“It makes me think,” Mrs. Chaddlewick fluted. “I simply can’t think of nothing, you know. George always knows when I’m sort of thinking. I look at the trees and I think of all the dear little birds, and then I look at the farms down there and think of the dear old wise doggies, and then I look at the hills—and oh, they are so lahvly! Don’t you lahve Nature?”
“There is nothing like it,” said Mr. Kewdingham.
He was flustered. With an awkward fumbling movement he fished up his monocle, fixed it over his eye, and glared at the slim trees. He looked as though he was trying to find fault with something—like an English traveller in a foreign land.
“Life is so wonderful!” Mrs. Chaddlewick nearly closed her eyes in a silent ecstasy of sentiment.
“Sometimes it is,” replied Mr. Kewdingham. And then he made a really astonishing remark: “If only we could get over the tendency to die.”
The lady threw back her head with a little yelp of laughter. “Oh, but how thrilling! What do you mean?”
“It is not easy to explain. Death has become a habit—”
He began to flounder about in a mess of mystical nonsense, talking of the Tribe of Reuben, the Pyramid, the Seven Rules of the New Life, the Sealed People, the Panacea, and heaven knows what. He wanted to show Pamela that he was a man out of the ordinary, a man of strange powers, occult, fascinating. Pamela was duly impressed, though she had anticipated something rather different. She looked at him with adorable vacancy. At times her big, luscious eyes beamed with a sort of rapture.
“Now, this Panacea. It is, in one sense, only a matter of chemistry. I have been guided—mystically guided—to certain experiments. I would not speak of this to anyone else. But I know that you understand.”
“It’s all right: go on.” Mrs. Chaddlewick gave these simple words a most unexpected richness of meaning, a newly created world of meaning. She could see daylight again.
“I don’t say that I’ve been entirely successful. But I have found out that, by combining certain drugs—well, you do get a really astonishing result.”
He said this with a look of monumental emptiness, a nullity so massive that you might have wondered if he was not inspired. There was a dree, enervating quality in his voice, like the sound of a distant saw-mill.
“Of course, I have some difficulty in getting my drugs. Many of them are poisons.”
“Then you must be very, very careful!”
“I am guided.”
“You’re a terribly strange man, indeed you are!” Pamela swooned upon him; a mass of enveloping charm. Her large luminous eyes were full of tenderness. “And now—now I suppose we must be going.” But even while she said it she gave him the glad signal. She looked right through him, right through his monocle into the very soul of him, the hidden soul of Athu-na-Shulah.
Kewdingham took a lot of moving, but he read the signal. He put his hand on the soft fur of Mrs. Chaddlewick’s collar, and he said huskily:
“You are a wonderful woman!”
Now it will be remembered that John Harrigall and Uncle Richard were going to visit the Tadsley plantations. And, as luck would have it, they were coming along the grassy path to the road while this peculiar conversation was going on in Mrs. Chaddlewick’s car. Uncle Richard was going across to the plantation on the other side of the hill, where his own car would be waiting for him, and now he was rather puffed by the walk up the hill and they were trudging along in silence. Just as Mrs. Chaddlewick had reached the hidden soul of Athu-na-Shulah, Uncle Richard and his nephew came in sight of the road.
“Look at those two blasted spooners!” rumbled Uncle Richard, always Victorian.
“A most immoral vehicle, the big saloon,” John observed.
Then he looked more closely.
“Why—hul-lo!”
Mrs. Chaddlewick saw them. In the twinkling of an eye she flopped out of the car and ran prettily towards the wood. She was not the woman to lose her head in a contingency.
“Mr. Kewdingham!” she twittered. “How charm-ing, charm-ing! Oh, yes, I have met Mr. Harrigall! I have read one of your naughty little books, Mr. Harrigall. We are just running back to have tea with George. Isn’t it a lahvly afternoon? So warm for the time of year.”
She saw John’s elfish grin.
All right, my lad! she thought, I’ll be even with you. I know you think me a fool; but I’ve got eyes in my head.
