Scared to Death

by Anne Morice

  Slightly perturbed by this direct contradiction to the evidence of his own eyes, Ferdy had borne her reproaches in silence, but a little later in the afternoon some dark clouds had appeared overhead and she had despatched him to fetch her umbrella from the car. He was rather hazy about its position in the car park, which at this time was jammed to capacity and admitted having been away a good ten minutes, which was probably an understatement. He had left Edna sitting at the same table as they had used before and when he returned at last she was in very poor shape indeed, gasping for breath and with tears running down her face, while two bewildered, embarrassed Samaritans stood about making tentative efforts to discover what was the matter. With deep relief, they handed the responsibility over to Ferdy, who had already guessed what the matter was and lost no time in telling her of his own experience.

  Needless to say, Edna was wonderfully cheered up by this and was able calmly to relate how, during his absence, as she scanned the crowd for his return, she had seen a woman walking away from the paddock, who was of course herself. Her relief at finding she was neither mad, nor suffering from hallucinations, was so overpowering that she gladly accepted Ferdy’s explanation of the phenomenon, namely, that the woman was no figment of anyone’s imagination, nor spectre either, but quite simply Edna’s sister, Alice, wearing some of Edna’s cast off clothing. The only thing that puzzled him was that no one had thought of this before.

  As a matter of fact, several people had thought of it before, but had instantly dismissed the thought. Apart from the pointlessness of such childish goings-on, there was only a superficial resemblance between them, Alice being notably thinner and sharper featured. As for the clothes she had been described as wearing on each of her appearances on the race course, these provided the clearest evidence of all in her favour. While it was entirely credible that Edna would have flogged a shabby skirt and linen sun hat to her sister, sooner than give them away to a jumble sale, it was quite inconceivable that she would have done the same with a mink coat. However worn and outdated, the price Edna would have put on it would have been far beyond Alice’s means.

  Nevertheless, Ferdy’s cheerful insistence that it must have been Alice he saw gave me a new idea, or rather strengthened one which had been floating around ever since my talk with Camilla and during our dinner table discussion I said to Vi:

  “Tell me some more about Alice. Where does she live?”

  “Not far away. Egham, I think, or it might be Datchet; somewhere like that.”

  “Ever been married?”

  “No, old maid, like me. She used to be Matron of a hospital somewhere in those parts. Retired about a year ago.”

  “So not too well off?”

  “I don’t see how anyone could be too well off,” Toby objected.

  “And Alice certainly doesn’t qualify,” Vi said. “She’d have a pension, of course, and she takes a few private patients for physio-therapy, what they used to call massage in my day. Probably stashed a bit away too, if it runs in the family; but still a pauper by Edna’s standards. Why do you want to know?”

  “Perhaps Tessa is wondering, as I am,” Toby suggested, “why a woman of straitened means, probably with as little interest in racing as I have, should be prancing around in the Members’ Enclosure.”

  “So am I,” Marge admitted. “Puzzled to death by it. I’ve never seen her there once and I feel sure Ferdy’s got it all wrong, as usual.”

  “She needn’t necessarily have been in the expensive part, though,” I pointed out. “If you have a mind to, you can get to the paddock and that cafeteria from anywhere on the course, even for free, if you can put up with the long walk.”

  “That’s true,” Vi admitted. “And if she had, it would account for the fact that neither Edna nor Ferdy saw her more than once. Otherwise, they’d surely have caught sight of her at other times and so should we. Tessa’s right and she has cleared up one small mystery.”

  “She may have done so for you,” Toby remarked. “Personally, I am still ‘Yours sincerely, Baffled’. Are we to understand that she is behaving in this eccentric fashion for the express purpose of frightening her sister into a fatal heart attack? Or is she merely the innocent racegoer who happens to share her sister’s taste in clothes? In which case, what was she doing flitting about in the sister’s garden in that furtive fashion? And, whatever answer you give me, it still won’t explain how she got her hands on a mink coat.”

