Dorothy Eden (61 page)

Her breakfast tray was obviously prepared by Nurse Ellen with great care, and always bore a rose or a carnation, as well as the morning papers and any mail that might have arrived for her. By the time it came in Brigit was ready for the comfort of food and hot coffee for she was invariably suffering from intense dejection at the discovery that still her legs were numb and useless. Each morning the frail but tenuous hope would come to her—perhaps today one of her feet, or even one toe, would consent to move. When nothing happened her spirits would begin to sink lower and lower. In hospital at this time the sister had frequently found her in tears. But now that she was at home, with the children likely to come in at any moment, and everyone being so kind, she felt that the least she could do was to keep bright and cheerful. On the nights that Fergus slept in the house it was even more imperative to present a smiling face to him. But the mask, she was afraid, was going to wear thin. Oh, how much longer could this go on?

‘Now, ducky, you’re needing this, I can see,’ Nurse Ellen said briskly, as she crossed the room with the tray.
‘And
a surprise for you this morning. Just look and see!’

‘What?’ said Brigit feebly, biting on her trembling lip. Nurse Ellen had nearly witnessed the shame of her cowardly tears this morning.

‘A cable from Rome. Really that husband of yours spoils you disgustingly.’

‘Oh, from Fergus!’ Brigit cried in delight.

‘That, and a letter, too! Now don’t let your coffee get cold. The news will keep.’

The cable might have been Fergus speaking.

DIDN’T I TELL YOU NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN WHILE I WAS AWAY SO STOP WORRYING. ALL MY LOVE FERGUS

Brigit smiled, and blinked back tears, and holding the cable lovingly in her hands forgot to pour her coffee while it was hot. She temporarily forgot the other letter, too. Anyway, it didn’t look very important. Her name and address were printed in rather crude letters. It was probably from one of the patients with whom she had made friends in the hospital.

She opened it languidly after she had savoured the delight of Fergus’s brisk business-like cable that covered so much thoughtfulness and understanding.

Then she dropped the sheet of paper the envelope contained as if she had been stung. She gazed at it lying on the clean white sheets in complete horror, as if it were some horrible insect. The scrawled printing did, in fact, look like the wandering trail of a slug. But the words were quite legible.

DID YOU KNOW THAT YOUR BROTHER IS THE HIT AND RUN DRIVER WHO KNOCKED DOWN A MAN AND KILLED HIM OUTSIDE DORKING ON THE NIGHT OF THE FIRST OF OCTOBER. I HAVE PROOF OF THIS BUT I WILL KEEP MY MOUTH SHUT IF YOU PAY ME A HUNDRED POUNDS BY MIDDAY TOMORROW. THE MONEY MUST BE IN SINGLE POUND NOTES. YOU CAN GET THESE EASILY ENOUGH. I HAVE WATCHED THE HOUSE AND KNOW WHO LIVES IN IT. SEND THE NURSEMAID WHO LOOKS AFTER YOUR CHILDREN TO THE BANK FOR THE MONEY, THEN PUT IT IN AN ENVELOPE AND ADDRESS IT TO MR GEORGE SMITH, 15 PELHAM ROAD, HAMMERSMITH. I KNOW YOU CAN GO TO THE POLICE BUT THE SENTENCE I GET WON’T BE HALF WHAT YOUR BROTHER WILL GET. IS THAT CLEAR?

Nurse Ellen came bustling busily into the room. Automatically Brigit crumpled the loathsome piece of paper into her hand.

‘Why, ducky, you haven’t eaten a thing! What’s the matter? You don’t look so good.’

‘I—I’m not hungry this morning,’ Brigit managed to say. ‘Later, perhaps. I want to see my brother.’

‘Sure, you can see your brother, but there’s plenty of time. Lie still and relax for a bit.’

‘No, now,’ Brigit insisted. ‘Before he leaves for the office. It’s—it’s quite important. And, nurse, if you’d mind just leaving us alone for a few minutes.’

Nurse Ellen’s blond head went in the air huffily.

‘Certainly, Mrs Gaye. I’m not interested in other people’s conversations, even though there might be other people in this house who are.’

‘What do you mean?’ Brigit asked swiftly.

‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’ Nurse Ellen swept up the untouched breakfast tray. ‘And what the doctor will say when he knows you’re deliberately starving yourself, I can’t think.’

But for all her brief display of temperament she sent Guy. He came into the room, thin and slightly hollow-cheeked in his dark city suit. He looked as if he hadn’t slept, and his beautiful lips drooped peevishly.