As for Uncle Richard, he was admirably discreet, though he looked rather whimsically at the car. Indeed, they all began to look at the car. Mrs. Chaddlewick had slammed the door behind her, and now Robert Arthur was tugging frantically at the door on his own side, but he didn’t know how to open it, so he could only bang and rattle, and the whole saloon was quivering and shaking with his agitation. John let him out: he could not refrain from a detestable snigger, which filled Robert Arthur with rage.
“Never mind,” said Mrs. Chaddlewick, when the others had gone and she had started the engine. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter one little teeny tiny bit, does it?”
She spoke with all the grand indifference, all the confidence of a pretty woman who makes her own world.
“Certainly not,” said Robert. “Why should it? But I must say it’s very odd I didn’t see them sooner. I had no idea—”
“Ah!” said Pamela, with a melting smile of comprehension. “I know! I’m terribly like that myself; I can only think of one thing at a time.”
4
Mrs. Robert Kewdingham had been up in London for the day. She had been taken there by Doctor Wilson Bagge in his car, and she had lunched with the doctor.
There really was something very attractive about the little man, with his neat birdy movements and his quick discerning eye. He made you feel that he knew things without being told, and yet he was never obtrusively sympathetic. Mrs. Kewdingham liked him very much. She enjoyed her drive to London and she enjoyed her lunch with the doctor. It was the first occasion on which she had been alone with him for any length of time.
Their conversation, though discreet, had been subtly intimate. Doctor Bagge had confessed that he was a lonely man; he had spoken in the most touching manner about his late wife; it was obvious that he looked upon Mrs. Kewdingham as a friend in whom he was free to confide. Such confidence is, in itself, the most delicate avowal of intimacy.
Then, while they were having coffee after lunch, the conversation had turned upon Robert Arthur.
“Your husband is a very singular man, Mrs. Kewdingham—a very interesting man.”
“Is he?” Bertha appeared to be watching a garrulous party of young men, busy ordering cocktails.
“Yes. But he’s not an easy patient.”
“He’s not an easy husband.”
Doctor Bagge did not reply for a moment. He blew softly from his little rounded mouth a jet of blue smoke.
“When I say that he is not an easy patient I mean that he is far too fond of playing about with drugs—and what’s more, with drugs that ought not to be in his possession. He doesn’t tell me very much about it, naturally; but I have seen enough to make me feel distinctly uncomfortable. You know I have warned him.”
“It’s no use warning him.”
“Patients who will persist in giving themselves drugs are difficult in any case. It is not so bad when they stick to harmless preparations, patent remedies, and things of that sort. But when it comes to the handling of dangerous poisons—”
The doctor, prim and immovable, suddenly looked full in the face of Mrs. Kewdingham. No one could possibly have guessed what he was thinking about, but he was evidently thinking hard. A flush of warm colour spread over Bertha’s generally pale cheeks, and she raised her voice involuntarily as she said:
“Well, I can’t help it, can I?”
Do what she might, this awful thought of poison was being continually presented to her.
Doctor Bagge did not answer the question. “Such cases are very difficult,” he repeated.
“Do you think Bobby is likely to do himself any real harm?”
“Unless he is careful—yes.”
Why did she not look more alarmed? Why did she take it so quietly? Bertha herself knew that her attitude was terribly compromising, and yet she could not even simulate the concern of a really affectionate wife. She was giving herself away to Doctor Bagge. Indeed, the cunning little man had carefully prepared this experiment. He watched her closely.
“Unless he is careful, he may poison himself.”
Still she could say nothing.
“Well, well!” The prim little man was brisk and cheerful again. “Let us talk of something else. Perhaps there is not much cause for apprehension after all. So your friend Mr. Harrigall is bringing out a new book very shortly?”
The doctor was not returning until the following day. He was dining with some old friends from the hospital, and he had an appointment with Sir James Macwithian in the morning. So after lunch Bertha did some shopping, and then she had tea with her charming sister-in-law, Miss Phoebe Kewdingham.
