There was a pause before she said, ‘Well, I wrote him my answer. It was to the effect that, before the leper incident, I had intended to return to England, my wish being that he would divorce me, as I knew our marriage had been a grave mistake. But now, since my acid bath, or whatever it was, and by the way’ – she now nodded at John – ‘it left me feeling skinned: for weeks I looked as if I had been boiled, and when my body started to peel it was a very painful process. Anyway, I said that it was a toss-up whether I returned to England or went to work in the leper colony, but that after much thought I had decided on the latter course. And I finished the letter with the words: “Some people are afraid of the death they’ll never experience, but die they will some day.” And so I went into the leper colony as a helper, and I was there for seven years.’
‘No!’ John was shaking his head. All their faces were sombre now, and Daisy said, ‘Yes, and I can honestly say they were the saddest yet at the same time the happiest days of my life. And you know, it was very strange, but in the second year there I began to get parcels of medicine and first-aid materials from people in other districts of whom I’d previously known nothing.’
‘Why did you leave after seven years?’ asked John quietly now.
‘Frank insisted on it. My flesh began to drop off me, literally. I had been a big woman and I became skin and bone, as you see me now.’ She held out her hands. ‘Yet, I never contracted the disease. It was strange.’
‘What did your husband do about all this?’
She remained silent for a moment before she said, ‘What could he do? He’d lost face, which was an awful thing. I was sorry about that, because the natives talk. He wasn’t moved from his position – I was glad of that – but he died from malaria the year after I came back to England. At least, that’s what it was put down to. But he had never got on with a certain tribe and had made an enemy of the witch-doctor. And the servants, I understood, said this man had put a curse on him and prophesied he would die on a certain day and had sent him word to that effect. And he did die, so I’m told, on that very day. It was his assistant who spread the story. But I don’t think it was a story. I realise now that Tommy was terrified of death and I’ve always blamed myself for the words I put on the end of that letter. Yet, at the time I was suffering bodily agony from whatever chemical he had put in that bath. It obviously wasn’t really acid or I wouldn’t be here now. But even Frank, who happened to be a doctor’ – she nodded now at John – ‘he couldn’t put a name to what might have been mixed in with the carbolic. Carbolic is bad enough, you know, but I don’t think it would have left me the way it did, or him. But it was his face and hands that caught it most. His clothes and the speed with which he got rid of them had saved him from anything worse, I should imagine.’
‘You’re a wonderful lady, Daisy.’
‘Now don’t you try to soft soap me, Sir Leonard Morton Spears.’ She turned towards John, saying under her breath, ‘You never get offered a drink in this house, only soft words. D’you know that?’
At this Leonard laughed and put out his hand and rang the little bell on the side table, which brought Johnson into the room, and Leonard said to him, ‘You know the tastes of our friends, don’t you, Johnson?’ And the man, looking from one to the other, smiled, but stiffly, as he said, ‘Port for madam, and whiskey, plain, for the doctor.’
‘And what about me, Johnson?’
His man now shook his head as he said, ‘You may have a choice, sir, of orange juice, apple juice or a blackcurrant cordial.’
‘Yes. Yes, you needn’t go through them again, I’ll have the last one. It’s got some colour about it, anyway, and one can use one’s imagination.’
When the man had left the room, John said to Daisy, ‘Do you still ride?’
‘Oh yes. Yes. I’ve got a beautiful mare. She’s called Fanny, for short. She’s nine.’
‘Well,’ said John, ‘if she’s Fanny for short, what is her real name?’
‘Fanackapan.’
‘What?’
‘Fanackapan, Fanny, Fan . . . ack . . . a . . . pan.’
John was laughing again. ‘That’s a very odd name to give a horse.’
‘Yes. Yes, but the day I bought her there were a number of women among the dealers, and one, looking at mine as she was led round the ring, said, “Oh, that’s a Fanny Fanackapan.” I’d never heard the expression before and I’ve never heard it since, so I bought her. She was a yearling, and oh, have we enjoyed ourselves. She can take a farm gate like a ballet dancer.’
Before the drinks were brought in Daisy looked at Leonard. His eyes were half-closed and, getting to her feet, she said, ‘You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to throw off that port in one gulp and get myself out of this. I’ve just realised I’ve left her standing in that cold wind. Why don’t you have your barns made like any other sensible man, with four sides on them and a door, not just a roof?’
Leonard opened his eyes and smiled at her, saying, ‘Give Fanny my apologies. I’ll still the wind for her the next time she comes.’
Johnson came into the room with the drinks and, as she had intimated, Daisy threw the drink off in a gulp; went to the chair-bed, bent over Leonard and said, ‘Smell my breath; it will do you good.’ Then, her voice dropping, she added, ‘Be a good fellow.’
His voice was a mere whisper now as he said, ‘Come again soon, Daisy. Please!’
‘I will. I will. Good night, and all the gods be with you.’ She straightened up now, turned to John and said briefly, ‘Good night, doctor.’
