Bride of Pendorric (30 page)

” Of course I shall. I shall positively pester you until you accept.

Were you going for a walk? “

“I was just going over to Polhorgan. There are one or two things I have to see Mrs. Dawson about.”

” May I walk with you?”

” It would be a great pleasure.”

We left Morwenna to her flowers and took the road to Polhorgan. I felt rather guilty about refusing Deborah’s invitation and was anxious that she should not think me churlish.

I tried to explain to her.

” Of course I understand, my dear. You don’t want to leave your husband. As a matter of fact I’m sure Roe would protest if you suggested it. But one day perhaps later on you’ll come for a week-end when he has to go away. He does sometimes, on business, you know. We’ll choose our opportunity. It was just that I thought, after that”

She shivered.

” If it hadn’t been for you we might be there still.”

“I’ve never ceased to be thankful that I happened to go into the graveyard. It was just that I was determined to search every square inch. And when I think how chancey it was I shudder. I might have walked right round the vault and you might not have heard me, nor I you.”

” I don’t like thinking of it … even in broad daylight. It’s so extraordinary, too, that Roe says the door wasn’t locked … only jammed. I must say I feel a little foolish about that.”

” Well, of course a door could get jammed.”

” But we were so desperate. We hammered with all our might. It seems incredible. And yet there’s only the one key and that was locked in Roe’s cupboard.”

” So,” she went on, ” the only one who could have locked you in would have been Roe.” She laughed at the ludicrous idea; and I laughed with her.

“There used to be two keys, I remember,” she went on. ” Roe’s father kept one in the cupboard there where Roe keeps it now.”

” And who had the other?”

She paused for a few seconds, then she said: “Barbarina.” We were silent after that and scarcely spoke until we said good-bye at Polhorgan.

I had never enjoyed going to Polhorgan since my grandfather’s death.

The place seemed so empty and useless without him; it had an air of being unlived-in, which I always think is so depressing—like a woman whose life has never been fulfilled. Roe often laughed at me for my feeling about houses; as though, he said, they had a personality of their own. Well, at the moment Polhorgan’s personality was a negative one. Of course, I thought, if I filled it with orphans who had never seen the sea, had never had any care and attention, what a different house it would be!

Idealistic dreams! I could hear Roe’s voice. ” Wait until you see how

the bureaucrats are going to punish you. This is the Robin Hood State, in which the rich are robbed to help the poor.”

I didn’t care what difficulties I should encounter, I was going to have my orphans—if fewer than I had first dreamed of. Mrs. Dawson came out to greet me.

” Good morning, madam. Dawson and I were wondering if you’d come; and as you have, would you be pleased to take a cup of coffee in our sitting-room? There’s something on our minds….”

I said I should be delighted to, and Mrs. Dawson told me she would make the coffee at once and send for Dawson.

Ten minutes later I was in the Dawsons’ comfortable sitting-room, drinking a cup of Mrs. Dawson’s coffee.

Dawson had some difficulty in getting to the point, which I quickly perceived was an elaboration of the suspicions which had occurred to him the night my grandfather died.

” You see, madam, it’s not easy to put into words. A man’s afraid of saying too much … then again he’s afraid of not saying enough.”

Dawson was the typical butler. Dignified, and self-assured, he was the type of manservant my grandfather would have insisted on having, because he was what Roe would have called a cliche butler in the same way that my grandfather was the cliche self-made man.

“You can be perfectly frank with me, Dawson,” I told him. ” I’ll not repeat anything you say unless you wish me to.”

Dawson looked relieved. ” I would not wish, madam, to be taken to the courts by the woman in question. Although if it should be true that she had been there before, that could we” be counted in my favour. “

“You mean Nurse Grey?”

Dawson said mat he meant no other. ” I am not satisfied, madam, about the nature of his lordship’s death; and having talked together, Mrs.

Dawson and I have come to the conclusion that it was brought about by a deliberate act. “

“You mean because the pills were discovered under the bed?”

“Yes, madam, his lordship had had one or two minor attacks during the day, and Mrs. Dawson and I had noticed that often attacks would follow closely on one another, so it seemed almost certain that he would have another attack some time during the night.”

