No Love Lost (8 page)

‘Something serious? I'll be there in a jiffy, Doctor.'

I blessed her calm acceptance of whatever was coming and trusted I wasn't dragging her into danger.

‘Is there anything I can bring?'

‘Well, yes' I said. ‘Could you go round to the surgery and – Nurse?'

‘I'm listening, Doctor.'

‘Could you bring the –
equipment
we used on young George Roper some little time back? Do you remember?'

I heard her exclamation.

‘The day he …? Oh dear, yes. You've got someone listening, I suppose? Do you expect trouble, Doctor?'

‘I don't know,' I lied, ‘but it's very urgent. If you'll go to the surgery and bring
everything
I'll get Mr Gastineau to send his car down there for you.'

‘I'll be there. Don't worry.'

‘Bless you,' I said, and hung up. Then I put my head round the angle of the wall. ‘Will you send the car, please?'

Gastineau was standing a few feet away, his hands in his pockets and his head bent. He glanced up sharply and there was a faint smile on his mouth.

‘Do you really think it will do any good?'

It was that quiet man-to-man query, suggesting we were accomplices and emphasizing the fact that we were alone, which gave me my first jolt after making my decision to stay. I checked the retort which rose to my mouth and, feeling like a criminal, shrugged my shoulders.

‘We must do everything we can.'

‘But of course, Doctor.' He shot me an odd, half-admiring glance. ‘I will call Radek. You shall give him the instructions yourself.'

There was nothing whatever I could do for the patient until Nurse arrived with her grisly pumps and so I waited until I saw the man go and then I fetched my bag from the car and went upstairs again. There was no change and I expected none. Her heart was keeping up and I was certain I'd been right in deciding that there was no question of sending her to hospital. There were no pulmonary symptoms so far and I was not going to risk any by moving her an inch. Everything that was to be done, and there was plenty, would have to be performed right there in the room.

It had grown dark and I drew the curtains and turned up the lights, very glad of them somehow in that ancient shadowy bedchamber which must have seen generations of births and deaths in its four hundred years.

There was something which had to be done before Nurse arrived and I set about it. I went over the room like a police officer, searching it minutely for anything I could find. As I had
expected, any suitcases which might have come with her had been removed. The drawers in the tallboy were completely empty. There was nothing in the wardrobe or on the chintz-skirted dressing table, not even a powder puff, a comb or a hairpin; nothing at all.

I investigated the bathroom and found that it literally was a cupboard, one of those enormous presses which are often built into the alcove of a fireplace in very old houses. It had been tiled in green and fitted up very cleverly with a tiny window high up over the bath. There seemed scarcely room for anything to be hidden there, and yet I found something. Down on the floor, in the angle between the bath and the pedestal of the washbasin, was one of those flat plastic envelopes. It had not been noticed because it was the same colour as the tiles, and it was standing on its side flat against the wall and half-hidden by a pastel-shaded towel. I pounced on it and pulled back the zipper. Inside there was a soggy mess of face towels, soap, and odds and ends.

The first thing I pulled out was a nail brush, rather an elaborate affair, but sticky, of course, as everything else was. I turned it over with two fingers and stood looking at it. There was a monogram on the back, stamped into the ivory and picked out in green: F.F. Francia Forde.

So I was not dreaming and the thing was true. There was something about that utterly personal label which drove the facts home to me as nothing else would have done. Whatever the explanation of the whole crazy business might be, it truly was she and somehow or other I had got to save her life.

It was at that point that I heard someone try the door, and immediately afterwards a somewhat startled knocking. I thrust the brush back into the bag and dropped it where I had found it. If I had had the sense to go on examining it I might have been in a rather different frame of mind but as it was I hurried out and opened the door to find a startled Nurse Tooley, with Radek, bundled up with gear, behind her.

