Grave Mistake (7 page)

“The boot’s on the other foot. He was all for tackling you himself.”

“Cheek! Thick-skinned push. One knows where he got that from.”

“Where?”

“God knows.”

“You’ve just said you do.”

“Don’t quibble, darling,” said Sybil.

“I can’t make out what, apart from instinctive promptings, sets you against Gideon. He’s intelligent, eminently presentable, obviously rich—”

“Yes, and where does it come from?”

“—and, which is the only basically important bit, he seems to be a young man of good character and in love with Prue.”

“John Swingletree’s devoted to her. Utterly devoted. And she was—” Sybil boggled for a moment and then said loudly, “she was getting to be very fond of him.”

“The Lord Swingletree, would that be?”

“Yes, it would and you needn’t say it like that.”

“I’m not saying it like anything. Syb, they’re over there waiting to come to you. Do be kind. You won’t get anywhere by being anything else.”

“She’s under age.”

“I think she’ll wait until she’s not or else do a bunk. Really.”

Sybil was silent for a moment and then said: “Do you know what I think? I think it’s a put-up job between him and his father. They want to get their hands on Quintern.”

“Oh, my
dear
old Syb!”

“All right. You wait. Just you wait.”

This was said with all her old vigour and obstinacy and yet with a very slight drag, a kind of flatness in her utterance. Was it because of this that Verity had the impression that Sybil did not really mind all that much about her daughter’s engagement? There was an extraordinary suggestion of hesitancy and yet of suppressed excitement — almost of jubilation.

The pampered little hand she raised to her sunglasses quivered. It removed the glasses and for Verity the afternoon turned cold.

Sybil’s face was blankly smooth as if it had been ironed. It had no expression. Her great china-blue eyes really might have been those of a doll.

“All right,” she said. “On your own head be it. Let them come. I won’t make scenes. But I warn you I’ll never come round. Never.”

A sudden wave of compassion visited Verity.

“Would you rather wait a bit?” she asked. “How are you, Syb? You haven’t told me. Are you better?”

“Much, much better. Basil Schramm is fantastic. I’ve never had a doctor like him. Truly. He so
understands
. I expect,” Sybil’s voice luxuriated, “he’ll be livid when he hears about this visit. He won’t let me be upset. I told him about Charmless Claude and he said I must on no account see him. He’s given orders. Verry, he’s quite fantastic,” said Sybil. The warmth of these eulogies found no complementary expression in her face or voice. She wandered on, gossiping about Schramm and her treatment and his nurse. Sister Jackson, who, she said complacently, resented his taking so much trouble over her. “My dear,” said Sybil, “jealous! Don’t you worry, I’ve got that one buttoned up.”

“Well,” Verity said, swallowing her disquietude, “perhaps you’d better let me tell these two that you’ll see Prue by herself for a moment. How would that be?”

“I’ll see them both,” said Sybil. “Now.”

“Shall I fetch them, then?”

“Can’t you just wave?” she asked fretfully.

As there seemed to be nothing else for it, Verity walked into the sunlight and waved. Prunella’s hand answered from the car. She got out, followed by Gideon, and they came quickly across the lawn. Verity knew Sybil would be on the watch for any signs of a conference however brief and waited instead of going to meet them. When they came up with her she said under her breath: “It’s tricky. Don’t upset her.”

Prunella broke into a run. She knelt by her mother and looked into her face. There was a moment’s hesitation and then she kissed her.

“Darling Mummy,” she said.

Verity turned to the car.

There she sat and watched the group of three under the orange canopy. They might have been placed there for a painter like Troy Alleyn. The afternoon light, broken and diffused, made nebulous figures of them so that they seemed to shimmer and swim a little. Sybil had put her sunglasses on again so perhaps, thought Verity, Prue won’t notice anything.

Now Gideon had moved. He stood by Sybil’s chair and raised her hand to his lips. “She ought to like that,” Verity thought. “That ought to mean she’s yielding but I don’t think it does.”

