Dorothy Eden (57 page)

Fergus hurrying home to an invalid wife, to a pampered useless person lying decoratively in an antique Spanish bed… Brigit bit her lip and turned her head on the pillow.

‘Thank you, Aunt Annabel. You’re so sweet to me. And all those lovely flowers. Who sent them?’

‘Why, Fergus of course, dear. Who else? You’re a very lucky girl.’

Nurse Ellen took up the same refrain when she came in. She was a plump healthy-looking girl with a pleasant face and thick blond hair twisted into neat coils beneath her cap. She looked as if she would stand no nonsense. Brigit liked her at once. So far she was the only thing she liked about the Montpelier Square house. Again, she had Fergus to thank for seeing that she had a pleasant nurse. Dear kind Fergus with his invalid wife.

‘You are a lucky girl, too,’ said Nurse Ellen briskly. ‘I only saw your husband once, but I’d work my fingers to the bone for him. And I wouldn’t do that for many men, I can tell you.’

Again Brigit made an effort to look bright and interested.

‘Don’t you like men, nurse?’

Nurse Ellen set down the tray of tea.

‘Not some of them,’ she said shortly. ‘There’s more hypocrisy goes with a pair of trousers—well, maybe there are exceptions. And your husband’s one.’ She smiled, and her rather pudgy face was very kind. ‘You’ll have to get well quickly for him.’

Again a sense of panic, as of time flying by and leaving her forgotten, invaded Brigit.

‘Nurse—have you had any other cases like mine?’

‘Well—yes. A year ago I had a crippled lady. But she wasn’t half as lucky as you. She didn’t have a royal bed—who do you think is going to call on you, ducky, King Henry the Eighth?’—her pale-blue eyes were full of roguishness—‘nor did she have a room this size, nor that florist’s shop, nor lingerie like yours, either.’

Brigit wanted to say that she hated this bed with its slender twisted posts and its carved headboard, and that she knew she would never get well in it. She wanted to tell the nurse that she would willingly have had the other woman’s poverty. But there was a more vital question.

‘Did she—walk again?’

‘Well, no. She might have, but she died first, so we never did find out whether she’d ever have walked. Sweet little thing she was. Oh, I shall like being here.’

‘Shall you?’ said Brigit faintly.

‘Oh yes. I adore luxury. That girl you’ve got looking after the children does, too. I see her touching things.’

Brigit suddenly remembered Prissie’s thin light fingers moving caressingly over the silk sheets. Now were they moving with the same sensual pleasure over the treasures in this house? Why, she wondered, should she dislike the thought? She had reason to hate the Templar possessions, but Prissie hadn’t. To Prissie they were objects of beauty. Let her touch them if she wished.

‘Prissie’s a treasure,’ she said firmly.

‘Yes, I could see that. She’s like a mother with the children. Didn’t I tell you how lucky you are? Now come, have this nice cup of tea while it’s hot.’

The tea was hot, but its flavour was spoilt. Why should she mind Prissie temporarily behaving like a mother to Nicky and Sarah? Nurse Ellen was right, she was so fortunate to have Prissie. It was only that she kept thinking of Prissie’s slim mobile legs while her own remained as stiff and immovable as the bedposts. She resolutely blinked back tears.

‘Don’t you think Prissie’s a nice girl, nurse?’

‘Sure. Everyone’s nice in this house. Your uncle’s a wizard with his jokes with the housekeeping money, your brother has the nicest manners, but he needs building up. Vitamin B, I’d say. And the housekeeper with this thing she’s got about ghosts. Says this little man in a brown coat comes into her bedroom every night. Indecent, I call it. I’d soon ask him what his game was, ghost or no ghost. Drink your tea, ducky.’ Brigit obediently took another sip.

‘When will the children be back from the park?’

‘Prissie said she’d keep them out of your way until you got settled and rested. I think she said she’d take them to the bus stop to meet your husband. That’s if he comes by bus, of course.’

‘He always does. From Victoria. It only takes ten minutes. The four o’clock train. He never missed it if he could help it. I remember.’ Brigit’s voice faded away. What did it matter, what did it
matter,
she asked herself fiercely, if it was Prissie at the bus stop this time? At least it would be someone for Fergus. He had always found someone there in the past…

‘What do you remember, ducky?’ Nurse Ellen’s voice was unexpectedly gentle. Brigit dashed away her tears.

‘Only that I always used to meet Fergus there. Oh, that’s years ago, before we were married. He’s probably forgotten.’

