The Salvation of Pisco Gabar and Other Stories (14 page)

“Burning. Burning,” Violet moaned. “It won't be long now.”

“'Ow's your mouth? Burned too?”

“No. I swallowed it right down.”

They heard the front door open, and Mr. Trimlake's steps in the hall. Mrs. Hussey drew a deep breath and took responsibility upon herself. Her apron swelled majestically. It might have been dinnertime, with a drunken footman and a sick kitchenmaid.

“'Alf a mo', Vi'let! I'll see you don't pass out while 'e ain't 'ere,” she said.

She fell upon Widgeon, brushed the powder off his coat, and combed his hair, which was falling in dark, oily locks over his face.

“In you go!” she ordered. “Leave 'er to me!”

Widgeon marched out to greet his gentleman.

Mrs. Hussey was not sure whether Violet Agg had taken poison or not. It was possible that she had—to impress herself as well as Widgeon.

“Wireless battery, was it?” she asked.

“Yes,” Violet wailed.

“They didn't ought to allow people to buy 'em,” said Mrs. Hussey mournfully. “Just like the governess in the last 'ouse where I worked. Not more than a teaspoonful she took, and that wasn't 'ardly acid, the doctor said, 'cos the battery 'ad run down. But it made a 'ole clean through 'er in time, it did.” Mrs. Hussey clicked her tongue pityingly. “A lovely corpse she'd 'ave been without that, she would.”

Violet let out a yell of fright that Mrs. Hussey quickly smothered with a broad hand.

“It 'urts, Mrs. 'Ussey!” she screamed. “A—oh, it really does 'urt!”

“Ah, you should 'ave thought of that before you up and did it, duckie. That poor girl now—fifty mortial hours she was screamin' and yellin' for somebody to put 'er out of 'er pain.”

“I want a doctor! Get a doctor!” Violet yelped, struggling against her hand.

“It'll be too late when 'e comes, dearie. Now, you and me 'as 'ad words, Vi'let Agg, but I'll do what I can. If there'd been anyone to give that poor soul what I'm going to give you, she'd 'ave 'ad a chance. And don't you go calling out, 'cos one good scream and that there acid'll be through your stummick before you can say knife. I'll be back in a jiffy.”

Mrs. Hussey ran to her kitchen and turned to the end of her cookery book, where there was a chapter on First Aid.

Where an acid is the poison [she read], give chalk and water, whiting plaster from the wall or white of egg. Failing these, soap and water may be used to neutralize the acid.

Mrs. Hussey smiled happily to herself. Violet Agg, she remembered, must have waited about in the street for a chance to slip through the front door and up the stairs. Therefore she was not very ill. But Violet Agg was frightened. Therefore she had really taken something. Mrs. Hussey decided that for both reasons the antidote had better be administered at full strength. She emptied two tablespoonfuls of soap flakes into a pint glass, added a piece of plaster from the hole made by the backswing of a cupboard door, and threw in some white of egg to taste. As an afterthought she gave the mixture a proper medicinal color with half a cup of prune juice.

She strode back to Widgeon's bedroom with the foaming yellow glass.

“There, there! My little lamb!” said Mrs. Hussey, finding Violet pacing the room and picking at her hair. “Drink this and you won't come to no 'arm! 'Old your pretty nose! Up she goes!”

Violet got down a good half-pint; then choked, retched, and screamed with terror in one complex and hideous sound as a soap bubble the size of an orange detached itself from her lips and burst.

Mr. Trimlake, who had just received the ritual martini from Widgeon's hand, looked up in alarm.

“Did you hear that, Widgeon?” he asked.

“One of the maids … downstairs has … been taken ill, sir, I believe,” stammered Widgeon.

“Indeed? I thought you were looking worried. Dear, dear! She must be in pain.”

“Yes, sir,” said Widgeon, growing paler and paler. “I hope you have not inconvenienced her, sir. I mean—yes, sir. Great pain. I'll just see what's happening.”

He bolted out, shutting behind him in succession the living-room door, the pantry door, and his bedroom door. Violet was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall and blasted into silence by the appalling tumult in her inside.

“I thought—” he said, “I thought—”

“We'll 'ave 'er all right in a minute,” Mrs. Hussey reassured him. “Any castor oil?”

“There's some in the bathroom.”