She found it intolerable to sit in the car and decided to stroll back toward the gates. She would be in full view. If she was wanted Gideon could come and get her.

A bus had drawn up outside the main gates. A number of people got out and began to walk up the drive. Among them were two men, one of whom carried a great basket of lilies. He wore a countrified tweed suit and hat and looked rather distinguished. It came as quite a shock to recognize him as Bruce Gardener in his best clothes. Sybil would have said he was “perfectly presentable.”

And a greater and much more disquieting shock to realize that his shambling, ramshackle companion was Claude Carter.

vi

When Verity was a girl there had been a brief craze for what were known as rhymes of impending disaster — facetious couplets usually on the lines of: “Auntie Maude’s mislaid her glasses and thinks the burglar’s making passes,” accompanied by a childish drawing of a simpering lady being man-handled by a masked thug.

Why was she now reminded of this puerile squib? Why did she see her old friend in immediate jeopardy: threatened by something undefined but infinitely more disquieting than any nuisance Claude Carter could inflict upon her? Why should Verity feel as if the afternoon, now turned sultry, was closing about Sybil? Had she only imagined that there was an odd immobility in Sybil’s face?

And what ought she to do about Bruce and Claude?

She pulled herself together and went to meet them.

Bruce was delighted to see her. He raised his tweed hat high in the air, beamed across the lilies and greeted her in his richest and most suspect Scots. He was, he said, paying his usual wee Saturday visit to his puir leddy and how had Miss Preston found her the noo? Would there be an improvement in her condeetion, then?

Verity said she didn’t think Mrs. Foster seemed very well and that at the moment she had visitors to which Bruce predictably replied that he would bide a wee. And if she didna fancy any further visitors he’d leave the lilies at the desk to be put in her room. “She likes to know how her garden prospers,” he said. Claude had listened to this exchange with a half-smile and a shifting eye.

“You found your way here, after all?” Verity said to him since she could scarcely say nothing.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Thanks to Bruce. He’s sure she’ll be glad to see me.”

Bruce looked, Verity thought, as if he would like to disown this remark and indeed began to say he’d no’ put it that way when Claude said: “That’s her, over there, isn’t it? Is that Prue with her?”

“Yes,” said Verity shortly.

“Who’s the jet-set type?”

“A friend.”

“I think I’ll just investigate,” he said with a pallid show of effrontery and made as if to set out.

“Claude, please wait,” Verity said and in her dismay turned to Bruce. He said at once: “Ou, now, Mr. Carter, would you no’ consider it more advisable to bide a while?”

“No,” said Claude over his shoulder, “thank you, I wouldn’t,” and continued on his way.

Verity thought: “I can’t run after him and hang on his arm and make a scene. Prue and Gideon will have to cope.”

Prue certainly did. The distance was too great for words to be distinguished and the scene came over like a mime. Sybil reached out a hand and clutched her daughter’s arm. Prue turned, saw Claude and rose. Gideon made a. gesture of enquiry. Then Prue marched down upon Claude.

They faced each other, standing close together, Prue very upright, rather a dignified little figure, Claude with his back to Verity, his head lowered. And in the distance Sybil being helped to her feet by Gideon and walked toward the house.

“She’ll be better indoors,” said Bruce in a worried voice, “she will that.”

Verity had almost forgotten him but there he stood gazing anxiously over the riot of lilies he carried. At that moment Verity actually liked him.

Prue evidently said something final to Claude. She walked quickly toward the house, joined her mother and Gideon on the steps, took Sybil’s arm and led her indoors. Claude stared after them, turned toward Verity, changed his mind and sloped off in the direction of the trees.

“It wasna on any invitation of mine he came,” said Bruce hotly. “He worrumed the information oot of me.”

“I can well believe it,” said Verity.

Gideon came to them.

“It’s all right,” he said to Verity. “Prue’s taking Mrs. Foster up to her room.” And to Bruce: “Perhaps you could wait in the entrance hall until Miss Prunella comes down.”

