Lisa

by Joan Van Every Frost

  “She was in truth literally drunk on food when I saw her last night,” Jarrell said, and explained to Mrs. Lewis what had happened. “When I saw her, I could have gotten her to take anything.”

  “But how would anyone else have known that?” Lisa asked and then felt like biting her tongue. For if no one else knew, it would be between Jarrell and her.

  “That’s a point,” Jarrell replied. “Shall we toss a coin for honors?”

  “Wait a minute, though. Remember when I first decided to work with Cynthia? Well, sometime during that first night someone brought a veritable feast up to her. There was grease all over her mouth and gravy stains on the bedclothes. That was why I began sleeping in here.”

  “What would have stopped her getting it herself?” He stopped and answered himself. “No, I’ll never forget getting her up those stairs that time. She couldn’t have, could she?”

  “She could only just get far enough out of bed to use the chamber pot and spy on the stables, let alone go clear downstairs to the kitchen. Now what would stop this same person from enticing her downstairs to the kitchen last night and getting her started again? Or possibly finding her already there? We all know that when Cynthia is unhappy, she eats.”

  “I’m beginning to see why limiting her intake didn’t seem to work very well,” Mrs. Lewis said. “We should have known she couldn’t have gotten all that fat on her regular meals, large as they were. I thought in the beginning she was getting it for herself, but I forgot that later on she couldn’t have.”

  “You’ll have to admit this is an improbable theory. Someone would have had to be mad to have tried anything that depended on so many coincidences,” Jarrell said. “For instance, what if you had wakened, Lisa?”

  “I know, I know,” Lisa said. “I can only say that I feel there is something so wicked about this house it affects all those within.”

  Jarrell smiled mirthlessly. “Is Mrs. Lewis then so wicked, Lisa? Am I?”

  “You know better than I, doctor,” Lisa evaded.

  Constable Ames came that afternoon with Dr. Curry to make out the death certificate. Lacking any real evidence to the contrary, Jarrell said it must have been suicide and showed them Cynthia’s scarred wrists to prove she had tried it previously.

  “ ’Ave you any thought as to why she did it?” Ames asked.

  “No, I can’t think. She was ill a long time, you know, after her baby died,” Jarrell said. “But in the last six months she improved so much she got out of bed and was even riding every day. The only incident that could have depressed her was the death of her pet cat, which did upset her enormously.”

  At the mention of the baby, Ames expression was noncommital, but the doctor pulled a sour face. Lisa noticed that Jarrell always spoke of it as “her” baby, not “our” baby. Well he might want to disown it under the circumstances.

  “Surely her cat dying wouldn’t make her kill herself,” the doctor said incredulously.

  “You must remember that her nerves were always delicate,” Jarrell said. “Other women’s babies die and they don’t take to their beds for years. She set great store by the cat, who in a fashion may have taken the place of her dead child.”

  “Rubbish,” the doctor snorted. “Other women’s babies don’t usually die of their husbands’ follies.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Jarrell’s voice was quiet but carried in it an unmistakable menace.

  The doctor backed down, but only part way. “Never mind, you know well enough what I meant.”

  In the end, a weeping Toby dug the grave out in the family plot and Jarrell read the burial service himself. “The clergy are none too charitable when it comes to suicide,” he observed, “so we’ll bury her ourselves. Toby and Fred can make the coffin.” With the household present to pay their respects, Cynthia was lowered to her last resting place. Just as Lisa hoped Tommy would go to a land of butterflies, so she hoped that the tortured girl — she couldn’t think of her as a woman — being lowered beneath the ground would go to a place of pretty clothes, grand balls, and handsome laughing young men to be oh so attentive with no fleshly complications.

  The next few days were somber. Everyone spoke in low voices, and what riding there was, was done by unspoken consent singly. Once again Lisa had the feeling of waiting for something, plus an indefinable sadness as if something had come to an end. There was no longer the slightest reason for her being here, and if it hadn’t been for Toby, she would have left. In the minds of the others she was the one with the most motive and opportunity to have meant harm to Cynthia. Yet she was increasingly of the opinion now that Cynthia had indeed taken her own life. She may not even have meant to, only to frighten those around her into caring for her, but then miscalculating fatally.