I had seen Nurse Tooley arriving on a scene of trouble at least a dozen times in so many weeks, but as usual she gave me the same thrill of pure thankfulness. She kept Radek quiet and got the bags into the room without letting him enter. Her movements
were light and neat and yet as powerful as a tractor. As she bent I saw her solidness and the width and power of her haunches under the stiff and pristine belt.

The moment the man had gone she closed the door very quietly and, with an eye on me, twisted the key softly in the lock. Then she pulled off her cloak, jerked the strings of her bonnet, and shot a long, searching glance at the bed.

‘Now, what have you got here?' she demanded.

I let her look and saw the deep frown appearing on her forehead. When she looked back at me I noticed with a pang that she was scared.

‘What has she taken, by all the saints?'

‘Some form of barbituric,' I said briefly, and it was the first time I had ever been evasive with Nurse Tooley.

‘Indeed now.' She was startled and disapproving. ‘I had in me mind something more homely, like the boy Roper you were mentioning.'

She was referring to a hectic afternoon we had spent together dealing with Mrs Roper's youngest, who had eaten deadly nightshade berries and had worried us both stiff before we had got him through.

‘I wish it were,' I said involuntarily. ‘But the initial treatment's the same.'

‘Ah, it would be,' she agreed with that heartening acquiesence I knew so well.

We got to work immediately. Nurse had obeyed me literally and had ‘brought everything'. We did not have to appeal to anyone in the house. We had a fire and we had hot water; the rest she had brought with her.

I suppose it was nearly two hours before we said any word which was not purely to do with the job in hand. Long before then, whatever poison was left in the patient had been already absorbed. I completed the work and watched anxiously for any sign of improvement.

Francia lay flat on her back, her eyes closed, her breath still stertorous, and as I listened to her heart my own sickened. Despite the stimulants I had given, it was not quite so strong.

There was only one thing to do and that was to wait for a
while. Nurse was clearing up at the far end of the room. I knew that at any moment now I must make her some sort of explanation and as I hesitated I saw out of the corner of my eye the Dormital bottle standing where I had left it on the corner of the chest nearest the bed.

There were one or two small ornaments on the glistening wood, a Spode bowl and a little lustre jug amongst them. I picked up the bottle and slid it into the jug for safety. It was practically a reflex action. I had no intention of doing anything secretive, but as Nurse turned round and caught me with my hand outstretched I coloured. There was nothing I could do to stop it.

She did not show any sign of noticing. Her own face was as placid and sensible as ever and she pulled a chair to the fire.

‘Rest yourself, Doctor,' she suggested, her Irish voice soft and easy. ‘It's terrible hard work you've been doing and there's nothing more to be done for her, poor soul, for a time at any rate.'

It was a straight invitation to talk, and I knew that with her I could take it or leave it as I chose. I went over and sat down and she eyed me with concern.

‘You
are
tuckered up,' she observed. ‘You're as white as linen. Wouldn't you like to run back for a minute or so, if it's only to have a bite of supper? I can well sit here, and if you think it's advisable to have the door locked, well, I can lock it.'

There was no query in her tone. I could explain just as much or as little as I liked and I knew then just why I had called her in and nobody else. She was my insurance against any weakness which might lie within me. I knew that with her beside me I'd just have to do what was professional and correct, whatever the consequences. I respected her and I trusted her as I didn't seem to trust myself. She was a bridge I'd burned behind me.

‘I don't want the patient left alone,' I said at last, ‘unless the door is locked and the key is in your pocket or mine.'

This was a pretty startling statement and could only mean the obvious. She took it with a nod.

‘Just as you say. ‘There'll be no one comes anywhere near the poor little thing while I'm about.' She paused and added the one thing which could have shown me just how completely in the
picture she was. There'll be no windows left open by mistake to give her pneumonia while I'm around.' And she leant forward to make up the fire, the red glow shining on the white linen of her cap. ‘Well now, why don't you treat yourself to half an hour at home?'