“I’ll do that, sir, thank you,” Bruce said and went indoors.

Gideon smiled down at Verity. He had, she thought, an engaging smile. “What a very bumpy sort of a visit,” he said.

“How was it shaping up? Before Charmless Claude intervened?”

“Might have been worse, I suppose. Not much worse, though. The reverse of open arms and cries of rapturous welcome. You must have done some wonderful softening-up, Miss Preston, for her to receive me at all. We couldn’t be more grateful.” He hesitated for a moment. “I hope you don’t mind my asking but is there — is she — Prue’s mother — I don’t know how to say it. Is there something—?” He touched his face.

“I know what you mean. Yes. There is.”

“I only wondered.”

“It’s new.”

“I think Prue’s seen it. Prue’s upset. She managed awfully well but she
is
upset.”

“Prue’s explained Charmless Claude, has she?”

“Yes. Pretty ghastly specimen. She coped marvellously,” said Gideon proudly.

“Here she comes.”

When Prunella joined them she was white-faced but perfectly composed. “We can go now,” she said and got into the car.

“Where’s your bag?” asked Gideon.

“What? Oh,
damn
,” said Prunella, “I’ve left it up there. Oh,
what
a fool! Now I’ll have to go back.”

“Shall I?”

“It’s in her room. And she’s been pretty beastly to you.”

“Perhaps I could better myself by a blithe change of manner.”

“
What
a good idea,” cried Prunella. “Yes, do let’s try it. Say she looks like Mrs. Onassis.”

“She doesn’t. Not remotely. Nobody less.”

“She thinks she does.”

“One can but try,” Gideon said. “There’s nothing to lose.”

“No more there is.”

He was gone for longer than they expected. When he returned with Prunella’s bag he looked dubious. He started up the car and drove off.

“Any good?” Prunella ventured.

“She didn’t actually throw anything at me.”

“Oh,” said Prunella. “Like that, was it.”

She was very quiet on the homeward drive. Verity, in the back seat, saw her put her hand on Gideon’s knee. He laid his own hand briefly over it and looked down at her. “He knows exactly how to handle her,” Verity thought. “There’s going to be no doubt about who’s the boss.”

When they arrived at Keys she asked them to come in for a drink but Gideon said his father would be expecting them.

“I’ll see Godma V in,” said Prue as Gideon prepared to do so.

She followed Verity indoors and kissed and thanked her very prettily. Then she said: “About Mummy. Has she had a stroke?”

“My dear child, why?”

“You noticed. I could see you did.”

“I don’t think it looked like that. In any case they — the doctor — would have let you know if anything serious was wrong.”

“P’raps he didn’t know. He may not be a good doctor. Sorry, I forgot he was a friend.”

“He’s not. Not to matter.”

“I think I’ll ring him up. I think there’s something wrong Honestly, don’t you?”

“I did wonder and yet—”

“What?”

“In a funny sort of way she seemed — well — excited, pleased.”

“I thought so, too.”

“It’s very odd,” said Prunella. “Everything was odd. Out of focus, kind of. Anyway I will ring up that doctor. I’ll ring him up tomorrow. Do you think that’s a good idea?”

Verity said: “Yes, darling. I do. It should put your mind at rest.”

But it was going to be a long tfme before Prunella’s mind would be in that enviable condition.

vii

At five minutes past nine that evening, Sister Jackson, the resident nurse at Greengages, paused at Sybil Foster’s door. She could hear the television. She tapped, opened and after a long pause approached the bed. Five minutes later she left the room and walked rather quickly down the passage.

At ten-thirty Dr. Schramm telephoned Prunella to tell her that her mother was dead.

i

Basil looked distinguished, Verity had to admit: exactly as he ought to look under the circumstances, and he behaved as one would wish him to behave, with dignity and propriety, with deference and with precisely the right shade of controlled emotion.

“I had no reason whatever to suspect that beyond symptoms of nervous exhaustion, which had markedly improved, there was anything the matter,” he said. “I feel I must add that I am astonished that she should have taken this step. She was in the best of spirits when I last saw her.”

