the maltese angel (45 page)

sleeping on the sofa in the room. But then, he's always been as barmy about her as he was about her mother."

They were in the kitchen when he put an arm around her waist and said,

"Aren't you still barmy about me?"

And now she looked at him softly and seriously as she said, "Yes, Carl.

I'm still barmy about you, and always will be. But at the same time I'm filled full of guilt, because I can't rear a family for you."

"Now, look ... look, I've told you, it doesn't matter one jot to me.

I want you and not a family. I've told you, dear. "

"Aye, you could go on telling me for the rest of your life and I would try to believe it, all the while knowing that I can't. Every man wants a family. But ... but look, I don't want to start and bubble here; I've done enough crying in me time. Let's get upstairs. "

He kissed her before he let her go; then they were climbing the stairs together.

She entered the room first, and he hesitantly followed. She went and stood near the bed and looked down on the still form; then she turned towards him, whispering hoarsely, "Carl! Carl! Come here. Look at her."

Quickly and quietly he went and stood by her side, but said nothing as he looked down on the face that now had a young appearance. The eyes were wide open, the lips apart. He was seeing the young girl again as she was before the night of the magic lantern show.

"Oh, my God! My God!"

"Be quiet!" he said.

"Get out of the way."

He moved close to the head of the bed and put his hand tentatively on the white nightdress and left it there for some seconds. Then Patsy's voice expressed the futility of what he was doing as she hissed at him,

"She's dead! She's dead! Look at her eyes, she's dead." She backed from the bed now, whimpering, "I should have come up before. I should.

Yes, I should."

"No, you shouldn't!" His voice was firm but quiet.

"Look; go down and get one of them. It better be Rob, as he can ride the horse. Tell him to go for Doctor Patten as soon as possible. I'll stay here. Go on now." But he had to press her as she walked

backwards towards the door.

He looked about him, and presently muttered something to himself, then said aloud, "Tis the best way. And he knew what he was doing." And with the thought he went over to the side table on which stood a glass with about half an inch of white liquid left in it. This he lifted and smelt, then held it up to eye level. There was some sediment at the bottom of the glass. His suspicions had been right. Yet, he wouldn't believe it when he had seen him at the tin. It was the dim light of a covered lantern that had attracted him to the store-room. He had been unable to sleep, and he had lain listening to the dogs growling in the yard. It was when they stopped abruptly that he had risen and gone to the window of their bedroom, the room that used to be the master's study and which looked on to the end of the yard. It was from there he had seen the light in the storeroom. This had puzzled him. If the light had been next door in the harness-room he could have understood it, for then somebody would have been after a harness or horse's

accoutrements of some kind. But who would want to be in the

store-room, where only empty sacks, boxes, or tools and such were

kept?

He had pulled on a coat and gone quietly outside and made for the

window, and there, to his amazement, he had seen the master with a tin in his hand. After watching him put the tin back on the shelf on which were kept rat poisons and such, he had scampered back into the house.

But the next morning, early on, he had examined the tins. There was a dust of powder against three of them:

one contained rat poison; a second, arsenic; the third a kind of

jellied liquid which they diluted for spraying.

He now put his hand tightly across his jaws. But when he heard

footsteps running on the landing, he turned towards the door and there was Patsy again. She was breathless, and she said, "Doctor's behind.

There was no need to go, he was just coming in the yard to see the child. He's .. he's here now. " Her face was wet with tears, and again she said, " I should have come up earlier. I should, I know I should. "

"Be quiet! Be quiet!" He turned and looked towards the glass on the table, but there was no time to remove it, for there stood the

doctor.

Philip Patten looked down on the woman whom death had transformed into a girl, and slowly he did what Carl had done earlier; he placed his hand on her chest. Then he felt her wrist. Then, just as slowly, he closed her eyelids and drew the bed-sheet over her, before turning to the two people who were standing staring at him. And now he spoke, saying, "When did it happen? I mean, when did you find her?"