  Giving lie to all these thoughts of death, late July lay rich and golden on the countryside with the drowsy hum of bees in the purple flowers of the heather, and she and Dancer galloped through the purple heather, drunk with the smell and taste of summer. How sad to die and leave so much of life and richness.

  Jarrell said one morning at breakfast that he planned to go to Burresford to look in on Teddy.

  “May I go with you?” Lisa asked eagerly. “I promised Teddy I would visit him.”

  “It will be a long ride,” Jarrell warned. “I don’t wish to spend the night there.”

  “If we’re both riding, we can take the shortcut then. That cuts off a good two hours,” Lisa said.

  So it was settled, and before long they were on their way up the little valley behind the stables and across the ridge, which joined the shortcut just as it disappeared around the shoulder of the hill. The track, so overgrown it would no longer allow even a trap to pass, ran straight across the slopes of upland moor.

  “It’s only a month before you go to London,” Jarrell said as they put the horses into a canter on a wider level stretch. “Will you be glad to leave us?”

  “I’d be lying if I said no,” Lisa replied. “There are things I’ll miss terribly, like the moors, but there is something about that house — or rather, the people in it — that is like a terrible disfiguring disease. You are all so thoroughly unhappy, and there doesn’t seem to be any help for it. All of you should be elsewhere, preferably not together, either. You and Mrs. Lewis should be practising actively, Eric should be training for a profession, and your sister should find herself a husband.”

  “You don’t mince words, do you, Lisa?” But he didn’t sound angry.

  “I think now that Cynthia did take her own life, but we were all as guilty of it as if we had strangled her ourselves. She was only a spoiled child, and we all destroyed her.”

  “Even you?”

  “Even me. I took away her only defense, her fatness, and abandoned her to Eric.”

  “I wish I knew what to do about Eric and Carrie. They are beautiful golden children without a shred of conscience between them. I haven’t insisted on their going elsewhere, because I was afraid of what they would get into. Without conscience themselves, they have no idea how righteously wrathful people with consciences can be.”

  “How did Carrie’s husband die?”

  “He took poison.”

  “What kind?”

  “Atropine. It comes from the deadly nightshade.”

  “Isn’t that unusual to have around the house?”

  “Very. In small doses it’s useful for whooping cough and asthma, but there were no children in the house, and neither Carrie nor Matthew suffered from asthma as far as I know. They could only guess that perhaps he still had it from the time his wife and children were alive.”

  “Did anyone question his death?”

  “I see what you’re getting at, but why would they? He was so haunted by the deaths of his wife and children that he was already drinking himself to death.” He added grimly, “And well he might. He was apparently off somewhere with Carrie when the fire occurred, or possibly none of them would have died. Carrie was supposed to be sleeping in the room with them.”<
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  “How did the fire start?”

  “A candle was left burning as well and the gas light in the nursery was turned very low. The gas pressure failed briefly, enough to douse the light, then resumed again, pouring unburned gas into the room. When it reached the candle, it exploded in a sheet of flame. Cries from one or both the children brought Matthew’s wife running. She managed to rescue the little girl, but burned to death trying to get the little boy out of his crib. The really bad part is that he very probably died in the original explosion — the gas light was right over his bed — and she gave her life for nothing. They found the little girl standing in the doorway of the blazing nursery screaming. I don’t know if she was actually burned or not, but she was out of her mind and died not long after.”

  “How awful!” Lisa shuddered. “Wasn’t your sister badly affected, too? She must have felt guilty as well.”

  “I don’t know. She and Eric both, except for temper, seldom show their feelings. I’ve never known in some instances if they didn’t have any or only hid them extraordinarily well.”

  “What a dreadful thing to say about your own sister and brother!”

  “I’ve had cause,” he said with finality, and went on to other subjects.