  “Perhaps your two questions cancel each other out?” I suggested.

  “They may well do. I am afraid I have rather lost track. What does their cancellation leave us with?”

  “Well, say she’d borrowed one of the minks to go racing in, without Edna’s permission? Flitting about in the garden could just have been her way of seeing if the coast was clear to put it back. Naturally, when she saw Edna sitting there, she flitted away again with all speed, doing the switch on a later occasion.”

  There was qualified approval for this theory, in so far as everyone else was stumped for a more plausible one and, considering it best to rest on these very flimsy laurels, I was then prompted to ask Vi what had started the feud between Camilla and her Uncle Ferdy and why they were now outwardly reconciled.

  “Well, it was always on her side, you know. Ferdy is much too lazy to quarrel with anyone, but Camilla was always a jealous little monkey, even as a child, and she resented parting with half her inheritance.”

  “From her grandfather?”

  “Yes. When her parents died in the air crash he became her legal guardian and it was understood that everything would go to her on his death. His second wife had already left him, by that time. He’d settled a fairly good whack on her, in trust for the boy, so Ferdy would have been well provided for. Unfortunately for Camilla. . . .”

  “He decided to get his hands on a bit more?”

  “Not on your life. He hasn’t got an ounce of guile in him, silly old Ferdy! But when he was fourteen or so his mother married again and went back to Spain, where she’d come from in the first place. Naturally, Ferdy wasn’t keen to switch to a Spanish school, he had enough trouble keeping up with the lessons in English. So, anyway, he was allowed to stay on where he was and, after one rather disastrous holiday in Madrid, he took to spending most of them with his father.”

  “Thus putting Camilla’s nose out of joint?”

  “And she’s never really succeeded in getting it straightened out again,” Marge observed.

  “It wasn’t simply that she was no longer Grandpa’s and Tilly’s one and only pet lamb,” Vi explained. “There was worse to come because Ferdy’s mother started a new family, rather late in life, and more or less lost interest in her first born; or perhaps an adolescent boy was rather an embarrassment to her at that point. Anyway, she bowed out of the custody and Ferdy was legally returned to his father. You can guess what followed?”

  “A new division of his property, I suppose?”

  “Just so. Share and share alike and fair do’s all round. Not that it matters any more. As we all know, a year or two later he married Edna, who got the lot; and I daresay neither of the former heirs will ever see a penny of it. She’s quite capable of leaving it all to a cat’s home.”

  “A mink farm might be more appropriate,” Toby suggested.

  Apparently, it did not occur to anyone except myself that she might equally well have left it all to her sister, Alice.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The curtain went up on our opening performance at seven o’clock, or as near as makes no difference, on the second evening of the Festival, which was also the occasion of the Mayor’s Ball, but Toby steered clear of both functions. He never attends his own first nights, airily proclaiming himself to be indifferent to success and failure alike, but in reality, I suspect, rating one of those twin imposters too high above the other for his own comfort.

  However, there was quite a scattering of old friends in front, including a small party from Farndale, and Bernard and Camilla came round
to see me in my cubicle, in the converted vestry, after the show. Camilla was kind enough to tell me that she had enjoyed parts of it, but that, as far as she could tell, Edna hadn’t laughed once.

  “Oh, Edna’s with you, is she? Are you taking her to the ball?”

  “No, we’re not. She was too mean to pay for her own ticket and, as no one seemed particularly keen to invite her, she said it would be too much excitement for one evening, so she’s gone home.”

  “Rather rough on Ferdy?”

  “Not at all. He’s got off very lightly, as usual. Probably even now twirling round the floor in the arms of Tara Goodchild.”

  “You don’t tell me you’ve gone and let Edna off the leash? What if she had another turn?”

  “Oh, of course, you don’t know, do you?” Camilla said with great disdain. “I always forget that you lot can’t see the audience just as clearly as we can see you.”

