by Sheila Burns
Helen Liskeard put out a hand. ‘I’m sure you will. Brown said dinner was ready and I always starve after these migraine attacks. Come along with me, we’ll lead the way,’ and she went towards the corridor. ‘I hope Roger was nice to you bringing you here. He is my only nephew and I value the relationship. When you have no one else in the world, it becomes something very very important. But Roger has moods; he can be difficult, and I am the one who should know.’
‘He was very kind to me, Mrs. Liskeard.’
‘Then you’ll get on well together, for he spends long weeks here with me. Poor Roger! He failed in his finals, and that has made him a little bitter at moments. He was to be a scientist, but missed the higher exams, which should have taken him so far. I’m glad he never really got there, glad because I don’t think it would have been a good thing. Poor Roger!’
They had entered the small dining-room, Lorna and Mrs. Liskeard together, Roger walking behind them. He showed no resentment or anxiety about the way Mrs. Liskeard talked of him; he still smiled. The man in the car would never have smiled; Lorna knew that. That kind of madman could not take reproof, or anything of that kind, and would have risen to it. He isn’t the same man, Lorna realised, he couldn’t have been.
The small dining-room was the one they always used, for the other was too large, too cold, facing north as it did, and too unfriendly, for everyday meals. This was an octagon-shaped room, the walls painted glossy white, the carpet deep crimson and all the furniture a rich mahogany. In this glow one felt completely at ease, for the place had warmth and radiance. On the clothless table were laid exquisite lace mats, fine silver and crystal glass. Brown, the old butler who had welcomed them, hovered by the sideboard and they sat themselves down.
The thickness of the deep crimson carpet seemed to mute the sound, and made the room most charmingly silent and pleasant. Here, thought Lorna, were happy people. How could she for a single moment have identified Roger Liskeard with the terrible man of the other night? The atmosphere was restful, they talked of everyday matters, and of everyday people, so that suddenly the unhappy affair with Michael Bland seemed to veer out of Lorna’s life and she was at ease. She had done well to come here, and had shown sound sense in taking Lionel Strong’s advice. She was perhaps the luckiest girl in all the world.
Afterwards they drank coffee on the verandah, sweet with the smell of roses and lilies, and the night was far warmer than it had been at home near Hitchin. It was soon after ten o’clock when Mrs. Liskeard rose and smiled, but she looked most deadly tired.
‘I’m afraid I always go to bed early. I have to.’
‘Please let me come and help you?’
‘I’d hate to worry you on this your first night here; besides, anyway I’ve got Henderson, and she’s used to a querulous old woman and can put up with my pernickertiness.’
‘Let me come, too? I’d like it.’
‘You won’t stay and talk to Roger?’
‘I think I ought to be with you.’
She helped Mrs. Liskeard up the stairs which seemed to be very difficult for her, for the pain in the arm was far worse than she ever admitted. They went along the carpeted landing to the corner suite in the west wing, the room she loved best in the house. Henderson, in her close black dress, and with that very quiet manner of hers, was hovering there, looking rather like some blackbird in a country lane in spring. The bedroom was papered with a French paper on which may blossom was scattered, the ceiling had an April sky of robin’s egg blue, it was a lovely room, and about it was a space and a graciousness that Lorna had never seen before. Then with a sharp suddenness she thought that in this very room Mrs. Liskeard had heard that her husband was dead; here she had suffered the unbelievable sadness; here she had been brought after the terrible car accident, and had learnt that she would never be able to use her right arm properly again.
Now at the end of the day, unduly tired, it was as much as Mrs. Liskeard could do to totter to the half tester bed with its beautiful hangings and carved posts. Henderson went to her aid.
‘Let me help?’ Lorna begged.
She need not have felt alarmed that she might make Henderson jealous; the older woman was amiable enough, and kindly. She showed Lorna the things that had to be done. The medicine cupboard where the drugs were kept, the little refrigerator here in the bedroom so that ice could always be obtained quickly when Mrs. Liskeard had one of her bad headaches, or sought an iced drink. One by one the lovely clothes were laid by, the extravagant nightdress brought out of its bag, and the little chiffon wrap which went with it.