"It was me. Doctor. Just ... just a few minutes ago. I was

scampering downstairs to send for you and ... and, well, there you were. I know I should have come up earlier. But when he left, I mean the master, he said she would be quiet after the draught you gave her, and that he was going into town to hire some help. "

He nodded, then said, "She's had nothing to drink today?"

"No. No. I should have brought something up, but I was afraid of her on me own, the way she's been. Well, he said she would sleep for some time. And then I went and got Carl to come up with me."

"It's all right. It's all right, Patsy. Look, go downstairs and make us a pot of tea."

"Yes. Yes, Doctor." She looked from one to the other, then turned and hurried out.

Philip Patten now looked around the room, taking in the glass on the side table holding a small amount of white liquid; and he resisted the urge to go near it. This room was impregnated with tragedy and sorrow and he asked himself. Was he going to add to it? He knew full well that the sedative he had left to be given to her each day in no way would have caused her demise. Anyway, if more proof than was already in his own mind were needed, he had only to go by her pupils, and the fact that her father had definitely made up his mind what was going to happen to her. He had taken advantage of her being rested under the sedative and then had thought he was being clever in showing that he was apparently agreeing to the lesser evil: either she went into an asylum or he got competent nurses to see to her. Oh, Ward had thought it all out. But what was he himself to do about it? Accuse him?

There was that accusing white sediment in that glass. He had slipped up there, hadn't he? He had only to test it himself and find the

slightest trace of a poison and that would be proof enough. And what then? The man could hang, or, if compassion came into the judgment, be imprisoned for the rest of his life. And how old was he now? Early fifties?

37i

He went past Carl and stood near the window looking down on the

garden, and he asked himself where he stood in this. What was his

duty? Oh, he knew what his duty was all right. But could he carry it out? And who was to know if he didn't? Who was to ask questions about the death of one demented woman, when the whole country was at war?

Even the village was caught up in the excitement. The fact that Ward Gibson's daughter had died would cause nothing but a flutter.

He turned briskly from the window and, looking towards the bed, he said, "I think I have missed something. I had better examine her again. There are signs that she may have died from a blood clot on the brain. As I recall, her mother went the same way. Look, slip down and bring me a cup of tea up, will you?"

"Yes. Yes, Doctor."

As soon as Carl had left the room Philip Patten picked up the glass, swirled the contents round, dipped his finger in it, then tasted it.

As he placed the glass back on the table his jaws met tightly together for a moment. Before grabbing it up again he emptied the contents in the china slop bucket standing beneath the wash-hand stand; then he half-filled the glass with water from a ewer, did some more swilling, then poured this into the bucket, after which he took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the glass clean, paying particular attention to the bottom of it. He had only just managed to pull the sheet down from over the still face when the door opened and Carl entered carrying a small tray with cups of tea on it and by its side a bowl of sugar.

As he laid the tray on the side table, Carl noticed the clean glass, and he stared at it for a second. When he looked up the doctor had turned from the bed and their gaze linked and held for some seconds with the unspoken knowledge they both shared ..

Philip Patten did not return to the house until six o'clock that

evening. Ward was sitting in the room that he used also as a

dining-room. He rose to his feet as Philip came up the room, and his head was slightly drooped and his eyes cast down as he said, "I came back to a shock."

When there was no response to this he raised his head and looked at Philip, and added, "She was resting peacefully when I left her."

There was a war going on in the doctor's mind. The man's attitude was making him regret that he had washed that glass out: he must think him an idiot. Had Ward's wily brain not taken in the fact that there would be a post-mortem? He hated to be thought the doctor who didn't know his business; but he knew he must go carefully; if the man thought that his doctor was condoning a poisoning, he could hold it over him.

Not that he thought Ward would do such a thing. Yet one never knew how a man's mind could be turned, given the circumstances. The next moment he only just prevented himself from speaking the truth, bawling it, when Ward said, naively, "How do you think it came about, and ... and so quickly? "

Philip had to turn away. And it was some seconds before he was able to say, "I ... I think her heart must have given out, or she had a blood clot on the brain."

