The Woman From Heartbreak House

by Freda Lightfoot

  Chapter Nineteen

  Callum hit the man over the head with the end of his electric torch. He’d barely got out the words ‘What’s going on?’ when without a moment’s hesitation or thought, Callum struck. As the young man slid back into unconsciousness, Callum feared for a moment that he might have killed him, but a loud snore soon put an end to that worry. Hopefully, he’d been so far gone in drink he wouldn’t even remember what had happened. The blow would do nothing for his hangover the next day, mind.

  Before any of Lucy’s friends had risen from their drunken slumbers the following morning, Callum made a point of getting to the factory early. He waylaid Toby just as he was entering the manager’s office. ‘I’ve got it!’ He was breathless with pedalling hard in his rush to get there, his face scarlet from the exertion, and Toby made him repeat what he’d said, to be sure he’d heard correctly.

  ‘I said, I’ve got the address, the information we need. Not only that, I’ve found a letter from the woman who runs the place arranging for Lucy to visit on Sunday next. Here are the details. I’ve copied them out. What do you reckon?’

  Toby snatched the paper from his hand, grinning from ear to ear as he quickly scanned it. ‘Good lad, I knew you’d come up trumps.’ The crease of a frown appeared above his nose as he examined the scribbled notes Callum had made. ‘She pays quite a sum. Knowing Lucy as we do, she won’t keep this up for much longer. We’ve got to move fast, try to get there before her. Problem is, I can’t get away before the weekend either, too many meetings I’m afraid. We could leave first thing on Saturday, or late Friday night. What do think?’

  ‘Normally I’d say Friday, because the sooner the better only I must take Flora with us so it’ll have to be Saturday.’ Callum explained then about Mrs Petty’s dismissal over the weekend, and Ida going with her. ‘I can’t leave Flora alone in the house with Lucy. Bunty is still in Switzerland, Georgie is at school, and Jack doesn’t give a monkey’s about anyone but himself. I don’t trust any of them.’

  ‘Point taken so ...?’

  ‘So I could say I was taking Flora out for the day, on a picnic or something. Lucy will no doubt be glad to be rid of us for a while. If we start at six, we could be in Scotland by nine, ten at the latest.’

  Toby wasn’t too happy about taking Flora, but reluctantly agreed.

  On the same evening that Lucy had held her Indian dinner party and Callum had later plundered her belongings, Kate was forcibly given three, instead of two, of the dreaded sleeping pills. She was then taken to a room in the castle where she’d never set foot before. She’d passed it often enough, seen other patients taken inside, and wondered what lay beyond that door. The moment she walked through it, she wished her curiosity had never been satisfied. It looked for all the world like a torture chamber.

  The room had no windows for a start. It contained strange-looking chairs and leather couches fixed to the floor, beside which stood huge cylinders with wires and rubber tubes attached, odd sorts of head gear, looking for all the world like the battery from Callum’s electric torch.

  Kate thought she might actually pass out from fear. She stood rooted to the spot, quite unable to move forward or backward, and found herself poked in the back by a nurse.

  ‘Get on with it, we haven’t all day. There’s nothing to be scared of. This is a new experimental treatment we’re engaged in. You’re very fortunate to have been chosen as not everyone will be given the opportunity to take part in the trials. It’s your chance to get better, all for your own good, so sit yourself down, girl. You’ll just get a good shaking up, that’s all. Rid your brain of the devils that drive it.’

  Kate wanted to say that there were no devils in her brain but somehow her tongue seemed to have cleaved to the roof of her mouth.

  They strapped her into a chair and buckled some metal plates with bits of wire attached to her head, which was feeling particularly vulnerable with her hair kept so short. One of the nurses told her to clench her teeth on a length of rubber tube.

  ‘To stop you biting your tongue. Now be a good girl and don’t make a fuss. I have a report to write.’

  Even had she been able, Kate could not have protested. She was powerless to move, the sick feeling so strong in her stomach she thought she might actually vomit over the nurse’s hands. Miraculously, she did no such thing. Instead she began to shake. At first she thought this was because she was so terrified, and then realised that it felt as if she’d been picked up in the jaws of a giant dog and was being shaken to bits. She squeezed her eyes tight shut, watching the blue flashes crackling at the backs of her eyes, and silently prayed.