“Bring it 'ere,” she ordered. “And don't forget them shrimps on the pantry table.”

With the fixed smile of a skull, Widgeon put the shrimps down at his gentleman's elbow, and watched him taste them. He was shocked that a man could eat shrimps in calm and be quite ignorant that a woman was dying in agony on the other side of the wall. It just shows you, he thought, it just shows you.

“That's all, Widgeon,” said Mr. Trimlake, disturbed by his unceasing stare.

“Yes, sir,” answered Widgeon, jerking like a robot butler. “Excuse me, sir.”

He glided in and out of the bathroom and returned to his own quarters with a bottle of castor oil. Violet Agg, collapsed on the floor, was groaning and trembling. Mrs. Hussey had stacked two large casseroles and a saucepan in front of her.

“I'm dying,” sobbed Violet. “I know I'm dying. Send for my 'ubby.”

“Not now,” Mrs. Hussey comforted her. “Not now. Mother's looking after 'er little love.”

She jammed a smelling-bottle under Violet's nose and, as she started, shot into her slackly open mouth a full dose of castor oil and clapped a capable hand under her chin. Mrs. Agg swallowed as much of the castor oil as had not escaped down her nose, and howled with terror and humiliation. Widgeon trembled lest the three doors should not contain the noise. He was astonished how Violet could sob when she really meant it.

“She's all right now,” declared Mrs. Hussey. “I'll go and cook me dinner.”

They lifted Violet on to the bed and covered her with a blanket. She remained there, exhausted, while Mrs. Hussey occupied herself in her own kitchen, keeping an eye on Widgeon's pantry through the two open doors.

Widgeon helped his gentleman to dress, and thankfully saw him leave for the club. He caught Mr. Trimlake looking at him very oddly from time to time, but, as neither master nor man made any personal remark, Trimlake supposed that Widgeon was fond of the imaginary sick maid, and Widgeon supposed that his gentleman supposed that he was drunk.

He found Violet half asleep and half fainting. He gave her a stiff brandy and water, and then sat in the pantry whence he could see her and at the same time watch the progress of Mrs. Hussey. When the cheese had come back to the kitchen, and the coffee gone out, he joined her.

“Now you get on with your supper, Mrs. Hussey,” he said, “while I do the washing up. I think she's safe now.” He nodded towards his back door. “She's brought it all up.”

“She 'asn't brought up no more than I put into 'er,” replied Mrs. Hussey savagely. “And I'm ashamed of you, Mr. Widgeon, being took in by an 'ighsterical which 'er mother ought to 'ave knocked the lights out of 'er. 'Er! Take acid!” she added contemptuously. “'Er? Take acid? If you knew Vi'let Agg like I do, Mr. Widgeon, you'd know a little acid wouldn't do 'er any damage, not to speak of, not with all them pills she's taken in 'er life. You let me get 'er out of 'ere, and then you and me can 'ave a bit of supper quiet like.”

She accompanied Widgeon to his room and prodded the sleeping Violet.

“Now then, Mrs. Agg! Time to get up and go 'ome!”

Violet threw out a languid arm and let it dangle over the side of the bed.

“I'm that weak,” she sighed. “I'll have to sleep here.”

“Oh no, you don't!” declared Mrs. Hussey, firmly removing the blanket that covered her and folding it up.

Violet gave a modest little scream and pulled down her skirt, at the same time raising her knees so that she remained curled up in a tight uncompromising ball.

“Tell her to go away, Dolf. I want to be with you alone. Oh, Dolf, you wouldn't have me treated rough when I nearly died for you?”

“You'd better go,” said Widgeon coldly.

“I'll stay with you a little, and then you can take me home.”

“I'm not taking you home.”

“And what's more,” said Mrs. Hussey cheerfully, “if you don't go quietly I'll call the police.”

Violet launched herself into a fit of hysterics, which Mrs. Hussey instantly cured by emptying the water bottle over her head.

“There now! I've gone and wetted your bed, Mr. Widgeon! I'm sure it couldn't be 'elped. You'd better call the police before she turns real nasty.”

“'E daren't!” shouted Violet, sitting up triumphantly.

“Think you know more about it than I do, do you? Never 'eard of attempted suicide, Vi'let Agg, and you so fond of your Sunday paper? Straight to prison you'll go and no trouble at all for us. No coroners and 'orrid disclosures! Just the beak and us and your 'usband to give evidence, which 'e wouldn't be sorry if you didn't 'ave the option of a fine. Now 'ome you go or we call the police!”

