glass tray I was holding and John, noticing the involuntary movement, drew back the needle in his hand.

‘We'll see to all that later. Steady, Ann, please.'

The quiet voice jerked me back to sanity and for the next three minutes nobody spoke at all. In complete silence we tried the last resort, so bold, so dangerous.

I saw the soft flesh of Francia's upper arm pinched between John's fingers. The blue shaft slid deftly under her pale damp skin. Firmly the plunger went home. He dabbed the puncture with the spirit-soaked wool, laid her limp arm gently at her side,
and drew the coverlet up to her chin. Then he went to the shelf and glanced at the watch.

‘Twenty-five minutes before twelve,' he said, looking at me. ‘Nothing to do now but wait … and pray.'

I turned down the light by the bed and he went off to the bathroom to wash. Nurse was standing beside me and I leaned towards her.

‘Did you say Miss Luffkin was downstairs?'

‘Did you ever!' Her eyes were round with indignation. ‘Standing there with a milk pudding, every hair of her twiddled into a question-mark. That woman will be snooping in purgatory. The whole town will hear everything, you know. What she saw, and what she didn't. What she thought and what she didn't have time to think. I said to her, “You be off to your bed or that bronchitis of yours will get you and the doctor and I will be too busy to see to you.” She soon went. I put the pudding on the side and shut the door after her.'

‘And the man?'

‘Oh, him? I don't know what he was doing there at all. He wasn't answering her questions, I do remember that. Just stood, holding his pipe politely, as far as I remember. I was busy, you see, getting the kettle to boil'

‘Did he ask you anything?'

It was evident that she had not taken him very seriously. She was so used to running into unexplained people in the houses where she went to nurse.

‘I don't think so,' she said at last. ‘I remember him saying, “I expect you're busy,” or something idiotic like that. He was only waiting, that was all.'

‘Yes.' My word was hardly as light as a breath. She was right of course. He was only waiting, whoever he was, and I made myself look at the still figure in the bed.

‘That woman you were talking about just now.' John had come back without my hearing him. ‘Is that the alarming old duck who rushes out with a torch and stops cars?'

‘That'll be her, sir.' Nurse spoke with conviction. ‘She's lonely. That's the best you can say for her. Did she have the cheek to stop yourself?'

‘She did, but I couldn't help her, I fear, and she retired discomfited.'

‘So much the better.' Nurse radiated satisfaction. ‘She's in the dark, that's what's got under her skin. She's often said to me, “I'm not inquisitive, Nurse, but I've got to know.”'

A faint wry smile touched John's mouth as he met my eyes.

‘The vultures gather,' he said softly. ‘Nurse, if there's another room available I should like you to lie down for an hour or two. Dr Fowler and I will watch the patient, but we ought not to need you until about 4 A.M.'

She dared not object. John had made a tremendous impression on her and her instinct was unquestioning obedience. But I could see she didn't like it.

‘I'll go down and see what room she can have,' I said quickly, and went out before anyone could demur.

The grandfather clock struck midnight as I crossed the landing, and I thought how melodramatic it sounded. It had a very deep chime with an asthmatic wheeze or death rattle between each stroke.

The lights were bright downstairs but the lobby struck chill as I reached it. I crept out of the kitchen. I don't know what I intended to say to the man with the umbrella, if I was anticipating some sort of showdown, or if I just wanted to be sure I had not gone out of my mind and it was really he, but when I pushed open the kitchen door there was no sign of him. Yet the lights were on and it was very warm and bright in there under the heavy beams. The stove was open and a chair by the table had been pushed back as if someone had just risen, but the room was empty.

The back door was closed but not locked, and I went on out into a maze of dark pantries and washhouses not wired for electricity. In the middle of an outside passage I fell over a suitcase. It was perfectly ordinary, leather and shabby and fastened with heavy straps. It was just standing there, plump in the way.

I did not shift it, since it was hardly my affair, and I went back to the kitchen. There a shock awaited me. The chair had been moved. I had left it where I found it, some feet out in the
room, but now it was back in its place, its seat neatly under the table. Also, hanging in the warm air, clear and unmistakable, was a blue wisp of tobacco smoke. Yet I had not been more than a few feet out of the kitchen and I had been listening, straining my ears, but I had not heard a sound.

I hurried into the hall and there everything was the same, bare and bright and cold.

Gastineau's voice startled me when I knocked at the living-room door, even though I expected it. He was not in his usual place by the fire, and I glanced round the room nervously. Presently I found him, sitting in a high-backed wing chair which had been pulled up to the desk.

He was tidying a chaotic heap of papers which had covered it, and the wastepaper basket at his side was nearly full. He had moved when I came in and I saw the unspoken question in his eyes. Its eagerness shocked me and I spoke stiffly.