  Dinner the following evening was a much quieter affair. Only the malingerers remained, those who, like the Bennet boys, preferred to drink Lucy’s whisky rather than their own. And Teddy of course, who was far too idle to move more than was absolutely necessary. Everyone else had gone home after lunch so it was a simple meal for once.

  Lucy had eaten every morsel of her chicken and mushroom pie, and the sorbet which followed it, and was just raising her glass to offer a toast to the new cook for an excellent meal when the pain struck. It cut in beneath her ribs, seeming to split her in two and making her cry out loud in anguish.

  The glass dropped from her hand, broken shards splintering all over the floor. But she was not the only one to be struck down. The rest of the small gathering, including the Bennet boys, were likewise afflicted, many doubling up and moaning, others gasping in agony. Poor Teddy had gone quite green, the ash from his cigarette fluttering down on to the Persian rug where it made a nasty grey mark.

  ‘I say, old thing. What was in that dratted pie?’

  Lucy screamed at the frightened new maid. ‘Fetch the cook. Bring her to me at once!’

  The experiment the following day was to do with inducing a fever. Kate was injected with some unknown medication, then wrapped in blankets and strapped in a hospital bed which itself was set over a burning hot stove until she thought she might expire from the heat.

  They gave her hot wine and water to drink, glass after glass of it till the sweat poured out of her.

  Fever, apparently, was supposed to be the body’s natural defence method for curing disease, in this case her supposed depression after the alleged suicide attempt, but since she didn’t have one, the fever had to be artificially created. Kate was quite certain they would roast her alive.

  Lucy writhed in her bed feeling certain she was about to expire. She’d vomited all morning, had never felt so ill in all her life. How was it possible to bear such stomach pains and still live?

  The new cook, an inoffensive woman with a bright, cheery smile who went by the appropriate name of Mrs Daily, had been sacked, as of course had the two hapless maids although they had all denied responsibility.

  It was perfectly clear to everyone that the culprit was the ‘mushrooms’, if that indeed was what they were, which had been used in the chicken and mushroom pie. Mrs Daily insisted she hadn’t been responsible for buying them, that apart from the chicken, which was fresh bought on the Monday morning, she’d used ingredients left ready in the pantry. How was she to know that they weren’t what they purported to be and therefore unsafe?

  ‘It was a miracle I wasn’t killed!’ Lucy screamed. ‘And my guests too. We could all have died in our beds. Get out of my house this minute. Get out!’

  Mrs Daily left gladly, as did the maids, making absolutely no protest, having already made up their minds that this was not a happy household and Lucy Tyson not a woman they could wish to work for in any case, let alone ever warm to.

  Fortunately, Callum and Flora had not eaten the pie. Before she had made her departure, Mrs P had suggested that it might be best if they avoided mushrooms for a while, in case they disagreed with their young stomachs. She’d suggested that they may prefer, should mushrooms appear on the menu in the near future, to eat up the nice Cornish pasties she’d left for them instead.

  ‘Not that the fungi will do any real harm, mind
,’ she’d told them. ‘Much as I might relish the prospect of seeing the end of a certain person whose name we won’t mention, I don’t reckon I’d best take the risk. But they’ll give this certain person an upset tummy for a while. A salutary lesson, as ye might say. We’ll call it rough justice, shall we, Flora love? Callum, me old mate? We’ll call it justified retribution for past injuries inflicted.’

  Lucy was kept to her bed for the rest of that week, the aunts running up and down stairs answering her every whim and demand, holding the bowl as she painfully vomited on a long-since empty stomach, time and time again.

  Aunt Cissie was very much of the mind that taking Flora out for the day on Saturday would be an excellent notion. ‘This is certainly no place for a child. We don’t want dear Flora to catch whatever ails Lucy, now do we?

  Cissie did not believe the tale of bad mushrooms. Nothing grown in God’s good earth could cause such an affliction, in her opinion.