‘Hullo, Biddy,’ he said languidly. ‘Anything wrong?’

‘I—I hope not, Guy,’ Brigit said carefully. She was still in the peculiar unreal state following shock. ‘But someone has just written me a very nasty letter. It concerns you.’

Guy looked at her fully for one moment, his eyes startled and aware. Then they slid away, and now he was speaking as carefully as she.

‘Concerns me! What on earth about?’

Brigit pushed the crumpled sheet of paper towards him.

‘Read it yourself. I can’t bear to look at it again.’

It couldn’t be true, of course! Guy was weak and perhaps even cowardly, but he couldn’t have done this. Surely he couldn’t have.

Guy echoed her thoughts. After glancing at the paper he flung it on the bed, saying hoarsely, ‘It’s damned lie! Some swine—oh, my God, fancy inventing a filthy lie like that!’

But Brigit had glimpsed his eyes again, darkened and full of fear. Her heart sank.

‘The first of October was the day before my accident,’ she said, speaking almost casually.

‘Was it? I can’t remember.’

‘It was, because that was on the second, and you had driven Uncle Saunders down to get Aunt Annabel. Don’t you remember? He was complaining very loudly about your careless driving, because you had bent the bumper bar of the car the night before. You said you hadn’t had time to get it straightened. Guy!’

‘Yes!’ he said violently.

‘Had you been afraid to take it into a garage to get it straightened—in case they should recognize the car?’

‘
No! My God, no!’

‘Didn’t you use to know a girl in Dorking not very long ago? I remember Aunt Annabel saying you had been going down there rather a lot.’

Guy flung round, his face white and drawn.

‘Biddy, what is this? A cross-examination?’

She sighed deeply, and put out her hands.

‘Tell me, Guy. It’s true, isn’t it? I knew it was true from the moment you couldn’t look at me. Anyway these’—she gestured towards the letter—‘these insects are usually pretty sure of their facts. Or so I’ve been told.’

Abruptly Guy sat down and buried his head in the bedclothes. He began to sob.

‘Yes, it’s true. My God, it’s been a nightmare. But the chap was over seventy. And he hadn’t any family. I know that. I found out. And he had heart disease, too, so he couldn’t have lived long. It isn’t that bad, Biddy.’

‘What is bad,’ said Brigit in her quiet inexorable voice, ‘is your behaviour. Why didn’t you stop? Why didn’t you go back?’

‘I know,’ said Guy, rolling his head back and forth. ‘But I panicked. And then it was too late. And anyway he was dead. I couldn’t bring him back to life.’ Suddenly he raised his head. ‘Biddy, what are you going to do?’

Brigit looked at his tormented face. She saw the weak chin, the beautiful drooping mouth, the desperate eyes—all the hated Templar characteristics, she thought despairingly. And now cowardice added to them.

‘Guy, I want you to go to the police.’

‘The police! At this stage! Are you mad?’

‘No. Only—only honest, perhaps.’

‘But, Biddy, it’s all right now. It’s over. They’ve never even for one minute suspected me. And the chap’s dead and he has no dependants. There’s absolutely no good can come of my going to prison now. And supposing I did go to prison. You know the Templars. I’d be kicked out, just as mother was. I’d be disinherited. Isn’t that a nice Victorian word? Disinherited.’

‘So you’re thinking of nothing but money, too.’ Brigit’s voice was too weary even for scorn.

‘I’m not, Biddy. Truly. I’m thinking of much more than that. I think I’m in love with Prissie. It’s the first time I’ve ever been in love. It’s so wonderful to feel a little happy. Oh, Biddy, you know what it’s like to be happy with someone you love. Don’t spoil it for me.’

His face was suddenly young again, the lines of strain and fear temporarily smoothed out. He was the little boy Brigit had defended through so many childish troubles, since she had had to be his mother as well as his older sister. She had always longed for his happiness. She had thought that being happy would work a miracle in him and turn him into a normal confident person. But now—how was happiness to come on top of guilt? And blackmail?

If Guy went to the police and confessed there was no doubt that he would have to serve a prison sentence. Equally, there was no doubt as to Uncle Saunders’s reactions. Prissie—would she love him enough to be loyal to him, supposing she loved him at all? Fleetingly Brigit remembered Prissie’s covetous fingers on the silk sheets, and she was sadly certain that Prissie’s love of luxury would prove too much for her loyalty.

Besides, Guy had said that the old man had had no dependants, so that beyond justice being done nothing more could be remedied.