” Wouldn’t he call the nurse when he had these attacks during the night?”

” Only if the attack got so bad he needed morphia. Then he’d ring the bell on his side table. But first he’d take his pill. The bell was on the floor too, madam, with the pills.”

” Yes, and it looked as though he knocked them over when reaching for the pills.”

” That may have been how it was intended to look, madam.”

” You are suggesting that Nurse Grey deliberately put the pills and the bell out of his reach?”

” Only within these four walls, madam.”

” But why should she wish him dead? She has lost a good job.”

” She had a good legacy,” put in Mrs. Dawson. ” And what’s to prevent, her finding another job where she’ll get another legacy?”

” But you’re not suggesting that she kills off her patients for the sake of the legacies they leave her?”

” It might be so, madam, and I feel impelled to explain my suspicions regarding this young woman, and they are that she is an adventuress who needs to be watched.”

“Dawson,” I said, “my grandfather is dead and buried. Dr. Clement was satisfied that he died from natural causes.”

” Mrs. Dawson and I don’t doubt Dr. Clement’s word, madam; but what we think is that his lordship was hastened to his death.”

“This is a terrible accusation, Dawson.”

” I know, madam; and that is why I would not want it to go beyond these four walls; but I thought you should be warned of our suspicions, the young woman still being in the neighbourhood.” Mrs.

Dawson stared thoughtfully into her coffee cup. ” I was talking to Mrs. Greenock,” she said, “who owns Cormorant Cottage.”

” That’s where Nurse Grey is living now, isn’t it?”

” Yes, having a little rest between posts, so she says. Well, Mrs.

Greenock wasn’t very keen on letting to her. She was really after a long let that would go on all through the winter, and Nurse Grey wanted

it for what she called an indefinite period. But it seems Mr. Pendorric persuaded Mrs. Greenock to let Nurse Grey have it. “

I was beginning to understand why the Dawsons had wanted to talk to me. They were not only underlining their suspicions as to why my grandfather had died when he did, but were telling me that we had an adventuress in our midst, who was none too scrupulous, and was more friendly with my husband than they considered wise.

If they had wanted to make me feel uneasy they had certainly succeeded.

I changed the subject as inconspicuously as I could; we talked about the problems of Polhorgan, and I told them that I wanted them to go on as they were until I made up my mind what to do about the house. I assured them that I had no intention of selling and that I wanted them to remain there and hoped they always would.

They were delighted with me as their new employer. Mrs. Dawson told me so with tears in her eyes and Dawson implied, without sacrificing one part of his dignity, that it was a pleasure to serve me. But I was very unhappy because I knew that they had spoken as they did out of a genuine concern for my welfare.

That afternoon I went to see the Clements because I wanted to talk to the doctor unprofessionally about my grandfather.

Mabell Clement was emerging triumphant from what she called the pot house when I arrived, her hair half up, half down, and she was dressed in a cotton blouse and bunchy yellow skirt.

” Nice surprise,” she declared breezily. ” Andrew will be pleased.

Come in and I’ll make you a cup of tea. It’s been one of the most successful days I’ve had for a long time. “

Andrew came to the door of the house to meet me and told me that I’d come at a fortunate time because it was his afternoon off, and his partner, Dr. Lee, was on duty.

Mabell made the tea, and, because she couldn’t find the cosy, put a woollen balaclava over the pot. There were tested scones—a little burned—and a cake which had sagged in the middle.

” It tastes rather like a Christmas pudding,” Mabell warned. ” I like Christmas pudding,” I assured her.

I liked Mabell too; she was one of the few people who were unimpressed by my sudden wealth.

While we were having tea I told Dr. Clement that I was disturbed about my grandfather’s death.

” Could he have lived much longer if he hadn’t had that attack?” I asked.

” He could have, yes. But we had to expect such attacks, and their consequences could be fatal. I was not in the least surprised when I got the call.”

” No, but he might have been alive now if he had been able to reach his pills in time.”

“Has Dawson been talking to you again?”

” Dawson spoke to you about this, didn’t he?” I countered. ” Yes, at the time your grandfather died. He found the pills and the bell on the floor.”