  ‘Nor can we tolerate a child under our feet all day,’ Vera tartly added, ‘when we have so much work to do. We shall have to start all over again with finding another cook and maid. Really, the servant question is becoming quite a problem, following the war. Such a nuisance!’

  ‘I’ll keep Flora out of your hair for the entire weekend if you like,’ suggested Callum, delighted that fate had given their plan a helping hand by confining Lucy to her bed. ‘I’ll put her to bed tonight and tomorrow, from now on in fact. Don’t give us another thought.’

  ‘Splendid, but do see that she ...’ Vera’s lecture was interrupted by yet more wails from Lucy’s bedroom.

  ‘Vera ... water, water, I must have water! And the bowl, quickly, quickly, oh ...’

  By Friday evening, Lucy had received a second letter from the bank manager, more urgent this time, which she slipped under her pillow. The two aunts were still run off their feet and Callum and Flora went to the kitchen to make sandwiches for their journey. Upstairs, they packed a small bag each, then Callum read Flora a story and gave her firm instructions to go straight to sleep, no extra reading under the bedclothes with her torch on this night.

  Just before dawn he woke her and within minutes the pair of them were slipping out into an early morning mist, only the sound of an owl marking their passage through the garden, down to where Toby was waiting for them by the river.

  Chapter Twenty

  Elvira was waiting in her study for the expected meeting with Lucy Tyson when she was informed by her secretary that a gentleman had called to see her. ‘He says Mrs Tyson has been taken ill and cannot attend. He has come in her place.’

  Elvira glowered. She disliked unexpected changes of plan, but nevertheless saw no alternative but to receive him. ‘Well, don’t stand there dithering. Show the gentleman in.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Crombie. Right away, Miss Crombie.’

  The nervous secretary relieved Toby of his hat and coat and quickly ushered him into Elvira’s inner sanctum.

  Once the niceties had been exchanged, Toby wasted no time in stating his business. Callum and Flora he’d left safely behind in a local hotel. If his plan didn’t work, he would ask that they at least be permitted to see their mother. Lucy’s illness could not have been better timed, nicely falling in with their plan.

  ‘Mrs Tyson, Mrs Lucy Tyson that is, is unwell and has made alternative arrangements for her sister-in-law,’ he politely explained. ‘She has requested that I escort her to a new hospital, closer to her home. This is no reflection on the care she has received at your own esteemed establishment, Mrs Crombie, but it is difficult for the family, you understand, being unable to visit.’

  ‘Miss - Miss Crombie.’

  ‘I do beg your pardon, Miss Crombie.’

  ‘I find that a family visit generally leaves patients upset and homesick, which does them no good at all. Patients confined for the good of their mental health have no need of visitors, who can cause more harm than good, in my opinion, Mr Lynch. Kate would be far better off staying where she is. She’s settled in most comfortably, has even made a few friends.’ Elvira Crombie stretched her lips into what might pass for a smile.

  ‘I do understand your point of view,’ Toby agreed, not believing a word of it. ‘However, in this case there are peculiar circumstances which I am not at liberty to divulge. I am duty bound to carry out Mrs Tyson’s orders.’ He gave a helpless shrug, his expression impassive but studiously polite, appearing to indicate that he may not entirely agree with his employer’s decision to move Kate, yet as a loyal servant was forced to comply with it.

  Elvira glared at him, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘And what proof do I have that you are indeed her emissary in this transaction?’

  Toby had thought of this and now handed over a letter, written in a fair imitation of Lucy’s hand, instructing Elvira Crombie to release her sister-in-law to Toby Lynch, her business manager.

  He was well aware that when Lucy discovered what had taken place, and whether or not they successfully managed to take Kate home, she would most certainly be given details of this visit and then there was a very real danger he would be out of a job. It all depended on what condition Kate was in when he found her, whether she was able to stand up to Lucy at last, could hope to rescue him from this otherwise certain fate. Whatever the outcome, he was prepared to take the risk.