“When was that, Dr. Schramm?” asked the coroner.

“On that same morning. About eight o’clock. I was going up to London and looked in on some of my patients before I left. I did not get back to Greengages until a few minutes after ten in the evening.”

“To find?”

“To find that she had died.”

“Can you describe the circumstances?”

“Yes. She had asked me to get a book for her in London: the autobiography of a Princess — somebody — I forget the name. I went to her room to deliver it. Our bedrooms are large and comfortable and are often used as sitting-rooms. I have been told that she went up to hers later that afternoon. Long before her actual bedtime. She had dinner there, watching television. I knocked and there was no reply but I could hear the television and presumed that because of it she had not heard me. I went in. She was in bed and lying on her back. Her bedside table-lamp was on and I saw at once that a bottle of tablets was overturned and several — five, in fact — were scattered over the surface of the table. Her drinking glass was empty but had been used and was lying on the floor. Subsequently a faint trace of alcohol — Scotch — was found in the glass. A small bottle of Scotch, empty, was on the table. She sometimes used to take a modest nightcap. Her jug of water was almost empty. I examined her and found that she was dead. It was then twenty minutes past ten.”

“Can you give a time for when death occurred?”

“Not exactly, no. Not less than an hour before I found her.”

“What steps did you taker”

“I made absolutely certain there was no possibility of recovery. I then called up our resident nurse. We employed a stomach pump. The results were subsequently analyzed and a quantity of barbiturates was found.” He hesitated and then said: “I would like, Sir, if this is an appropriate moment to add a word about Greengages and its general character and management.”

“By all means, Dr. Schramm.”

“Thank you. Greengages is not a hospital. It is a hotel with a resident medical practitioner. Many, indeed most, of our guests are not ill. Some are tired and in need of a change and rest. Some come to us simply for a quiet holiday. Some for a weight-reducing course. Some are convalescents preparing to return to normal life. A number of them are elderly people who are reassured by the presence of a qualified practitioner and a registered nurse. Mrs. Foster had been in the habit of coming from time to time. She was a nervy subject and a chronic worrier. I must say at once that I had not prescribed the barbiturate tablets she had taken and have no idea how she had obtained them. When she first came I did, on request, prescribe phenorbarbiturates at night to help her sleep but after her first week they were discontinued as she had no further need of them. I apologize for the digression but I felt it was perhaps indicated.”

“Quite. Quite. Quite,” chattered the complacent coroner.

“Well then, to continue. When we had done what had to be done, I got into touch with another doctor. The local practitioners were all engaged or out but finally I reached Dr. Field-Innis of Upper Quintern. He very kindly drove over and together we made further examination.”

“Finding?”

“Finding that she had died of an overdose. There was no doubt of it, at all. We found three half-dissolved tablets at the back of the mouth and one on the tongue. She must have taken the tablets four or five at a time and lost consciousness before she could swallow the last ones.”

“Dr. Field-Innis is present, is he not?”

“He is,” Basil said with a little bow in the right direction. Dr. Field-Innis bobbed up and down in his seat.

“Thank you very much, Dr. Schramm,” said the coroner with evident respect.

Dr. Field-Innis was called.

Verity watched him push his glasses up his nose and tip back his head to adjust his vision just as he always did after he had listened to one’s chest. He was nice. Not in the least dynamic or lordly, but nice. And conscientious. And, Verity thought, at the moment very clearly ill at ease.

He confirmed everything that Basil Schramm had deposed as to the state of the room and the body and the conclusion they had drawn and added that he himself had been surprised and shocked by the tragedy.

“Was the deceased a patient of yours, Dr. Field-Innis?”

“She consulted me about four months ago.”

“On what score?”

“She felt unwell and was nervy. She complained of migraine, sleeplessness and general anxiety. I prescribed a mild barbiturate.
Not
the proprietary tranquilizer she was found to have taken that evening, by the way.” He hesitated for a moment. “I suggested that she should have a general overhaul,” he said.