Lorna was a good nurse, she knew; she had the heaven-sent capacity for foreseeing pain before it came, and then taking action. ‘I’m sure that wrist would be comfier at nights,’ she said, ‘if you had a bandage round it. It wakes you, doesn’t it?’
‘Sometimes,’ Mrs. Liskeard admitted with a smile.
‘Let me bind it for you. You can always take it off later if you find it worries you.’
She ran through the gamut of the sleeping pills, and recommended a much simpler one.
‘It sometimes works when the big boys fail,’ she said, ‘which means that it is always worth a trial. Is there a bell here which rings in my room?’
‘Of course not!’
‘But why not? We’ll hire a portable bell tomorrow, so we are sure until the proper one is arranged. It would be a good idea and I want to come to you when you want me.’
Mrs. Liskeard laughed. ‘You have come here to sleep at nights. I don’t want any duties like that, I just want the people about me to be happy.’
‘I couldn’t be happy if I thought you were in pain. Please, I do mean that.’
Roger Liskeard came up last thing to say goodnight. By now his aunt was propped with lace-edged pillows and looking much better, almost with a colour.
‘Dear Roger! Isn’t Lorna kind? You mustn’t mind if we call you Lorna, it is so much easier. She wants a bell put in here connecting with her room, so that I can always get her whenever I want her.’
He turned round sharply. For a moment it seemed that his face changed a little; he had a furtive look, as though suddenly he had smelt danger in the distance, as though he had a stab of doubt. ‘My dear Aunt, that is the silliest idea. Why on earth should she want you to keep her awake all night?’
‘I told her that. I’m glad you agree with me, Roger.’
In that instant the compelling power of a Sister on duty seemed to come to Lorna, and she heard her whole voice change. ‘If I am to be of any use to you, you must let me do what I think is best. I could not rest if I thought you might be ill, or in pain, and could not get help. I want a means of communication.’
As she spoke she knew that Roger was watching her; he was gentle with very definite charm, and the mildest of men, but he had about him this atmosphere, this something that even now she could not quite establish. She had been wrong in connecting it with that adventure of hers that night ‒ something that she wished to forget ‒ yet at the same time there was something sinister about him, a look in his eyes, something that was difficult to put into words.
He knew how she felt, for he said, ‘Nothing of this is really anything to do with me,’ and he laughed boyishly.
His aunt had recognised the moment of strain.
‘Let’s talk of something else. There are places here that Lorna must visit, and you, Roger, must take her whilst you are staying with me. She must see St. Ives and Falmouth, and Penzance, and Flushing is so charming. This is King Arthur’s country, it is a whole world of romance. She’ll love it.’
‘Until now these places have been just names to me,’ she said.
‘We’ll have picnics whilst the good weather lasts. I hope I’ll be well enough to come, too, I think I shall. I believe that Lorna is going to be a lucky star for me.’
‘I want to be a lucky star.’
Later when Mrs. Liskeard began to tire, they went downstairs together. There were drinks put ready on the side table, so
mething of everything. Roger asked politely if she played chess; she didn’t. He turned on a record, it was Handel’s Water Music, gentle and tender. She sat back on a big sofa listening to it with the feeling of complete relaxation. He perched on the arm of a chair, smoking a cigarette.
‘I’m glad I came here,’ she said, as the music ended.
‘I hope so much that you will love it.’
‘I shall. I know I shall.’
‘My aunt is a curious woman; she changes very quickly. Tonight you saw her at her best, quite her best, all of which is charming. She ‒ she isn’t always like that. I thought I ought to tell you. We are a family of moods.’
‘Yes.’
‘I also have moods. I change.’ His eyes shot a question to her; if she knew the answer she said nothing. Then on the instant he lifted a plate of sandwiches from the side. ‘I’d take these to bed with you, and eat them if you get hungry in the night,’ he suggested.
She went up to bed carrying them.