‘Good night, Daisy. It’s been a pleasure.’
She made no reply to this but went out of the room, followed by Johnson. And John, about to sit down again, was stayed by Leonard saying, ‘Bring a chair up near me,’ and he pointed to the side of the chair-bed. And when John had done this, Leonard said, ‘A remarkable woman.’
‘Yes, indeed, a very remarkable woman. And one who can laugh at herself.’
‘Every word she said was true, but she didn’t go into other details that are more surprising still. She’s been through the mill, oh yes; and ground down finely, I can tell you. And she’s been a very good friend to us.’
‘Yes; yes, I should imagine so.’
‘But now, after all that, how am I going to say what I want to say? It will sound so mundane, but I must say it. And there’s not a lot of time left, now is there?’
John made no reply for a moment, and then he said quietly, ‘It’s up to you. The will is a mighty machine: if it knows you have an incentive strong enough to guide it, it’ll work for you.’
Leonard’s head was turned away and his voice was low as he said, ‘What d’you think has been working for me for weeks past? I have to call on the incentive every time I look at her because of what will assuredly happen to her when the time comes. Of one thing I am sure: our so-called friends will all gradually find their way back here. The thread that ran through Daisy’s husband runs through them all. Daisy will be the only one besides yourself whom she’ll have as a real friend. And it is about this I want to talk. Rosie now has a husband and a mother-in-law, and a business in which she’s very interested, and she is a woman. But Helen . . . well, Helen is a man’s woman.’
John looked somewhat startled, for his eyes had widened, and his mouth was slightly agape, which brought a smile from Leonard as he said, ‘What makes you look so surprised? Surely you know there are women who need men’s company and men who need women’s company, more than they do that of their own sex. Not that they need men, plural, but man singular I would say. Oh, dear me, I’m putting it very technically and badly. And so what I want to say I had better say straight out. Will you continue to be her friend? She’ll be a widow, and as you are not her doctor, your visits might cause a little talk. But would you risk that and continue to be her friend, if nothing more? Oh! Oh
!’ – he screwed up his eyes now and held up his hand – ‘Don’t protest, don’t protest. I know something and you know something: if I hadn’t come on the scene when I did, then I would never have got her. Had you two met earlier, that would have been that. Oh, I knew that. Please! Please! John, don’t look so embarrassed. I’ve known it all along. She kept talking about you after your meeting on that hill; and then you avoided our wedding. After that, she never again mentioned your name. And then there came the time when she grew to love me. Oh yes, she grew to love me, so very much. Never as much as I loved her, but she loved me, and from the moment she loved me she began to talk about you again, although in an off-hand way. But when you married Beatrice, that was that. She just couldn’t believe it and you went out of her life completely, and I was very, very happy. But life plays strange tricks with one. Anyway, this is something rather difficult that I’m asking you to do, because you’re still married to Beatrice and so any visits to her sister would not go unnoticed and there would be talk. I’m asking this of you for very selfish reasons: there is a man I know who will, as soon as I’m out of the way, make a beeline for her. Not that, under normal circumstances, she would think about it in any way, but loneliness is a very strange thing. I’ve experienced it, so I know what I’m talking about. Perhaps you too have waited for the gold and it has passed you by, so you have taken the dross by way of comfort. I’ve learned that you cannot blame people for what they do shortly after a bereavement. Now, I know Helen is not of a weak nature and so could be easily influenced, but I want her to have the right company. If you had still been living with Beatrice, I would not have put this to you. Do you consider it strange that I should be asking this of you?’
John paused a moment before he said, ‘Yes, in a way, Leonard, I do. I can only see myself and my reactions as if I were in your shoes. But I’m not as big as you in any way, for I would be jealous of the thought of anyone like Helen finding solace, any sort of solace in another man’s company. And now let me say something, Leonard. I was jealous of you. Oh yes, very jealous of you, for a long time; and then we met and I realised how wise she had been in her choice. I could never have hoped to live up to your high standards. I know myself, and over the weeks during which our friendship has grown, my admiration for you has grown too. And I say again, I wouldn’t be big enough to act as you’re doing now, not in any way.’
‘You have a very poor opinion of yourself, John. It is quite different from that which others have of you. There are not many who would have wrecked their own marriage, as you did through helping Rosie.’
‘Oh no! No!’ John shook his head vigorously. ‘My marriage was on the rocks before that. But you’re quite right about us not knowing what goes on in another’s mind, especially in a lonely mind, and of the results of that loneliness. Marriage with Beatrice proved that to me. If ever there was a double personality in a human being, it is in her. I can’t go into it, but long before Rosie’s affair our marriage was ended. I was already considering a legal separation.’
Following John’s statement there was silence between them. Then, as if aiming now to dismiss the conversation, Leonard said, ‘Those pills are marvellous, you know’ – he nodded towards the table – ‘they put new life into me.’ He smiled now, then added, ‘Going back to what we were talking about earlier, man’s woman, and woman’s woman, you wouldn’t think Daisy would fall into the former category, would you? But she does. With her looks you would think she was out of the running altogether; but even at her age she could have a number of men friends tomorrow. She’s had three permanent men in her life.’