  Elvira read the letter and harrumphed, very loudly. It sounded more like a snort of disbelief and Toby’s heart sank. The plan wasn’t going to work. He felt despair creeping over him. He’d risked everything, didn’t care if he lost his job, so long as Kate was out of this dreadful place. Even a few casual glances around him on this short visit gave him the shivers. No matter what the cost, he had to get Kate out somehow. Smoothly he drew his wallet from his inside pocket.

  ‘My employer is aware, naturally, of the inconvenience this change of plan will cause and has authorised me to compensate your good self for any loss incurred. She is perfectly willing to pay for her sister-in-law’s stay until, say, the end of the year? That would have been a reasonable amount of time in which to expect her recovery, would it not?’

  He saw the woman’s eyes gleam as they fixed themselves on the notes in his hand. ‘Assuming any sort of recovery is possible,’ she corrected him.

  ‘Quite,’ Toby agreed, his heart sinking still further. What had they done to Kate in this hell-hole? He began to count out notes. ‘I assume cash is preferable to a cheque?’

  The woman was almost dribbling with greed as she snatched the notes from him. ‘Always far less trouble. I dislike banks intensely.’

  Toby attempted a sympathetic smile. ‘You have my agreement there, ma’am.’ Perhaps there was something in the way he said it, the twinkle in his eye or his cheeky grin, which appealed to Elvira. She smiled back at him

  ‘A sherry perhaps, while I instruct my nurses to have Kate dressed and prepared for the journey?’

  ‘What a splendid thought. Just a quick one. I have no wish to incur any delay in getting her safely to her new establishment.’ His heart lifted. Could it really be this simple to win her round?

  ‘And where is that to be?’ Elvira politely enquired, after murmuring a few hasty instructions to her secretary to have Kate prepared.

  While she poured the sherry, Toby’s mind raced. ‘I am to deposit her with the family doctor. He is the one who has made the arrangements, naturally.’

  ‘Indeed!’ Now Elvira was frowning, her gimlet eyes once more alert and wary. ‘And why did the doctor not come himself?’

  ‘You know doctors, always too busy earning a crust. Better to send a minion like me.’ Again Toby grinned at her but this time there was no smiling response.

  ‘Hmm!’

  A knock at the door and the dithering secretary appeared again. ‘All is prepared, ma’am.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Elvira turned back to Toby, surveying him with shrewd intensity. He tried to appear calm and collected, but the tension in him was strung out like a fine wire which would surely
snap at any moment. Did she believe his story? Had he damaged it by not having the name of a possible hospital ready in his head? He rather feared that he might have done. He’d never forgive himself if this carelessness had lost him the chance of winning Kate’s release.

  ‘You have secure transport?’ she asked, breaking into his thoughts.

  At least they’d thought of that. ‘Most certainly! A motor car with doors that lock. She will be perfectly secure. Do you think she will travel well?’

  ‘We can give her something for the journey. We do this with all our patients on the happy day of their release, to make life easier for all concerned. She’ll be perfectly tranquil. You’ll have no problems.’

  Elvira led him to the door and a small nub of hope was born in Toby. Was he indeed about to succeed? Everything seemed to be going very smoothly. He glanced down the dark, dingy corridor, trying not to appear anxious, wondering where Kate was. Would she appear at any moment, or was she waiting in the hall by the front door? It had taken very little time for them to get her ready.

  Elvira said, ‘There’s just one thing. Perhaps I should telephone Mrs Tyson, or the doctor, to check that this new place is ready to receive her?’

  Vera was changing Lucy’s bed when the telephone rang, Lucy herself issuing instructions as she sat hunched in her armchair by the bedroom fire, so it was Cissie who answered the call, down in the hall.

  ‘Who is that again? A Miss Crombie. And you wish to speak to Lucy? Oh, dear me, no, I’m afraid that is quite impossible. The poor woman is sick.’

  Cissie listened in silence for some long moments and then said, ‘Well bless me, this is wonderful news. I had no idea. Lucy clearly meant this as a lovely surprise for us all. Yes, of course, I shall personally speak to the doctor and check the arrangements are in hand. I’m sure that our dear Kate will be perfectly safe with Mr Lynch. Do give her my love and tell her we are quite ready to receive her home.’