Dorothy Eden (70 page)

‘But I could before!’ she insisted. ‘Really I could! I suppose I’ve done too much. I’ll be all right when I’ve rested. Doctor, you must believe me!’

Doctor Brown gave his small tight smile and, as Aunt Annabel had done, patted her hand.

‘There, my dear, in your anxiety to walk these dreams become very real. You appear to have had a singularly vivid one. I think a small sedative. Yes?’

He was now exerting all his bedside manner to take the look of white dismay from her face. But it was no use. He was not going to believe her, and until he, or someone, believed her, she knew she could not get well.

Because they would all finally convince her that she had not walked, and so, as in a fairy story, the magic gift would leave her…

‘And if you had been out somewhere, dear,’ Aunt Annabel, coming back, said, ‘who do you think brought you back? Because you couldn’t have walked if you were unconscious.’

‘I don’t know. Someone from that house. Perhaps the blackmailer.’

‘And how would he get into this house
and
into your bedroom? Oh no, Brigit dear, that’s asking too much even for me to believe. And there’s nobody else. I’ve been looking for cats, Mrs Hatchett has been baking, Saunders has gone to the city, Prissie has had the children in the park—they’ve just come in now. Sarah is still being a cat, bless her,’

‘Prissie!’ murmured Brigit.

‘Now you’re not suggesting that Prissie left the children in the park and rushed off somewhere to rescue you!’

‘No-o. But did she have the children in the park? Aunt Annabel, ask Nicky to come and see me.’

‘You’re supposed to be resting,’ Aunt Annabel reproved. ‘Oh, very well, just for five minutes.’

Nicky came in slowly. For a moment he looked as if he were afraid even of her. His eyes were darkened and wary.

He stopped a little distance from her bed and said in a cautious voice, ‘Are you worse again, Mummy?’

‘No, darling. I’m very well. Did you have a nice time in the park this afternoon?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘What did you do?’

‘We made a pile of leaves and pretended it was a bonfire.’

‘Did Prissie help you?’

‘No, she just watched.’

‘And you spent the whole afternoon doing that?’

‘Yes.’ Nicky nodded his fair head uncertainly.

‘You didn’t see the little girl you call Clementine?’

Nicky’s head turned quickly. What was he looking for, Prissie or the ghostly child? He saw that there was no one else in the room and he said loudly, ‘No.’

‘Nicky, who is Clementine?’

‘She isn’t anybody.’

‘But you’ve always said she was somebody. Come, there’s no one listening. Tell me.’

‘She isn’t anybody!’ Nicky said again, firmly. Then he added, ‘I made her up.’

‘And you were really in the park all the afternoon?’

Nicky’s voice was sulky. ‘I told you I was.’ Suddenly he said more animatedly, ‘I can do a trick. Would you like to see it?’

‘Of course, darling.’

‘It’s with these handkerchiefs. You see, one is red and one blue. You roll them up into your hands like this.’

As he laboriously handled the coloured squares Prissie appeared.

‘Oh, there you are, Nicky. Is he worrying you, Mrs Gaye?’

‘No, I wanted to see him.’

Prissie put her arm round Nicky’s shoulders.

‘You’ll have to practise that trick a little more before you can show it off, dear. It’s one I used to do when I was a child, Mrs Gaye. It’s quite simple, really. Nicky, have you been telling your mother about the bonfire you made?’

Nicky put the coloured handkerchiefs back into his pocket. He nodded, his head bent.

‘That’s a good boy. Now run up to Sarah because your mother isn’t very well today.’

Nicky went as if he were glad to escape. Brigit tried to dismiss her uneasiness about him.

‘Prissie, you shouldn’t have said that. Nicky’s so sensitive. And anyway I’m very well. I’ve even been out.’

Prissie smiled tolerantly. ‘Yes, I heard about that. I’m so glad you didn’t hurt yourself.’

‘Hurt myself?’

‘When you fell out of bed, Mrs Gaye.’

For a moment Brigit looked at her desperately, weighing in her mind whether she should try at least to make Prissie believe in her exploits. But it would be no use. Prissie wouldn’t even want to believe it. Somehow she knew that. There was only one person who would believe her, and that was Fergus. He
must
believe her.