But was one so weakly to play the horrible game of this blackmailer with his writing like the slimy trail of a garden slug?

‘Biddy!’ said Guy, his dark shadowed eyes looking deeply into hers. ‘If you tell the police about this I’ll kill myself. I mean it.’

S
HE WAS DOING THIS
not only to save Guy’s life (for she knew by the haunted look in his eyes that his threat to take his life was no idle jest), but for Prissie, too. Prissie, she thought ironically, who was so well able to take care of herself.

Fergus would say she was just the person for Guy, someone gay and light-hearted, and yet as strong as steel. For there was no doubt that Prissie’s soft laughing exterior had a very definite and, to Brigit, almost frightening strength.

So indirectly she was playing this unknown blackmailer’s despicable game to enable Prissie to obtain possession of the things she coveted, the pictures and china, the Persian rugs, the walnut and rosewood furniture, the silk sheets…

Brigit had reached the conclusion that Prissie had found out all she could about the Templar family before she had come to work for them. Her illness on the plane may have been a fortunate coincidence that had brought Fergus’s attention to her, but if it had not happened that way she would have contrived something else. She was a fortune-hunter. She loved luxury, and was determined to possess it. No doubt she had known all about Brigit’s unmarried brother long before she came to the cottage in the country.

The lucky coincidence that was not of her contriving was the enforced move to the house in Montpelier Square. She must secretly have been jubilant about that. Indeed, her jubilation showed all the time in her sparkling eyes, her plain little face transformed into a fascinating liveliness, her quick dancing movements. It was amazing how she had brought life into the quiet gloomy house. One should be grateful to her.

But if Guy were falling in love with her, was she genuinely returning Guy’s affection, or was her warmth and friendliness to be translated into eagerness for possessions? If so, Guy should be warned.

But wasn’t he old enough to look after himself? Brigit thought with sudden weariness. Wasn’t it enough that she, ill in bed, should suddenly be burdened with this horrible blackmailing thing? If she could succeed in getting Guy out of this scrape she could not be responsible for his love life, too. And after all, it was very probable that Prissie, given the things she wanted, would be a charming and devoted wife. She adored children as was proved by the affection that she gave to Nicky and Sarah. Or could it be that she coveted them, too…?

Brigit dismissed that thought impatiently, telling herself that she was developing a sick mind as well as a sick body. Oh, if only she could get well, and take the children home. Would she ever get well in this house?

‘Nurse,’ she called.

Nurse Ellen came bustling into the room. She looked clean and fresh and so full of energy that Brigit’s tiredness seemed to sink more deeply into her body.

‘Nurse, get me my writing things, will you, please. And I want to sit up.’

‘You’re not going to start writing letters now! You should be having your morning nap.’

‘Oh, nurse, I’m not a baby!’ The irritability in her voice drew a second glance from Nurse Ellen. She said:

‘Who’s been upsetting you, ducky?’

‘Nobody. I just want to do some writing, and if you don’t mind, it’s none of your business.’

Nurse Ellen went to the bureau at the window to get the leather folder which contained all Brigit’s papers. She said over her shoulder:

‘Everything about a patient I nurse is my business. If you ask me, I think your family worries you. If you would prefer it, we’ll have rules about the times they can see you. All this running in and out of your room—I don’t think the doctor would approve. And he’s coming this afternoon, so you must be looking your best.’

‘Yes, nurse,’ Brigit said more meekly. ‘And now will you ask Prissie if she will come in for a minute. I have an errand for her.’

Whether she was protecting Guy for his own sake, or for Prissie’s, it was ironical justice that Prissie should be the one to do this errand for her. In any case, who else could she send?

But it was hateful having to lie about it.

She wrote the cheque for one hundred pounds (how fortunate Uncle Saunders had given her just that amount for her birthday, and more fortunate that she had not yet spent it) and handed it to Prissie. Fergus could never be told about this, it would only make him despise her family even more than he did already, and who knew when he might at last accuse her of having the bad Templar blood. Her face was quite stiff and expressionless as she said:

‘Would you mind going to the bank for me, Prissie? I need this money suddenly—oh, and it must be in single notes. If they ask questions at the bank, tell them I want it for paying bills.’

‘But why not pay them by cheque?’ Prissie asked, wide-eyed.

‘I prefer it this way,’ Brigit said stiffly.

‘Why, yes, of course, but—’ Prissie folded the cheque in her tiny tapering fingers. She had the fingers of a lady, Brigit thought. Though what was a lady? Nurse Ellen was one, and her fingers were short, strong, and capable.