5
Now she was in the train on her way back to Shufflecester.
In one corner of the compartment was a heavy, pallid commercial gentleman, falling into a beery sleep. In another corner were a young man and a young woman holding each other’s hands.
As the train jogged thunderously along over the black, hidden country, past the winking lights of Cranford and then the more distant lights of elegant Filton, Mrs. Kewdingham languidly turned over the pages of a fashion magazine she had bought at Victoria.
She always felt rather languid when she was on her way home after the excitement of London. Back to Bobby and the cage again. Back to the old women and their hateful sham-Christian tolerance. Back to the snapping and the snarling and the infernal tugging strain of daily humiliation—all the muddy, clinging mess of a miscalculated marriage, a fool’s marriage. Back to the ugly, disheartening little house, the boxes and cabinets and all the rest of it. Not even Michael now. Oh, Lord!—It was not a happy prospect.
She looked at the magazine, frowning abstractedly, as if she was reading with some difficulty in a foreign language:
“At a very trifling expense you can make enough of this excellent hair-wash to last you for years. I took three large bottles with me to India in the spring of 1925, and have still enough for another month’s use. There is no difficulty in procuring the ingredients. Here is the formula: Lead acetate…precipitated sulphur…glycerin…lavender water…rum. Of course, it is just as well to remember that the lead acetate is poisonous, and as it has a sweet sugary taste and the appearance of a soft white powder, it should not be left lying about, especially if there are children in the house. Any chemist will sell you as much as you require, however, for it is not one of the scheduled poisons.”
She read no more, but sat with the paper in her lap, looking out of the window at the flying night. The train was clattering through Hedgerley, the lighted platform slid in a long yellow blur past the window. In a few seconds they had flung away the tiny sparkles of the little town, and again they were chuffing and booming along in the hollow, rushing night. The heavy commercial gentleman, waking with a groan, lowered the window in order that he might spit out of it, and then settled himself for another doze. The young man and the young woman giggled happily together: Bertha glanced at them with a mingling of jealousy and pleasure. The scurrying drum-drum-drum of the train beat into her mind with a persistent rhythm. Presently the rhythm was associated with definite words, endlessly repeated, sometimes at one pitch and sometimes at another, in solo, in unison, in deafening chorus, like a fugue.
Acetate, acetate, acetate of lead…
But remember, it is a poison. A poison with a pleasing, sugary taste. Invaluable in a hair-wash—one of the ordinary ingredients. Any chemist will give you as much as you want. Only you must be careful, especially if there are children in the house. Lead acetate is a poison, and there might be deplorable accidents. Oh, yes! It’s cheap enough to buy.
Acetate, acetate, acetate…The train was rattling and lurching over a mesh of points.
Cheap to buy, and a little goes a long way, you know. It is quite reasonable to buy it if you are making a hair-wash. Perhaps Bobby was using it already for some of his medical decoctions. He ought to be careful, or he might poison himself.
Mrs. Kewdingham looked out of the window at the rushing, noisy stream of the night.
Acetate—poison.
The inception of the idea of calculated murder is not immediately recognised. Such an idea enters the mind in disguise—a new arrival in a sinister mask, not willingly entertained and yet by no means to be expelled. Or, in more scientific terms, it is introduced by a sort of auto-hypnosis, the mere repetition of thoughts or words not immediately connected with personal action. Between the highly civilised individual and the act of murder there are so many barriers, so many conventions and teachings—or so many illusions.
Chapter IV
1
Miss Phoebe Kewdingham lived, as we have said, in a spacious flat in Dodsley Park Avenue. And she managed to live in a very comfortable style.
Now, the Kewdingham family was not one of your grubby, grabbing middle-class families; it could produce a bit of everything. Phoebe was a poetess. Her verses were printed in the elegant Bodoni type and were bound in black and gold with a yellow top: uniform edition, two volumes, three and sixpence each. In order to match these pretty, slim little books, Phoebe (who was herself slim and pretty) dressed in black and gold. She acknowledged the sovereignty of the passions, and for that reason had abstained from marriage. At the time of which we are writing, she was about thirty-eight—nearly ten years younger than her brother Robert.