” If he had been able to reach his pills … or his bell …”

” It seemed perfectly clear that he had tried and had knocked them over.

In the circumstances a major attack developed, and . that was the end.

”

Mabell brought over the cake which was like a Christmas pudding and I took a piece.

” It’s over now,” she said gently. ” It’s only disturbing to go over something that’s finished.”

” Yet I would like to know.”

“Actually I think the Dawsons didn’t get on with the nurse,” Mabell went on. ” Nurses are notoriously bossy; butlers notoriously dignified; housekeepers tend to regard the house as their domain and resent anyone but their employers. I think it was just not very unusual domestic strife; and now the Dawsons see a chance of settling an old score.”

” You see,” said Andrew, ” Dawson could suggest she deliberately put the pills and bell out of reach; she would emphatically deny it. There could be no proof either way.”

” She looks like a piece of Dresden china but I reckon she’s as sturdy as earthenware,” mused Mabell. ” It must have been a pleasant job she had with Lord Polhorgan. In any case she seemed to like it. How long had she been with him?”

” More than eighteen months,” said Andrew.

“Was she a good nurse?” I asked. ” Quite efficient.”

” She seemed .. hard,” I suggested. ” She was a nurse, and as such had had Some experience of suffering. Nurses … doctors … you know they can’t feel the same as someone like yourself. We see too much of it.”

” I know I can trust you two,” I said, ” so I’ll say this: Do you think that she discovered she would get a thousand pounds when my grandfather died and that made her hasten his death?” There was silence. Mabell took a long amber cigarette holder, opened a silver box and offered me a cigarette.

“Because,” I said slowly, “if she would do a thing like that, it’s rather a sobering thought that she’s going into other sickrooms, and the lives of other patients will be put into her hands.” Dr. Clement watched me intently. Then he said: ” At the moment she’s resting.

She’s taking a holiday before going to a new post, and I think it would be very unwise to talk of this matter beyond this room. “

Mabell changed the subject in her blunt way. ” I suppose you’ve quite recovered from that midnight adventure of yours.”

” Oh … yes.”

” An unpleasant experience,” commented Andrew.

” I shiver even now when I think of it.”

“The door was jammed, wasn’t it?”

” I was certain that we were locked in.”

” All the rain we’ve been having might make the door jam,” said Andrew.

” Yet …”

Mabell thoughtfully knocked the ash from her cigarette.

“Who on earth would have locked you in?”

” That’s what I’ve been wondering ever since.” Andrew leaned forward.

“So you don’t believe the door jammed? ” I hesitated. What impression was I giving them? First I was repeating Dawson’s suggestions against Nurse Grey, and now I was hinting that someone had locked me in the vault. They were two intelligent, uninhibited people. They would think I had a persecution mania if I was not careful.

“The general opinion seemed to be that the door had jammed. There was only one key anyway, and that was locked in a cupboard in my husband’s study. He brought it down to the vault and it was he who found the door wasn’t locked at all.”

” Well, thank heaven they did discover you.”

” If Deborah hadn’t happened to come that way—and it was really purest chance that she did—goodness knows how long we should have been there. Perhaps we should be there now.”

“Oh no!” protested MabeU.

” Why not? Such things have been known to happen.” Andrew lifted his shoulders. ” It didn’t happen.”

” In future,” Mabell put in, ” you must be very careful.” Andrew leaned forward and there was a puzzled expression in his eyes.

” Yes,” he repeated, ” in future you must be very careful.” Mabell laughed rather nervously and began to talk about a pot she had made which she thought was unusual. When it was fired she wanted my opinion.

I felt that when I was not there they would talk of my affairs. They would say it was surprising that the door of the vault had been jammed and not locked and, perhaps, that Roe had the only key. They would undoubtedly have heard that Roe had persuaded Mrs. Greenock to let Althea Grey have Cormorant Cottage; and they would ask themselves:

What is happening at Pendorric? My uneasiness was deepening.

I didn’t want to talk any more about the disturbed thoughts which were turning over in my mind; I feared that I had already said too much to the Clements. I wished that I could have talked to Roe of my fears, but I imagined he would laugh at them—besides, he himself was so much involved.