  They arrived in Burresford in less than three hours. Lisa was amazed to find a whole section of town she never knew existed, large houses with vast stretches of lawn and flowers around them, wrought iron fences and metal hitching posts in the form of boys in livery. Teddy’s house like the rest was set well back from the cobbled street. They tied the horses and let sound the heavy ornate knocker on the front door.

  The maid who answered was dressed in a black uniform with a starched frilly white apron. However, the pleasant expression with which she opened the door changed to active dislike when Jarrell said who he was.

  “Ay don’t know will the master see you,” she said sullenly.

  “Well, why don’t you tell him we’re here and find out,” he suggested mildly.

  “What do you think all that meant?” Lisa asked, puzzled. “She didn’t even ask us in to wait.”

  Jarrell shrugged, frowning.

  An angry, distraught Mr. Lawton appeared in the doorway. “You’ve got a nerve coming here, you bastard!” he shouted. “As long as you’re here, though, come see what you’ve done. By God, I ought to thrash you, for what good it would do.”

  Jarrell had paled, but said nothing, only followed Lawton up the stairs while Lisa trotted helplessly behind. They went into a bedroom. “Look at him!” Lawton was almost crying. “Oh God, what did you do to him?” Horrorstruck, Lisa viewed the unfamiliar small form in the bed. In place of Teddy’s handsome, animated face was the face and head of a changeling monster. Its eyes were tiny slits in the grossly swollen inflamed face; even the ears and scalp were swollen, and the inflammation, like a livid, raised stain, spread down his neck and disappeared into the neck of his white nightgown. A low moaning came from the swollen mouth.

  “Erysipelas!” Jarrell exclaimed.

  “Dear heaven, what is it?” Lisa breathed at the same time.

  “It’s wound infection,” Lawton said. “The others advised against operating, but oh no, you knew better.”

  Teddy’s mother sat mutely holding his hand, tears running down her face. A nurse in white sat at the head of the bed.

  Jarrell gently took the hand from her to feel the pulse. “He’s burning up,” he said. “Did you have the dressings changed?” he asked Lawton.

  “Yes, at St. Luke’s Dispensary.”

  “You mean you took him to a hospital here in Burresford? Were you out of your mind?”

  “You spent enough time telling us all about how hospitals had changed,” Lawton replied defensively, “that they were now better than home treatment.”

  “In London, man — the large ones in London,” Jarrell said, exasperated.

  “Don’t try to put the blame on us,” Lawton snapped, on the offensive again. “They said in the dispensary the wound must already have been infected.”

  “How?” Jarrell demanded. “Just tell me how. There was never a case of erysipelas in that house, and we disinfected everything besides. But St. Luke’s? I’ll wager in the wards they’ve got erysipelas, septicemia, hospital gangrene, puerpural fever, everything there is. You might as well have wiped his open wounds on the street.”

  The accusation was too much for Lawton, and with an inarticulate cry he swung at Jarrell, who stood and watched the blow coming, not even putting up his hands. The impact sent him staggering back against a wardrobe, an angry red area appearing on the side of his jaw.

  “I’m sorry,” Jarrell unaccountably said then, holding his hand to his jaw. “If you value your child’s life, you will strip all those covers off him, keep applying cloths soaked in cold water, and force liquids down him — otherwise he’ll die of his fever before he ever dies of the infection, which will retreat of itself it you can only keep him alive now.”

  Lawton stood silent, panting and holding the smarting knuckles of his hand.

  As Jarrell left, he finished, “And don’t let anyone near him who hasn’t scrubbed their hands and put them in a solution of carbolic, before and after they touch him.” They let themselves out and remounted their horses, clattering out of the drive and onto the cobbled street.

  “Shouldn’t we have stayed to make sure they did the right things?” Lisa asked anxiously.

  “Lawton would have thrown us out anyway. This way, he may have second thoughts and follow my advice.”

  “You were awfully hard on him.”