  This was a non-sequitur, if ever I heard one, but Bernard elucidated:

  “It was rather a joke, really. Old Tilly’s idea, you may be sure. Ferdy was to have come with us, but then she had this inspiration about laying the ghost, as she puts it.”

  “Edna’s ghost?”

  “Right. And she made Ferdy give up his seat to sister Alice.”

  “That was risky, wasn’t it?”

  “She thought that bringing them together would help to create a normal atmosphere,” Camilla said primly, “and rid Edna of this idiotic idea that Alice is going around impersonating her. That’s where Tilly is so marvellous. She really worries about Edna you know and, in spite of everything, I believe she’s genuinely fond of her.”

  “And did the plan work?”

  “I couldn’t tell you, really,” she replied, losing interest, “they seemed to be arguing most of the time. Still, you could say that was normal enough, so I expect Tilly was on the right lines. Anyway, the good news, from our point of view, is that Alice has now taken Edna home and, as she’s a trained nurse, she ought to be able to handle Sis, if she starts falling apart again. Do you want a lift to the Town Hall?”

  “No thanks. A bunch of us from here are going together. Might see you when we get there, though.”

  “I couldn’t say about that, actually, Tessa. I’ve had a pretty heavy week and I’ve got to be up early in the morning,” Camilla said, yawning at the prospect. “Bernard, too. All right for some! I suppose you can loll in bed till lunchtime, if you want to?”

  “Teatime, if I want to. No performance to-morrow. The other lot get their turn.”

  “God, some people have it dead easy! Well, see you some time, I expect. Bernard’s mother insists on our putting in an appearance at this ghastly do, but I certainly don’t intend to stay for more than an hour.”

  Perhaps she was better than her word too, for I did not catch a glimpse of either of them, although arriving well within her deadline. If so, she probably earned another black mark from Helena, who was still there, with her husband and the rest of their party, when I packed it in just before midnight.

  Nor was I permitted to stay in bed until teatime, or anywhere near it. Camilla made sure of that by telephoning before she left for work, to enlist my help. Edna had had another stroke and this time it was serious. She had lost her powers of speech and the whole of her left side was paralysed. Dr. Martin had promised to lay on a nurse as soon as he could, but in the meantime the patient was not to be left alone for a single minute. Camilla wanted me to go and sit with her for a couple of hours in the afternoon, to give Tilly a break.

  When I asked her what had caused the stroke and when it had struck, so to speak, she grandly informed me that she was already due at her office and it was therefore not convenient to go into details, but that I should find out in due course.

  So I rang up Tilly and told her to expect me at two o’clock.

  CHAPTER NINE

  1

  The patient was asleep when I arrived. Tilly had left the front door on the latch and I had played too many games of hide and seek in that house not to be fully acquainted with the whereabouts of the principal bedroom. It was the one which had been out of bounds to us and was occupied in those days by Camilla’s grandfather.

  That door was open too and the only light inside came from the landing, the curtains of both windows being tightly drawn. Tilly was seated by the larger one, mending a sheet, a task which long practice had evidently enabled her to perform in near darkness. When she saw me she first put a finger to her lips in a warning gesture and then beckoned me to a second chair, which had been pulled up beside hers.

  I had not dared so much as to glance in Edna’s direction, but Tilly told me that she had been sleeping peacefully for about half an hour, no longer in the heavy coma in which they had first found her. There had also been one or two lucid moments and, generally, a slight improvement in her condition.

  “Give me my instructions,” I whispered.

  “You can speak out loud, so long as you keep your voice down,” Tilly answered in what I instantly recognised from a long while back as her governessy voice. “It’s only the light which seems to bother her, it almost seems to drive her mad, but ordinary sounds make no impression. It would probably be safe for us to talk normally, except that she might wake up and hear what we were saying. One can’t tell how much her hearing has been affected.”