Like many families of indeterminate race, the Kewdinghams described themselves as Irish. Those Kewdinghams who were intelligent enough to recognise their own haziness of thought declared that such a failing was peculiar to the Gael, and indicated an hereditary mental twilight. During the disturbances which preceded the establishment of what is called a Free State in Ireland, Phoebe had learnt the Gaelic tongue, and in that tongue she had written a number of exciting poems about the heroes of liberty and the blood of the gods. She had received important letters from someone in Dublin to be delivered to someone in London—and she had lost the letters. Ministers of State had stealthy suppers in her kitchen, and told her what a joke it was trying to govern the Irish.
Family sentiment was aggressively developed in Phoebe. Her brother Robert appeared to her as an unlucky man, kicked by fate for no fault of his own. After all, he had “fine qualities”—you could no more imagine a Kewdingham without fine qualities than you could imagine a fish without fins. He was the right sort of man to deal with a leaking tap or a troublesome dog or a squeaking window. He was one of the family, this poor Robert Arthur; and “we Kewdinghams”…well, heaven knows what we Kewdinghams would have done, if it had not been for one thing and another, and things in general.
Phoebe often met her cousin John, but it cannot be said that she liked him. John was a gossip, a purveyor of literary small-talk, and he had a way of being unforgivably spiteful. You could not tell when he was in earnest.
Phoebe herself was in earnest about everything. Even the shadow of hypocrisy was hateful to a nature so candid, so intense. She was an artist; and the purpose of all art is the discovery of truth.
2
A cloudy assemblage of ideas induced Robert Arthur Kewdingham, early in November, to pay a visit to Dodsley Park Avenue. Robert hated London and he seldom went there; it made his head ache. But now, although forty-seven, he was thinking about getting a job again. He still knew some of his former engineer friends, and they might give him a tip or two, at any rate. A residue of normal self-esteem made him feel that he ought to seek employm
ent. Besides, he really had a special knowledge of the Heinz-Beckford heavy-oil engine. He would make a final effort; and then who could say that he had not done his duty?
He reached London by a late train, and it was half-past eight when he struggled out of a crowded bus in Hammersmith. The street lights were shining dimly under the dull copper spread of a thick fog. A winter slush gleamed on the slippery pavements. The life of the town was moving between two layers of dirty moisture, one overhead and one underfoot. He anticipated with satisfaction the greeting of the dear girl, the homely comfort of the flat.
It was not his custom to write letters to the family. His rare visits were made without announcement. He took his chance. Even if the spare bed was occupied, Phoebe could give him a shake-down somewhere. The dear girl was always glad to see her brother. He was feeling tired, and he did hope that he would find her alone.
But a little party was in full swing at the flat when Robert arrived. He quietly opened the door of the drawing-room, and there he stood, somewhat abashed, with a shabby raincoat folded over one arm and a bulging, amorphous bag in his hand. He tried to look amiable, but he was confused by the clamour of jolly voices, the presence of several strangers, and the sense of an atmosphere which (to him) was intensely uncongenial. What a damned nuisance! he said to himself.
There were some very distinguished people at the party. There was Mr. Fordyce Youghall, the Great Man of Fleet Street; Mr. Jacob Dobsley, the sculptor, whose distorted nudes gave such offence to Parliament; Mr. John Harrigall, an author of rising fame; Mr. Petrick Sundale, the financier; and Miss Dodie Doodar, whose cabaret turns were the best in London—she married Sir Bertie Parkes-Boundle not long afterwards.
John looked up with annoyance as he saw Kewdingham; and so did Mr. Fordyce Youghall, who was holding the attention of Mr. Dobsley—or thought he was—by a discourse on the revival of realism. But Phoebe gracefully rose with her smooth Donatello smile.
“Ah, Bobby! How unexpected, but how delightful! Staying the night with us, of course?”
Family Matters Page 6