Somehow, for a vague reason, it had been difficult to say goodnight. For a moment they had stood looking at each other only too well aware of a quality of uncertainty being there. Then she had turned, probably it had been awkward, she could not help herself. Roger Liskeard made her feel like this, she was still associating him with that adventure, still doubting him.
She went up to the suite with her own bathroom and the prettiness that was so delightful. She was the luckiest girl in the world, really.
Chapter Four
Mrs. Liskeard was one of those delightfully aggravating patients who never want to give any trouble. ‘I hate disturbing other people,’ she admitted.
‘But I am here to be disturbed,’ Lorna said.
The patient had awakened with a bad headache, Henderson had gone to her immediately, giving the usual tablets, and with the cup of tea, but it was some time before the pain wore off.
It was that day that Lorna met Dr. Morde (known as Maudie by the family), the local doctor. It was not a very happy meeting for from the first Lorna disliked him. He would be in the late fifties, and he had grown unduly old for the late fifties, and was obviously sick to death of his job here. He disliked the N.H.S. even if it brought him in a better income, but he argued that it gave him far too much work. A squat small man with a bullet head, iron grey hair the colour of pewter, and a stiff moustache, he had the droop of a man who is genuinely sick of everything but goes on because he has to.
He spoke to Lorna in the library, with a bantering manner that was irritating, the air of a man who takes life as a joke, even if the bags under his eyes and the lines round his chin show only too clearly that he finds it a despair.
‘Look here, Nurse, you’ve fallen on your feet, I must say. Frequent perks, lots of spoiling, good wine and grand meals, and very little to do. The patient is a hypochondriac.’
‘Is she, doctor? She did not strike me as being that.’
‘All the same, she is. Nothing much she or anyone else can do about it either. She likes being ill.’
Lorna felt vague. She felt that she disliked this stout little man who admitted to being a great friend of the Liskeards and yet said things of this kind.
‘You mustn’t encourage her to make a fuss. She is a woman, and you know what women are when they get a passion for being ill.’
‘I should never encourage her in that, doctor.’
‘She feels a bit off colour, but then so do hundreds. Boredom is probably the main cause. She doesn’t drink, which is a pity; it would help her. Oh, I know the arm is a bit of a bother, and the migraine, but people should be brave enough to overcome bothers.’ He fingered the empty glass and glanced again at the decanter. Lorna saw the look.
‘Some more?’
‘That’s an idea, I don’t mind if I do, as Jack Train used to say. What a girl you are!’ and Lorna shrank from the remark. ‘The fear of thrombosis is the anxiety, and that’s why she needs a trained nurse with her. I want her to have a first-class opinion, it could do no harm and might do good. Heard of Mr. Kinsome?’
‘I have indeed. He operated at St. Botolph’s.’
‘Did he now? I got her to see him, but he had very few ideas. Still, he gave us the rules. Be always on the look-out for an attack, watch for the first symptoms.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Lorna was remembering the general opinion of the hospital, which was that Mr. Kinsome was out of date, and Michael Bland streets ahead of where he was. Dr. Morde reached for the soda water syphon, attacking it in one short spurt. There was no doubt that he liked his drinks to be snappy. He was one of the sponging kind, who deprive themselves of nothing.
‘I like this place,’ he said. ‘She’s a generous patient, never disputes fees, and will give you anything you want. She likes doing it. One may as well avail oneself of her hospitality, she can afford it.’
The first jarring note had come since Lorna’s arrival here in Wiseways, and Dr. Morde was the difficulty. He soaked. She knew that. He made money out of summertime visitors, and had come here because quite obviously he would never have got a practice in London. She looked at the shallow half-closed eyes, and the pendulously heavy jowl, with those bulbous lips that he had the unpleasant habit of smacking together. Yet Roger Liskeard had told Lorna only today that Maudie was a good sort, and that his aunt was lucky to have such a good G.P., someone who would always stand by her. Lorna would hate to call this man in, he could very easily be drunk, unable to think clearly, and had no real interest in his work. He was the sort who is ever ready to pass his glass up for more, or to tell a story fairly near the knuckle, hoping to raise a laugh, and give the impression that he was one of the sporting chaps. A curious feeling of helplessness came to her.