  I was heartened by these words, as well as by the fact that Tilly had not put down her sewing, for they indicated that her departure was not imminent. Having a somewhat primitive fear of invalids, I had dreaded being left alone with this one, certain that she would inevitably make some demand on me which would show up my ineptitude. However, for form’s sake I spoke my piece:

  “Listen, Tilly, now that I’m here, why not let me hold the fort while you lie down for a bit? You must be worn out?”

  “No, I’m not,” she replied coolly. “Not in the least. It’s really quite restful sitting here. In some ways, I’ll be sorry when the nurse comes. Then I’ll be back to the cooking and cleaning again, and waiting on her into the bargain, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  Perversely, I had now begun to feel rather superfluous and, thoughtful as ever, she must have sensed this, for she patted my knee and said kindly:

  “It was so good of you to come, Tessa, dear, and I do appreciate it. The only disagreeable thing about being chained to this room is the lack of company. I’d much sooner stay and have a little chat with you.”

  “You really do bear the brunt, don’t you, Tilly?”

  “Well, that’s as it should be, my child. It’s what I’m here for. Camilla would have stayed at home, if I’d asked her to, I haven’t the least doubt of that, but this work she’s doing for you all has come to mean so much to her and I don’t believe in young people being sacrificed to the elderly. I saw too much of that in my own youth. Besides, she wouldn’t really be much of a hand at this job, do you think? She does her best, poor girl, but she’s too restless and excitable to be much use in a sick room. Not like you, but then you two always were chalk and cheese, weren’t you?”

  “I suppose so, although I doubt if I’m cut out to be a sick-room attendant either.”

  “Well, you’ve no need to worry on that account. I shouldn’t dream of leaving you here on your own, unless Mrs. Mortimer were well and truly asleep and then, if she should wake up or make any movement at all, you’d only have to call me and I’d be back in two shakes.”

  “When did this attack come on?”

  Tilly sighed, then tilted her head to catch a sliver of light between the curtains, as she re-threaded her needle: “That’s just what we don’t know, you see, that’s the dreadful part of it. It could have been any time between about midnight, when Camilla came home, and seven o’clock this morning, when I found her lying there. Goodness, what a shock that was!”

  “Lying where?”

  “In the doorway, between her bathroom and the landing. Didn’t Camilla tell you? What a strange girl she is sometimes! It was what upset me most of
all, thinking of her lying there, all alone in the dark, conscious perhaps, but unable to call or move, while we all slept soundly in our beds. I’ve always felt sorry for old folks who have to live on their own, but it only shows that you can be in just as much trouble in a house full of people.”

  “What was she wearing when you found her?”

  “Just her nightgown. She hadn’t even stopped to put her slippers on. I suppose she was in a tearing hurry to get to the bathroom, poor dear. I was always on at old Mr. Mortimer to put in a bathroom adjoining this bedroom. It could easily have been converted from that little dressing room next door, which is no use for anything except my old sewing machine. Still, I daresay it wouldn’t have made much difference.”

  “In other words, she’d been to bed and got up again?”

  “Yes, we do know that much because otherwise Camilla would have found her, you see. She didn’t get home until about an hour after her grandmother had gone upstairs, but it still leaves a fearfully long gap. It’s a mystery to me why she didn’t catch pneumonia, but luckily Dr. Martin thinks we’re safely out of that wood!”

  “Were you still awake when Alice brought her home?”

  “Just about, but it was touch and go, I don’t mind telling you. I’d promised to stay up until she came in, but I had no end of a job to keep from dropping off. Being on the go all day and then just sitting down with nothing special to do, the hours seemed to drag. Luckily, the Plowmans looked in on their way to the Town Hall, which livened things up a bit. Bernard’s parents, you know them?”

  “Yes. That is, I know Helena. What did they come for?”

  “Well, they knew they’d catch me on my own and Helena wanted to borrow my embroidery book. At least, that was the excuse, but I think the truth was that she’d got round Robert to take a look at our old vacuum cleaner.”