I shook my head. John was at the cottage and frankly I did not dare to think about him. His appearance had made the present situation so appallingly dangerous that I felt that the only thing to do was to keep him out of my mind and trust to God that he would not enter into anybody else's. I relied on Rhoda to explain where I was. His own intelligence would tell him that something fairly serious was amiss, and I trusted he'd do the sane thing and get quietly back to Grundesberg. Personal matters were not thinkable at that moment, and the new warmth which suffused me and was making me so reckless gave me a guilty feeling I certainly wasn't going to analyse.

Nurse Tooley folded her hands in her starched lap and raised her neat head.

‘Would this be the young party that was brought down from London in the ambulance there was all the talk about?'

I felt my heart miss a beat. ‘Talk?'

She smiled at me apologetically. ‘There's one thing I don't believe in and that's gossip,' she murmured. ‘It's an evil in this town, God knows. But you know there was a bother about the whole business, don't you?'

‘I knew the time was changed at the last moment,' I said cautiously.

‘Ah, that put them out to begin with, no doubt, but they had trouble at the house, you know. There was no one there but a woman no one took a fancy to, and the patient was in a highly peculiar state.'

She cast her eyes down and let me think what I would.

‘There was no one who could do anything with her except this Mr Gastineau, who had come with them, and there was a misunderstanding about yourself not being there to meet them.'

In her attempt to let me down lightly she succeeded in painting a scarifying picture, and I could just imagine how the tale would run round Mapleford.

Her pretty voice continued softly.

‘But it's all completely all right because everyone knew it was you, Doctor, who was arranging the matter.'

I was trying to decide what would be the most sensible comment to make when she forestalled me.

‘But early this morning when the stranger came round asking questions, everyone was interested, naturally,'

I don't think I could have moved had I dared. I had heard of people feeling that their blood had turned to ice water and for the first time I could believe it.

‘What stranger was this?' I hoped my voice sounded more normal to her than it did to me.

‘From what Mr Robins the Superintendent said, he was very pleasant but kind of simple.' She made the words sound kindly and I suddenly knew who she meant although there was no reason why I should have guessed it.

‘Was he carrying an umbrella?' The words were nearly out of my mouth but I checked them. The man had succeeded in rattling me in London, but never so much as now.

Nurse Tooley was laughing. ‘Mr Robins took pity on him and told him where to get rooms, poor soul. He seemed to have just stepped off the train without making any arrangements. What people will do!'

I got up. That final exclamation of hers had gone straight home. What people will do! I knew what
I had
to do. The decision had arrived ready-made in my mind some few minutes before. The time had come.

I gave Nurse the necessary instructions with regard to the patient and told her to call me the moment she thought she noticed any change, and then I let myself out into the dark upper hall and went downstairs. The old house was very quiet and oddly serene. Its very naturalness made the horror around me seem worse and more peculiarly my own. It was as though I had brought it there. I knew my way about, of course, and, making as little noise as possible, I walked into the sitting-room and across it before Gastineau was aware.

He was sitting in his chair by the fire and the room looked just as it always did, very comfortable and civilized. The desk
was just as untidy as when I'd seen it last and the little drawer which Gastineau had closed so quickly was still shut. It looked as though nothing had been touched.

I walked straight over to it, ignoring him, and pulled it open. There were all kinds of rubbish there, string, paper clips, a roll of tape, but no blue pamphlet.

The man behind me did not move. His eyes had been on me ever since I entered but he had not stirred. His stiff legs were turned to the blaze and his hands remained in his lap. As I shut the drawer he smiled at me.

‘You did notice? I wondered, but I wasn't sure. It was a bad moment for me. I thought I would be on the safe side.' He nodded at the fire pointedly.

I pulled up a chair opposite him and sat down, and as I did so I caught a glimpse of myself in a long narrow mirror on the farther wall. It startled me. I looked much younger, much more feminine and less impressive than I had thought. I wondered if he really did see me as just a pretty girl. If so, it was an image that had got to be dispelled.