“Had you any reason to suspect there was something serious the matter?”

There was a longer pause. Dr. Field-Innis looked for a moment at Prunella. She sat between Gideon and Verity, who thought, irrelevantly, that like all blondes, especially when they were as pretty as Prunella, mourning greatly became her.

“That,” said Dr. Field-Innis, “is not an easy question to answer. There were, I thought, certain possible indications: very slight indeed, that should be followed up.”

“What were they?”

“A gross tremor in the hands. That does not necessarily imply a conspicuous tremor. And — this is difficult to define — a certain appearance in the face. I must emphasize that this was slight and possibly of no moment but I had seen something of the sort before and felt it should not be disregarded.”

“What might these symptoms indicate, Dr. Field-Innis? A stroke?” hazarded the coroner.

“Not necessarily.”

“Anything else?”

“I say this with every possible reservation. But yes. Just possibly — Parkinson’s disease.”

Prunella gave a strange little sound, half cry, half sigh. Gideon took her hand.

The coroner asked: “And did the deceased, in fact follow your advice?”

“No. She said she would think it over. She did not consult me again.”

“Had she any idea you suspected—?”

“Certainly not,” Dr. Field-Innis said loudly. “
I
gave no indication whatever. It would have been most improper to do so.”

“Have you discussed the matter with Dr. Schramm?”

“It has been mentioned, yes.”

“Had Dr. Schramm remarked these symptoms?” The coroner turned politely to Basil Schramm. “Perhaps,” he said, “we may ask?”

He stood up. “I had noticed the tremor,” he said. “On her case-history and on what she had told me, I attributed this to the general nervous condition.”

“Quite,” said the coroner. “So, gentlemen, we may take it, may we not, that fear of this tragic disease cannot have been a motive for suicide? We may rule that out?”

“Certainly,” they said together and together they sat down. “Tweedledum and Tweedledee,” Verity thought.

The resident nurse was now called: Sister Jackson, an opulent lady of good looks, a highish colour and an air of latent sexiness, damped down, Verity thought, to suit the occasion. She confirmed the doctors’ evidence and said rather snootily that of course if Greengages had been a hospital there would have been no question of Mrs. Foster having a private supply of any medicaments.

And now Prunella was called. It was a clear day outside and a ray of sunlight slanted through a window in the parish hall. As if on cue from some zealous stage-director it found Prunella’s white-gold head and made a saint of her.

“How lovely she is,” Gideon said quite audibly. Verity thought he might have been sizing up one of his father’s distinguished possessions. “And how obliging of the sun,” he added and gave her a friendly smile. This young man, she thought, takes a bit of learning.

The coroner was considerate with Prunella. She was asked about the afternoon visit to Greengages. Had there been anything unusual in her mother’s behaviour? The coroner was sorry to trouble her but would she mind raising her voice, the acoustics of the hall, no doubt, were at fault. Verity heard Gideon chuckle.

Prunella gulped and made a determined attempt to become fully vocal. “Not really,” she said. “Not unusual. My mother was rather easily fussed and — well — you know. As Dr. Schramm said, she worried.”

“About anything in particular, Miss Foster?”

“Well — about me, actually.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“About
me
,” Prunella shrilled and flinched at the sound of her own voice. “Sorry,” she said.

“About you?”

“Yes, I’d just got engaged and she fussed about that, sort of. But it was all right. Routine, really.”

“And you saw nothing particularly unusual?”

“Yes. I mean,” said Prunella frowning distressfully and looking across at Dr. Field-Innis, “I did think I saw somethings — different — about her.”

“In what way?”

“Well, she was — her hands — like Dr. Field-Innis said — were trembly. And her speech kind of, you know, dragged. And there was — or I thought there was — something about her face. As if it had kind of, you know, blanked out or sort of smoothed over, sort of — well — slowed up. I can’t describe it I wasn’t even quite sure it was there.”

“But it troubled you?”

“Yes. Sort of,” whispered Prunella.