‘It must have been a very vivid dream you had,’ Prissie went on. She opened the wardrobe door as if at random, showing Brigit’s clothes hanging innocently where she had put them the previous day. For a moment Brigit had a frantic feeling that it must all have been a dream, that everyone else was right and she alone wrong. Perhaps it was even a dream that she had got out of bed and walked.

‘I heard people singing,’ she said. ‘The strange thing was that they were singing that song of yours. “Darling Clementine”.’

‘Then that proves it,’ said Prissie gaily. ‘Who else would be singing that old-fashioned song, except in a dream?’

The awful thing was that Fergus completely agreed with Prissie and with everyone else. There was Brigit lying in bed helpless, quite unable to move her legs, even her toes. And yet she persisted in this completely impossible story that she had got up, dressed, got a taxi, and taken a journey to a strange house in Hammersmith.

It seemed incredible that a thing so vivid in her own mind should be so impossible for anyone else to believe. The trouble was that she hadn’t a shred of proof unless she could find the taxi driver who had taken her. He would remember her, she knew. But how could she set about finding him when she was indeed lying helpless in bed, with even her newly-found ability to move her legs deserting her.

‘But I could walk, I tell you,’ she insisted to Fergus whose face had that same tolerant look of disbelief that Prissie’s had had. ‘I had kept it a secret to surprise you. I was going to show you tonight. I hadn’t even told the doctor. But now—now—’ Her lips trembled. She tried uselessly to move her legs.

‘Darling, don’t mind it so much,’ Fergus said gently.

She grew angry then. ‘I do mind it. Because it was true. It was true! I dressed and put on my shoes, and walked to the front door and down the steps.’

Fergus sat on the side of the bed and took her hand.

‘But even if this were true and not a daydream or wishful thinking or whatever the doctor attributed it to, why get up and go to a completely strange house in Hammersmith? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Because’ Brigit began and stopped. She could say no more. She couldn’t make explanations because that would involve Aunt Annabel and Guy, and Fergus, while smiling gently and tolerantly, would grow inwardly sick with shame and dislike for her family and their dishonesty and cowardice.

‘Well, why?’ he persisted.

‘You wouldn’t understand,’ she said lamely. It was something to do with this—this Clementine of Nicky’s. A hunch I had. And there was the house, and they were singing “Darling Clementine”.’ Her voice grew excited as she remembered.

‘Who were singing “Darling Clementine”?’

Her excitement faded. ‘I don’t know. Some children, I think. But then there was this man—’

‘What man?’

‘I couldn’t see him properly. His face was in the shadow. That was when I fainted.’

‘And you saw no one else at all?’

‘Just the—’ Again she hesitated. ‘Oh, just someone with long stringy black hair and black eyes—the person Nicky talks about.’

‘You mean the witch doll?’ Fergus demanded incredulously.

‘I don’t know who it was!’ Brigit, full of her own perplexity, grew petulant.

‘And then Mrs Hatchett found you,’ Fergus said, ‘you were lying on the floor beside the bed in your nightgown. At least that’s what she said, and she has no reason to lie about it. So if you had been dressed and out, how did you undress again?’

Brigit rubbed her hand over her eyes. Why did Fergus worry her with these unexplainable things? Why couldn’t he just believe her? Oh, why was everything so utterly awful?

‘I’m tired,’ she whispered. ‘I want to sleep.’

‘Yes, darling, of course. Best thing for you.’

And you’ll wake up in a saner frame of mind, his eyes said. Oh, Fergus, what is this evil thing that is going on, that is separating you from me much more than my physical state is? And can’t you see it happening? Or do you want it to happen? Is Prissie making you want it to happen?

‘Brigit—’

‘No, Fergus.’ She shut her eyes tightly, not wanting to see his awareness of her sudden panic. ‘Go and see the children. Get Nicky to show you his conjuring trick. You’ll find him more amusing than me.’

‘His conjuring trick?’

‘Yes. I feel it should explain something. But I don’t know what.’

Whether her adventure that day had been reality or waking dream, the voice that night was certainly part of a dream. It said with croaking maliciousness, ‘How can you hold a man like Fergus when you are a hopeless invalid? Let him go free…’ And then, ‘He wants to be free… free…’

The word was echoing in her head as she started awake. There was no one in the room, of course, and now there was utter silence. Outside, in the dark night, the moon, a slender horned shape, hung lightly in the arms of the mulberry tree. Like a shining cap a jester had tossed off. A malicious merciless inhuman jester.