Oh. Well, well! "

Philip swung round to see Ward now walking towards the fireplace, where he put one hand up and gripped the mantel shelf and stood looking down into the fire as he said, "Isn't that strange: her mother went in the same way. Well, she's at peace now. God rest her soul. Yes. Yes."

He turned now from the fireplace and looked at Philip, saying again,

"She's at peace. But what I must do first thing in the morning is get word to the' agency in Newcastle. I'll be able to prevent one of the nurses coming. She was due at the week-end. But the other, the day nurse, she was to start in the morning."

Philip could stand no more. He made his way towards the door, saying,

"I must go and see your granddaughter. She's in a very bad way. By the look of her she may not

last the night. " He was half-way down the room when he swung round and in a loud voice said, " And don't say that you hope she joins the others! Just don't say it! "

And now he witnessed the real man again, not the actor, as Ward yelled back at him, "Don't say that she will join the others, for she never will. She's not of this house. There's none of my daughter in her."

For a matter of seconds they glared at each other across the distance, until Philip turned about and, on leaving the room, banged the oak door so fiercely behind him that it actually shook the architrave.

Janie recovered from the pneumonia. But the illness had so sapped her small strength that it was not until the end of September, seven weeks later, that she was able to walk aloue in the farmyard. And there she was greeted by McNabb, who cried, "Well, you're a sight for sore eyes, I'll say that. Miss Janie. And look at the height of you. You've

sprouted. You'll soon be as big as me self Where've you got that

height from? You were a little striplin' the last time I saw you."

She smiled at him now as she said, "That must have been many years ago, Mr. McNabb." And at this, his head went back on his shoulders and he laughed as he said, "Well, it's many weeks ago, but it must have been years to you lyin' there. By! it is nice to see you again."

"Thank you, Mr. McNabb. It is nice to be out. I'm ... I'm tired of sitting."

"Oh." He bent down to her and in a loud whisper he said, "If only they would let me sit a bit. Oh, if only; I'm on me feet morning till

night.

D'you think you could see Mr. Carl and ask him to let me sit? "

She was laughing into his face now, and what she said was, "You are a funny man, Mr. McNabb."

Now she turned to watch Carl approaching across the yard, and to hear McNabb cry at him, "She says I'm a funny man, Mr. Carl. That's what she said, I'm a funny man."

"And you'll look funny, too," Carl admonished him, 'if you don't get about your business, and this minute! "

"There you are, miss. You see what I mean about sittin'?" And the tall Scot turned away laughing, and Carl, taking Janie's hand, said,

"You going for a walk?"

"Just a little."

"You're looking grand."

"Mr. McNabb says I've sprouted. That's what he said, I've sprouted.

Am I much taller than I was?"

"Yes. Yes, you are. My! I would say you have sprouted. I didn't notice it so much when you were in the cottage. But here, now' he drew away from her and looked her up and down 'you must have put on six inches. Yes, I'd say you've put on six inches."

"Is that a lot?"

"It's a lot at your age," he said, but tLen quickly asked, "Where're you making for? I wouldn't try the fields; there was a lot of dew in the night."

"No, I wasn't going across the fields. I was going on to the road, nice and flat. Auntie Jessie says I may go through the gate."

"She did?" There was a note of surprise in his voice. And she nodded at him, saying, "Yes. But she also said' -and now she looked up at him

'that I mustn't be a nuisance. And that means, should I meet my

grandfather I am not to speak to him. Can you tell me why, Carl? I've asked Auntie Jessie, but what she says is, that he ... he is still suffering the loss of--' She paused and swallowed: she could not say,

'my mother', but tactfully added, 'his daughter. But I told her, or I reminded her, that he hadn't spoken to me when she was alive. I cannot understand it, Carl."