  “I know.” Jarrell sighed. “Temper in the family is hardly confined to Eric and Carrie alone. It’s just that it galls me to see the criminal carelessness of the medical profession go unpunished. If Teddy dies, Lawton will be punished, and God knows I’ve been punished already.” Lisa knew he wasn’t referring to his hurt face.

  “Will Teddy die?”

  “If he’s strong, he won’t, if he’s weak he will. If he were one of those,” Jarrell pointed at a couple of dirty-faced, ragged little street urchins with thin legs and swollen bellies, “He’d be dead already. The privileges of wealth. Do you know what they call erysipelas?” Lisa shook her head. “St. Anthony’s fire, and an apt name it is. It’s not as deadly as septicemia and gangrene, but every bit as unpleasant.”

  Neither was hungry, and they rode home slowly and in silence. Lisa kept seeing in her mind’s eye that pathetic, suffering little gargoyle, and she ached with pity, for him and for Jarrell both. She remembered the open, tender look he had given the boy as they said goodbye to each other at Hartsite and felt like weeping. It seemed nothing could ever go right for him, not even this minor encounter that yet meant so much to him.

  “Well, how’s the patient?” Eric asked jauntily when they returned at dusk, though behind Jarrell Lisa shook her head at him frantically.

  Jarrell didn’t answer but slammed into his study, leaving Eric with his mouth open in astonishment.

  Lisa drew Eric out into the garden. “Teddy’s desperately ill of an infection, and Lawton blames your brother. The worst of it is that for other reasons he blames himself.” She went on to tell Eric all of it, glad to get it off her mind and into words.

  “You know, Mark wanted them to leave the boy here longer,” Eric said soberly, “but Lawton was anxious to get back to his business and wouldn’t let the boy stay here without him. I think he dotes on him even more than the mother does.”

  “Oh Eric, it was so awful seeing the both of them torn to pieces and lashing out at the other. There wasn’t anything I could say or do because I felt the same way. What if it was my hands that infected him? It could have been, you know.”

  Eric took both her hands and gently pressed them to his mouth. “Come away with me, Lisa, come away now. It’s not too late after all, but it will be soon. We’ve both got to get out of the morass of guilt and hurt or we’ll die of it.”

  “So I can watch you making over some other gir
l the way you did over Cynthia?” Lisa flared. “If I went away with you now, the guilt and the hurt would ride right along with us. You can’t run away from yourself, Eric, and until you find that out there will always be Cynthias and Burresfords wherever you are.”

  Eric bowed his head, and Lisa turned and went sadly back into the house.

  14

  That night dinner once again was a subdued affair. Jarrell never made an appearance at all, and Mrs. Lewis kept sending anxious glances toward the door of the dining room as if somehow she could make him materialize.

  “What’s wrong with His Nibs?” Eric finally asked. “Is he still sulking over losing a patient?”

  “That’s not amusing, Eric,” Mrs. Lewis observed tartly. “Dr. Jarrell has a right to be upset. There was every reason to suppose Teddy would have no problems.”

  “No problems, eh?” Eric shot back. “As far as all of Dunwiddleston and most of Burresford are concerned, a hospital is a place to go it you want to die, and doctors aren’t much better.”

  “Are you trying to say that it’s preferable to go to quacks like the Prices?” Lisa asked indignantly.

  “I’ll wager there are doctors around who have killed off more patients than the Prices ever dreamed of,” Eric retorted. “I’m tired of everybody tiptoeing around because Mark made a mistake. He never should have touched the boy to begin with, let alone botched the job when he did do it.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that you're just plain jealous because Dr. Jarrell learned how to do something and all you know is whoring in Burresford?” Lisa was furious. The shock of seeing Teddy so grotesquely ill and her pity for Jarrell had rubbed her nerves raw.

  “My, my,” Mrs. Stephens interjected, “the cat is showing its claws, isn’t it?”

  “You’re as bad,” Lisa rounded on her. “Both of you are a couple of parasites, clinging to this house because you’re afraid you might have to take some responsibility elsewhere. You’ve always battened onto security, haven’t you, Mrs. Stephens — even with another woman’s husband.”