‘Well, if he’s due at four you’ve got to have some rest first,’ said Nurse Ellen briskly. ‘So just settle down to that. I’ll wake you in plenty of time to titivate.’

‘Thank you, nurse.’ Brigit smiled. ‘I think I’m going to like you.’

‘And so you should. After all, your husband chose me.’

Fergus had chosen Prissie, too. Had he an instinct about the kind of women she would like?

The move from the hospital had been exhausting, and Brigit did fall asleep. But her sleep was light, and punctuated with little soft runs and thumps and pounces as Aunt Annabel’s cats frolicked in the studio overhead. She wasn’t yet used to the different bed, and she had a dream that it was Prissie lying there, indolent and graceful, her dark hair spread on the pillow, her sparkling eyes and piquant face so much more suited to the Spanish infanta’s bed than she with her English fairness. She herself was down at the corner, standing in the misty dusk, waiting for Fergus’s bus. The two pictures were clear in her mind, Prissie luxuriantly in the big bed, herself stamping her feet softly and impatiently in the chilly wind, her cheeks, whipped pink with cold and anticipation. That was how it should be, she thought, in the detached way of a dream, and awoke suddenly to the sound of Uncle Saunders shouting, and children’s footsteps running up the stairs.

‘Yes, we got her home in good shape,’ Uncle Saunders was booming, obviously unaware that his voice carried all over the house. ‘And there she is lying like a princess. It was my wife’s idea about the Spanish bed. Something about surroundings and influences. I never did understand this psychiatry, or whatever it is. But I guess if one’s got to lie in bed for months it might as well be an ornamental bed.’

Someone said something to him, and he said irritatedly, with no lowering of his voice, ‘I’m not shouting. This is my normal voice. Couldn’t hear me in the next room. Anyway, I didn’t say anything.’

The protesting voice, obviously Aunt Annabel’s, made another remark, and Uncle Saunders answered testily, ‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it. No one can say definitely she’ll ever walk again. Even the doctor can’t, though personally I’ve no faith in doctors. Lots of quacks. Annabel, either the children or those cats of yours have been at my clippings. No, I don’t know either what cats or children would want with Stock Exchange clippings, but the fact remains, they’ve disappeared.’

The booming voice died away. Quick footsteps approached her door. Brigit, lying frozen in the big bed, could think only of the opening lines of a poem she had once read called ‘Pavanne for a Dead Infanta…’ It was no way to greet Fergus, Fergus who wanted a smiling and optimistic wife, quite sure that she would be running to meet him on her own two feet the next time he came home.

The room was full of dusk, and the dead limb of the mulberry tree hung like a gigantic question mark against the sky. Why didn’t someone put on lights and banish this nightmare-filled half-light?

But before the thought could become a request Fergus was there and taking her in his arms. Then nothing existed but the exquisite comfort of his presence, his hard young arms about her, his face against hers.

‘So you’re lying in state,’ he said. ‘And very charmingly you do it.’ Then he was kissing her and murmuring, ‘Don’t mind it, darling. It isn’t for long. They really mean to be kind.’

So he understood about the bed, too, and her aversion for it. How could she think that anything else mattered, Uncle Saunders’s clumsy remarks, Aunt Annabel’s mistaken kindness, Prissie’s lightfooted mobility, even the undertone of the cats’ frivolities, when Fergus understood so well?

‘I don’t mind it,’ she lied. ‘No one’s ever been so pampered. The last cripple Nurse Ellen nursed was very poor and hadn’t a room like this or a four-poster bed or people to wait on her. She died.’

Fergus started up. ‘What are you talking about? What’s this nurse been saying to you? I thought she was the sensible kind.’

‘Oh, she is. She’s perfectly sweet. I adore her already.’

But Fergus was at the door. ‘Nurse! Come here a moment.’

Nurse Ellen appeared from the room next door where she slept.

‘Oh, it’s you back,’ she said in her downright way. ‘I suppose you’ve woken my patient.’

‘Your patient was awake. What’s this you’ve been telling her about a case of yours who died?’

‘The crippled lady? Oh, yes. I always stay with my patients until the end.’

Brigit caught Fergus’s indignant gaze, and suddenly she began to laugh. It was all so ridiculous, Nurse Ellen’s unconscious lack of humour, Fergus’s indignation, and her own very far-off demise. She might not be able to walk at present, but in every other way she was a young and healthy woman.