Dr. Morde was becoming confidential. ‘The man behind this place is young Roger, he’ll get the lot when the time comes; he isn’t likely to forget that. He is the one to keep in with and he can influence his aunt to do anything he wants. Perhaps you’ve noticed that already?’
‘No, I haven’t noticed it.’
‘But he does. He inherits it when she dies. Now the old man wasn’t the same, he was for ever having rows with young Roger. He had threatened to kick him out for good the very day that the end came. He died of course, very awkward, very difficult! Sleeping pills, and they can be deadly in the wrong hands. Poor chap! That was that.’
Lorna could not bear it. She rose. ‘I thought I heard Mrs. Liskeard’s bell.’
‘Don’t worry yourself too much. I bet she rings it all the time, these women do, and it never means a thing! Don’t let her drive you too hard.’
‘I’m afraid I must go.’
Lorna got the impression that he watched her as she walked across the room and out of the door. He would never understand devotion to duty, he had long ago tired himself out with duty, and now lived only one day for the next. Lorna would have been far happier if the local doctor had been good, and far more sure of herself.
It was a pity, too, that Roger Liskeard had no job to take him away, nothing to keep him occupied. Most certainly long pointless visits to Wiseways were not the right thing for the young man. The background to which she had come, which had seemed to be so simple when first approached, was beginning to show a patchwork blurred confusion which she did not entirely understand.
She went to Mrs. Liskeard’s room. It was one of the days when the poor woman seemed to have no strength left to her at all. She lay on a chaise longue in the window, and about her was the completely languid air, the wretched lethargy in which her real self was entirely lost. She gave one the feeling that she was apart, not completely connected with this world; gone.
‘Why not let me take you out in the car?’ Lorna gently asked her. ‘The fresh air is bound to do you some good.’
‘I haven’t the energy to get to the car. That’s why.’
‘Let me help you? I could, you know.’
‘Roger likes me to stay here when I feel this way. He says it’s a mistake to force it. It might bring on
another thrombosis attack if I did.’
‘Roger is not a trained doctor.’
‘I know.’ Apparently she thought about it, and thawed. ‘If you think it would be all right … But it must not be too far … Most certainly it must not be too far.’
Lorna helped Mrs. Liskeard down into the small car which had been put at her own disposal. They drove up the avenue very slowly, and out into the country which lay beyond the wrought-iron gates. The day was sweet with sunshine.
‘This is lovely.’ Mrs. Liskeard was drinking in great gulps of the fresh air. ‘Roger always drives too fast, and after that car accident I am ridiculously nervous.’
‘Where would you like to go?’
‘Zennor way, I think. Once upon a time I had a cottage there, and always loved the place.’
‘You’ll have to show me the way.’
They came across the moors where the last of the piskies are said to live, haunted moors where those who can hear can find the rustle of small wings, and there is that strange supernatural feeling which never leaves it.
‘You ‒ you don’t believe in such things, Lorna?’
‘If I spoke the truth I would admit that I didn’t know.’
‘I believe in them. I have to because they happen. The night my husband died something woke me. Something told me that things were wrong. He had been sleeping very badly, and got so irritable; that very day he had an awful row with poor Roger. I went to bed but I couldn’t sleep. I knew he was going to take his sleeping pills, but he seemed so angry, so strained. I heard a door shut very quietly, and went to see what was happening.’ She paused. ‘I don’t know why I am telling you all this, it seems silly, but I did not tell them at the inquest. I couldn’t bring myself to speak of it.’
‘And ‒ and something happened?’
‘Roger must have heard something too, for he had gone in to see my husband, said he was fast asleep. Now I thought I had heard him call out to me, and I didn’t say anything. I went back to bed and didn’t go to him. I’ve never forgiven myself. Dr. Morde says I must cut that thought out of my mind, it was nothing, but it was something to me. You see, my husband was dead next day. If I had gone to him when I wanted to go, I could have saved his life.’