“I won't! Not without 'im!”

Widgeon began to dial the police station. Violet jumped to her feet. Her fear was suddenly turned by castor oil to unthinking panic.

“Let me go! Quick! Quick!”

She fled down the back stairs.

“I'll do it again,” she shrieked as she vanished. “I'll do it again! You see if I don't!”

“She will, too,” said Widgeon. “It's no good, Mrs. Hussey. I've got to do a bunk and that's all there is to it.”

“Why don't you tell your gentleman about it?” asked Mrs. Hussey, shepherding him into her kitchen.

“He wouldn't understand. I've tried to tell him, but what can you do with a man who thinks a chap can stand on his rights? He'd just tell me to get rid of her, and the next time she came round here making a nuisance of herself, he'd call the porter or the police and get them to chuck the pair of us out together as like as not. No. If I told him I'd be getting myself a bad name for nothing.”

Widgeon decided to leave Mr. Trimlake at once. The woman was a vampire, determined never to let him go, careless of whether he hated her so long as he was hers; she must, he supposed, have gone through every possible row with Agg and come to the conclusion that hate didn't last, that a man after a while became completely passive. He must leave his gentleman without letting a soul—except perhaps Mrs. Hussey—know where he had gone, or Violet would get his address, follow him, and force him to be submissive or sacked from his job. A manservant was as unprotected as a priest against scandal, and she knew it.

What worried him most was that he could not ask Mr. Trimlake for references. That limited him to looking for a job with the old and landed nobility who paid no attention to references from professional men—assuming that such people as actuaries and solicitors could never train a manservant to be of any use to themselves—and hired their servants through their servants, trusting to the incorruptible
esprit de corps
of the upper retainers of an upper class. Of these aristocrats of his profession Widgeon knew only one—the porter of the Conservative and Sporting Club.

The next morning, when Mr. Trimlake had left for the office, Widgeon uniformed himself in butterfly collar and bowler hat, and, looking every inch the correct and responsible manservant, called at the Club.

The porter received him with friendly dignity; he knew Widgeon to be a reliable man; if he could place him it meant a fiver in his pocket—he worked his unofficial agency on a flat rate—and the gratitude of the club member who took him. But he had no inquiries at the moment —

“Unless, of course,” he added, “you'd like to work for the MacEorhan.”

“Scotland?” asked Widgeon.

“MacEorhan.”

“Yes, but where does he live?”

“MacEorhan. He's the MacEorhan of MacEorhan.”

“And where's that?”

“You'll have to brush up on your Peerage, young man,” answered the porter reproachfully. “It's about halfway between Ireland and the North Pole, and you take a boat from Glasgow—once a fortnight, weather permitting. His last gentleman said there was nothing on the island but 'eather and fishermen, and when he was bitten on the leg by a wildcat he wouldn't stand it no longer. So there! Butler-valet, and it's yours if you want it.”

“It'll do me fine,” said Widgeon eagerly. “I was always one for the wilds.”

“Well, there's no accounting for tastes. But don't say I didn't warn you, mind,” replied the porter doubtfully. “If you'll sit down in the vestibule, I'll give you your fare and write him a letter. There's no telegraph and no telephone, so you'll just have to go and introduce yourself. Costs him a pretty penny, it does, bringing them up and sending them back again! But he's one of the old sort.”

Widgeon spent the afternoon searching for a good man to take his place with Mr. Trimlake. Having found a Mr. Hynes with unimpeachable references,—for Widgeon himself had a sound middle-class belief in them,—he arranged to show him the ropes the following day. There was, of course, a horrid risk that Mrs. Agg would have recovered sufficiently to return, but it had to be taken; he could not leave his gentleman without making all possible arrangements for his future comfort.

He was rewarded by seeing no sign of Violet, and from 10 am to 5 pm was free to devote the whole of his attention to his successor. He initiated him into all the intimate routine of the flat, avoided personal questions, and told him to turn up on the job at seven the next morning. When Mr. Trimlake returned from the office he passed the evening and went to bed unconscious of any impending domestic disaster. Widgeon said good-bye to Mrs. Hussey, and a little before dawn slipped out of the house with his luggage.