‘Miss Forde's condition is unchanged. I came to ask you if I could have a room for Nurse. If she can get a little sleep now it will help.'

‘A long day tomorrow, eh? Take any one you like, Doctor. They're all empty.' He spoke brightly. ‘The servants sleep at the back, where they have their own staircase, and I shall not go to bed.' He leant back in the chair and pointed to the desk. ‘You see? I clean out my pigsty. It is about time and it is as well to do something useful when one is waiting.'

There was the same abominable frankness, the same suggestion that we were allies. I was still recoiling from it when his next remark caught me unaware.

‘Dr Ludlow telephoned but I begged him to excuse my calling you down as you were busy. I took the liberty of telling him that you had brought in Dr Linnett.' He paused briefly and added, ‘He was relieved, and I imagine he has gone to bed. So you see, we are all three here.'

I realized just a little too late that he had checked John's identity very neatly and that this was a gentle reminder that we were all three in it together. Angry with myself and frightened, my only consolation lay in the fact that I saw he was on edge himself. I guessed our combined efficiency was a bit more than he
had bargained for. I wished I felt even that much confidence in it.

‘Nurse can have any room, you say? Thank you. Good night, Mr Gastineau. When there is any further news I shall let you know.'

I got out on that and went up again, my knees feeling weak and unreliable.

I found a room with a bed in it which wasn't damp, and I called Nurse out to it. She was very weary but loath to rest while I was still on my feet, but she did as she was told. The sickroom was quiet and airy. John was by the bed as I entered and I went over to him.

‘So far so good.'

His narrow eyes were bright in the light of the lamp.

‘The lungs are sticking it, that's the mercy. Good vetting of yours, Ann.'

‘No reaction yet?'

‘No. We'll have to wait. Come and sit down.'

We sat by the fire in the chairs which Nurse and I had pulled up earlier in the evening. John lay back, his dark red head resting against the chintz. His chin was on his breast and I could see the profile that the film people had gone so crazy about when they made the move which smashed his life and mine. I imagine that we both had the same thought just then. It amounted to a simple question: when, if ever, would he and I be able to sit quietly before a fire and speak freely again? If Francia died – and although I shrank from facing it the chance of her recovery seemed very slender now – the answer was, irrevocably, never. Neither of us would do the cheating, betraying our oaths, or laying ourselves open to blackmail. The story was very simple to guess. There would be a few weeks of agony, gossip and uncertainty, and then.… what? Who was going to believe the literal truth from either of us? Would I, if I were on the jury?

John turned and caught my eye. The warm light made his face crimson.

‘I fell for the movies,' he said abruptly.

The intimacy was so very precious to me that I dreaded saying
something wrong. Far out of my childhood, a scene at a Christmas party crept into my mind. I saw myself in white silk knickerbockers lashed to a lamp-standard mast.

‘The boy stood on the burning deck,' I murmured.

He chuckled. The tears of laughter welled up and stood in his eyes.

‘O God! you were funny.'

‘“Eh-eh, the lassie did her best.”'

‘Father said that, I remember. Oh, you were so angry! You kicked the audience.'

I laughed. ‘I made a fool of myself, I know. I still remember that with resentment.'

‘Do you?' He was staring back at the fire. ‘You didn't make such an ass of yourself as I did, Ann, in Italy.'

I took all my courage in my hands.

‘It was a bad time just then, just after the war. Victory and nothing else, not even peace.' The words came out lazily, I might have been half asleep.

‘That was just about it,' he agreed wearily, his forehead wrinkling. ‘We were just kicking our heels. I was sick of stinks and suffering and useless sacrifices, and these film people were frightfully amusing. I couldn't follow half of what they said, but it all seemed very complimentary. There was one little chap like a sallow Hotei.…do you remember?'

I nodded. I could see the fat little Chinese god of plenty sitting on Mrs Linnett's bedroom mantelshelf. John was following my thought.

‘I couldn't bear to come back to the empty house, Ann.'

‘No. Better not. Hotei was white, by the way.'

‘This little guy wasn't. He was grey. I don't know what he was or how he got there, but he was the big noise in the outfit and they were getting special permission to make films outside Florence. I was to be his big discovery, and he went through the Command to get me the necessary leave like a knife going through butter. That's how it happened.'

There was a long silence. I wanted to tell him that it did not matter how it happened, and that I could guess. I wanted to say that I wasn't a fool, and I could imagine what it was like to see
a chance of getting away from weary horror, and that I could forgive anybody, let alone him, from shrinking from revisiting that pretty, shabby old house in Southersham where every click of a door latch must have brought him leaping up to meet someone who could never be there again. But I didn't say anything.