She described how she and Gideon took her mother back to the house and how she went up with her to her room.

“She said she thought she’d have a rest and go to bed early and have dinner brought up to her. There was something she wanted to see on television. I helped her undress. She asked me not to wait. So I turned the box on and left her. She truly seemed all right, apart from being tired and upset about — about me and my engagement.” Prunella’s voice wavered into inaudibility, and her eyes filled with tears.

“Miss Foster,” asked the coroner, “just one more question. Was there a bottle of tablets on her bedside table?”

“Yes, there was,” Prunella said quickly. “She asked me to take it out of her beauty-box: you know, a kind of face-box. It was on the table. She said they were sleeping-pills she’d got from a chemist ages ago and she thought if she couldn’t go to sleep after her dinner she’d take one. I found them for her and put them out. And there was a lamp on the table, a book and an enormous box of petits-fours au massepain. She gets — she used to get them from that shop, the Marquise de Sevigné—in Paris. I ate some before I left.”

Prunella knuckled her eyes like a small girl and then hunted for her handkerchief. The coroner said they would not trouble her any more and she returned to Gideon and Verity.

Verity heard herself called and found she was nervous. She was taken over the earlier ground and confirmed all that Prunella had said. Nothing she was asked led to any mention of Bruce Gardener’s and Claude Carter’s arrivals at Greengages and as both of them had been fended off from meeting Sybil she did not think it incumbent on her to say anything about them. She saw that Bruce was in the hall, looking stiff and solemn as if the inquest was a funeral. He wore his Harris tweed suit and a black tie.

Poor Syb would have liked that. She would have probably said there was “good blood there” and you could tell by the way he wore his clothes. Meaning blue blood. And suddenly and irrelevantly there came over Verity the realization that she could never believe ridiculous old Syb had killed herself.

She had found Dr. Field-Innis’s remarks about Sybil’s appearance disturbing, not because she thought they bore the remotest relation to her death but because she herself had for so long paid so little attention to Sybil’s ailments. Suppose, all the time, there had been ominous signs? Suppose she had felt as ill as she said she did? Was it a case of “wolf, wolf”? Verity was miserable.

She did not pay much atttention when Gideon was called and said that he had returned briefly to Mrs. Foster’s room to collect Prunella’s bag and that she had seemed to be quite herself.

The proceedings now came to a close. The coroner made a short speech saying, in effect, that the jury might perhaps consider it was most unfortunate that nothing had emerged to show why the deceased had been moved to take this tragic and apparently motiveless step, so out of character according to all that her nearest and dearest felt about her. Nevertheless in face of what they had heard they might well feel that the circumstances all pointed in one direction. However — at this point Verity’s attention was distracted by the sight of Claude Carter, whom she had not noticed before. He was sitting at the end of a bench against the wall, wearing a superfluous raincoat with the collar turned up and was feasting quietly upon his fingernails.

“—and so,” the coroner was saying, “you may think that in view of the apparent absence of motive and not withstanding the entirely appropriate steps taken by Dr. Schramm, an autopsy should be carried out. If you so decide I shall, of course, adjourn the inquest
sine die
.”

The jury after a short withdrawal brought in a verdict along these lines and the inquest was accordingly adjourned until after the autopsy.

The small assembly emptied out into the summery quiet of the little village.

As she left the hall Verity found herself face to face with Young Mr. Rattisbon. Young Mr. Rattisbon was about sixty-five years of age and was the son of Old Mr. Rattisbon, who was ninety-two. They were London solicitors of eminent respectability and they had acted for Verity’s family and for Sybil’s unto the third and fourth generation. His father and Verity’s were old friends. As the years passed the son grew more and more like the father, even to adopting his eccentricities. They both behaved as if they were character-actors playing themselves in some dated comedy. Both had an extraordinary mannerism: when about to pronounce upon some choice point of law they exposed the tips of their tongues and vibrated them as if they had taken sips of scalding tea. They prefaced many of their remarks with a slight whinny.