Had
she walked or had she imagined it, just as she imagined the persecution of this evil voice which must come from inside her own head? Had she worn the clothes that hung innocently now in the wardrobe? Was there a taxi driver in London who could tell a story of a woman walking into a tall narrow shabby house in Hammersmith and a little later being carried out? Or was all this as much imagination as Nicky’s terror of an imaginary child called Clementine?

There was no one to answer her questions, and no one to be on her side. She knew now, desolately, that she was alone.

P
RISSEE HAD ALMOST PERSUADED
herself to stop thinking about Guy. After all, she didn’t know him very well. He was probably accustomed to doing these irresponsible things, and his disappearance had nothing whatever to do with her or—She switched her thoughts abruptly, and reflected on the fact that the drama surrounding Brigit had temporarily put Guy out of everyone’s mind.

That was a good thing, because he would come back soon. Of course he would. It was ridiculous to think that anything serious had happened to him, or to be so frightened…

She should be glad he wasn’t here, shouldn’t she? She didn’t need him any more, and now she didn’t even have to endure his kisses. But she couldn’t quite get rid of the cold fear in her mind. Supposing…

None of this must show in her letter. She wrote gaily:

Such a do today with Brigit’s accident. Fergus didn’t believe her wildly improbable story about a visit she had made somewhere by taxi. Poor soul. Perhaps her mind will become affected. I’m sure mine would. The children have been very good, especially Nicky. I think he is on my side at last. I am beginning to feel, after the last few weeks, that these children are really my own.’

Prissie stopped and allowed the forbidden thought to come into her mind. Supposing Nicky and Sarah were hers, and Fergus her husband. Supposing Brigit never got well—

Oh,
poor
Brigit, but one couldn’t expect to tie a virile handsome young man to an invalid.

Supposing…

‘Supposing we have a drink,’ came Fergus’s voice from the doorway. ‘I’m sure you need one after all this fuss and bother.’

Prissie sprang up, glowing with pleasure.

‘Oh, I could do with one. The children are asleep and—’

‘Brigit’s asleep, too,’ said Fergus. ‘The doctor gave her something. Poor darling, she’s been so upset about this dream of hers. Extraordinarily vivid it must have been. And yet Mrs Hatchett swears she was lying on the floor in her nightdress.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid she was,’ Prissie said soberly.

‘Tell me, where was it that she so badly wanted to go? She had some place on her mind.’

Prissie flung out her hands.

‘I really couldn’t say. Your wife doesn’t confide in me. Sometimes I think she doesn’t like me.’

Fergus smiled, his eyes full of their familiar heady admiration.

‘Oh, nonsense! I never heard anything so improbable. Come here and tell me more about yourself.’

As Prissie approached him there was a taut look of excitement that she had never seen before in his face. Her own pulses began to race. Oh, this was what she had wanted all the time, and she hadn’t completely realized…

‘What about myself?’ she said in a low provocative voice.

‘Why, who you are, what secret you guard so closely in this locket?’

Prissie quickly laid her hand over the locket, guarding it from his curious fingers. But she was smiling. Later was time enough for that. Later…

‘Don’t be so inquisitive,’ she reproved.

His face was close, his blue eyes narrowed to brilliant slits.

‘You’re quite right, my secretive little monkey. At the moment—this is more important—’

Only afterwards when the intoxication of the kiss was over but not faded from her mind did Prissie realize that her half-finished letter lay there open for his gaze. She had a momentary pang of dismay, but after all it was all right. She hadn’t written anything that mattered. And anyway, Fergus would have had his eyes closed. No one kissed like that with open eyes.

Brigit didn’t know why she should have awoken with that heavy premonition of disaster hanging over her. Perhaps it was the grey morning, with the daylight no more than an apology for the departing night. Perhaps it was her feeling of utter exhaustion, as if she could find no strength even to lift a finger. Or more probably the depressing fact that her legs still remained numb and motionless, so that even she was beginning to wonder if she had ever climbed out of this aristocratic bed and walked.

Her despair was unreasonable. There had been no more events to cause it. Aunt Annabel had slipped in early, with three cats playfully following the trailing cord of her dressing-gown, to whisper that there were no more of
those
letters in the mail, and a little later Prissie had come to switch on the lights, light the fire, and make the room cheerful.