Fergus, after a moment sharing her thoughts, began to laugh himself, and it was Nurse Ellen’s turn to be indignant, thinking that they were laughing at her professional integrity. The gloom was dispelled. Fergus snapped on a light, and the mulberry’s crooked shape disappeared from view. The children were coming, too. She could hear Sarah’s chatter as she toiled up the stairs on her short plump legs, and Prissie’s voice humming gaily. Prissie was probably the most naturally light-hearted person this old house had seen for generations. Her songs must almost make the walls tremble and send the ghosts to their lairs.

What was it now? Oh, yes, the Clementine song.
Oh, my darling, oh, my darling, oh, my darling Clementine…

Sarah came rushing in first, throwing herself against the bed and beaming at Brigit.

‘Mummy’s home!’ she cried. ‘Mummy’s home!’

Brigit caressed her tousled hair. ‘Yes, darling. Here I am. Come in, Prissie. Where’s Nicky?’

Prissie came in lightly, her hair blown, her cheeks as red as hawthorn berries. She looked the epitome of life and vitality.

‘Nicky’s here. Hurry up, darling, you are slow.’

At last Nicky appeared slowly, almost reluctantly. He stood within the doorway, unsmiling and white-faced. There was a scratch on his cheek, and his knees were muddied.

‘Well,’ said Fergus critically. ‘No wonder you’re slow to show yourself, old man. You’re still covered in mud.’

‘I know, I should have washed him, but Sarah wouldn’t wait to see her mother,’ Prissie apologized.

Brigit put out her hand. ‘Come here, darling. Let me see you. Why, you’ve even got leaves in your hair.’

Nicky came a slow step forward. He still didn’t smile, or relax his air of watchfulness.

‘Nicky,’ said Brigit.

‘Come along,’ said Fergus firmly. ‘Your mother wants to see you.’

Brigit had one fierce unhappy qualm that perhaps being ill in bed gave Nicky an aversion to her. Then, as the boy came nearer obediently, she saw that his eyes had the fixed frightened look that they had when he awoke from one of his nightmares.

‘What’s the matter, darling?’ she asked gently. ‘Who scratched your face?’

Nicky put a grubby hand to the red line on his cheek. Prissie went down on her knees and put her arms round him.

‘He fell and scratched himself on a briar. But he didn’t cry. Did you, pet?’

Nicky stiffened in her embrace.

‘It was Clementine,’ he whispered.

‘Who was Clementine?’ asked Fergus. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been fighting with girls.’

Prissie gave her wide spontaneous smile. ‘He hasn’t, of course. He only fell down.’

‘Clementine pushed me,’ Nicky muttered. ‘I hate her.’

Prissie went to speak again, but Brigit intervened. ‘Come here, Nicky, close to me. Now tell me, who is Clementine?’

‘That girl in the park. She pinched me and pushed me over. Does she have to be there when we go to play?’

‘There wasn’t anyone,’ said Prissie over his head. ‘He makes these people up. Do you notice how he lives in his imagination, Mrs Gaye? More since you’ve been ill. I expect it’s psychological.’

Fergus looked intently from Prissie to Nicky.

‘So there isn’t any little girl called Clementine? He’s just made her up to make someone the scapegoat for his being hurt?’

‘I expect that’s why,’ said Prissie. ‘He said straight away when he fell that it was Clementine. You have to admit that he really has an astonishing imagination.’

‘But why Clementine?’ said Fergus, obviously interested in this aspect of Nicky’s development. ‘It’s such an unlikely name.’

‘You sing that song, don’t you,’ said Brigit to Prissie. She could not have explained why she was not as ready as Fergus to dismiss the reality of the fiendish little girl called Clementine. Probably because her’s and Nicky’s minds worked the same way. She herself could have believed that the mulberry tree outside her window was a petrified witch. Perhaps she had encouraged Nicky too much in his imaginativeness.

‘Yes. I do,’ said Prissie frankly, ‘but I’ll tell you what the real reason probably is. The other day I found an old doll in the toy cupboards upstairs and I called it Clementine, just to give it a name. For some reason it seems to have frightened Nicky. I had to put it away again because he wouldn’t touch it. He’s probably got it on his mind without my noticing.’

Brigit held one of Nicky’s muddied hands in hers. She noticed that it was ice-cold.

‘Was it that pedlar doll, Prissie? I remember being terrified of it myself when I was a child.’

‘I thought it was beautiful,’ Prissie said.

‘Oh, perfectly made and a work of art, but rather horrible. Witchy.’

‘She talks in the night,’ Nicky said in a small voice.

Brigit would not allow Fergus his impatience with Nicky’s nervousness. She said firmly, ‘Fergus, I don’t care what you think, but this sort of thing can be very alarming to a sensitive child. Prissie, I think we’ll have to get rid of that doll.’