John’s face showed surprise, and Leonard said, ‘Oh, yes, you can raise your eyebrows. And she’s known the grand passion. Just once, as she said, but it has remained with her.’
‘Well, you do surprise me, Leonard. I must say you do, for she seems the most unlikely person to . . .’
‘Come,come!’ said Leonard now somewhat briskly; ‘You a doctor and admitting that anything you hear that is off the beaten track about another’s life should surprise you. Tut! tut! But yes, I can see your point: the first meeting with Daisy can be a little mind-boggling. Her Tommy divorced her on the grounds of desertion while she was still in the leper colony. So she had no monetary support and she was almost penniless when she returned to England. It was when she found herself in hospital that she first saw her dear Stephen, Stephen King, which she doesn’t think was his real name. But she understood he visited old people who were without friends. And apparently she was without friends and from the first time they met up, it was done. It was the same with him, I think, from what she says.’
‘But what about her family? She said she was one of ten.’
‘Yes, she was one of ten, John, but they were all married and had children. And were they going to rush to meet this weird Aunt Daisy, who had spent seven years in a leper colony and was likely contagious? Without exception, all her family held the same view as Tommy had. Odd’ – here he smiled – ‘I always think of him as Tommy, not Freeman Wheatland, which sounds too superior a name for him because to me he was a funk of a man. Anyway, to cut her long story short, and she has kept this part very short, even while keeping me amused, which is always her intention when she comes here, they worked together and they lived together. For four years they lived together. I asked her why they never married, and she answered simply, “He never asked me.” What did they live on? I asked her, because they spent their days helping others. What she did tell me was that she felt he was expiating something he had done when he was young. She even says he might have been in prison for a time. She didn’t enquire, she just loved him. But apparently he had enough money to sustain them in ordinary living conditions, and every now and again he would give her so much to keep things going. Where it came from she never knew. His life was a mystery. But that didn’t matter to her. The only thing that did was, she had him for four long years, long, happy years. And then’ – now Leonard snapped his fingers – ‘he goes like that. One day he was there, the next he was gone, leaving her enough money for her to carry on for six months and also a note to say he would always love her.’
‘Good gracious!’
‘Yes, that’s what I said, John. Good gracious! I asked her if she had heard of him since, and she said, ‘Never.’ But what she did say was, he might have gone back to a wife and family in Ireland or somewhere out of the country. Or her earlier thoughts might have been the reason, that he had a criminal record and was living now on the results while expiating that past.’
‘And she’s never heard of him since, in any way; never seen a photograph or anything?’
‘No, never; and just as well, I would say, for she wouldn’t be living comfortably as she is today if he had stayed with her. For then she wouldn’t have met her Mr Anasby . . . Mr James Anasby. You know, I’ve said this before, John, but her life would fill a book, and not just one. Oh no, not one, because the last episode really is fantastic. From how she told me, it should happen that she was glad to get a position as an assistant nurse. You see, she’d had no proper training, although she had nursed in that leper colony. But this day she happened to be late and was hurrying through a side door used by the staff when the door caught the end of her finger and drew her to a dead stop. And she stood holding it and exclaiming what, in ordinary English, would have been “Damn and blast it!” Instead she uttered three words in an African tribal dialect, and then was astounded to hear an immediate response in the same language. She turned to see a man in a wheelchair, flanked by two nurses and being pushed by a man in green livery. She had gaped at him for a moment, then spoke to him in the language again. What next he said was, “What is your name? Who are you?”
‘She told him her name and also that she was an assistant nurse there. The latter information seemed to surprise him, and he protested strongly, “What’s the Colonial Office doing, not using you in some way? How long were you out ther
e?”
‘“Oh,” she had paused and said, “a number of years.” And then he put his head back and looked at the man in the livery and said, “Give the lady my card, Mason.” And at this the man drew a card from his inner pocket and handed it to her; but she didn’t look at it immediately because she was studying the man in the wheelchair. He was elderly, well into his sixties, she surmised, as she also did that he was someone of importance. Then he said, “Will you come and see me?”
‘She then glanced at the card without properly reading it, but said, “Yes, sir. I’d be pleased to.” It’s another long, long story, quite unbelievable, but within a month she was well installed in his expensive house as a nurse-companion. Apparently, he had spent much of his life in the area of Africa Daisy knew. He had been married twice, both wives having died. He seemed to have no close relatives. She was with him seven years and gradually knew all his business and money transactions in which he came to appreciate her judgement. When he died she was only forty-four and he left her half of his estate.’
John shook his head as he said, ‘Amazing story, amazing.’
‘Well, you should be used to amazing stories in your job.’
‘Nothing like that, I can assure you, Leonard. Although, here and there, you do get a surprise.’ He now added, ‘You’ve been talking too much; you’re tired.’
The Obsession Page 21