Lisa

by Joan Van Every Frost

  “Lisa!” Eric sputtered, shocked.

  “I don’t care. Someone at this table cut the girth on my saddle and strangled poor Tommy. The same person killed Cynthia, too, whether directly or indirectly makes no difference.”

  “Aren’t you leaving out the good doctor?” Mrs. Stephens asked, her eyes glittering dangerously. “Leaving out the girth, who had the best motive and opportunity for killing Cynthia? Not Mrs. Lewis, not Eric, not me. You and Mark, that’s who.”

  “I’m sure Dr. Jarrell will be interested in your opinion,” Mrs. Lewis said, unable to maintain her silence in the face of this accusation.

  “I didn’t necessarily mean he’d done it,” Mrs. Stephens hastened to say, “only that foolish accusations are to no one’s advantage.”

  For once it was Eric who kept the coolest head. “Look, all this nattering and bickering is sheer idiocy. Cynthia committed suicide, and we all know it. We should let bygones be bygones and try to get along as long, as we’re all here together.”

  The end of the meal came and went, but Jarrell never showed up. As they left the dining room, Mrs. Lewis crossed the hall to the study and knocked.

  “Dr. Jarrell? Would you like to have a tray sent in?”

  “Devil take you, Lewis,” came a muffled voice from within, “I want nothing but to be left alone, do you understand?”

  “Yes sir,” she said sadly and turned away.

  “So he’s at it again,” Carrie Stephens commented.

  “Well, at least this time he hasn’t begun throwing things,” Eric pointed out.

  “Just give him time,” she replied, “just give him a little time.”

  Lisa dragged herself upstairs, so weary with all that had happened that day that she wondered if she could make it to bed. Yet she had no sooner finally lain down than she was painfully wide awake, too tired and too strung up to sleep. What a fool she had made of herself at dinner! She had been every bit as bad as Carrie Stephens at her worst. Dear heaven, let the time pass quickly until she could leave this accursed place.

  At last she got up and put on her robe. She remembered seeing a copy of Scott’s Quentin Durward in Cynthia’s room, and decided it was just what she needed to relax her enough to sleep. She went silently down the hall to Cynthia’s room and crossed it to the low bookcase under the window, half expecting Tommy to rub against her leg and purr as he so often had. With the book in her hand, she looked out the window where there was nothing but a faint starshine this time. She blew out the candle to see better, and saw yet once again movement in the garden. This time two figures clasped each other passionately, then arm in arm made for the darkness beneath the trees. Eric? If so, there was no one left for him to kiss but Amy perhaps, but that was not likely, since she was plain and dumpy and freckled; Eric liked his women handsome. Jarrell? Same choice except perhaps for Mrs. Lewis, and she couldn’t quite visualize him with either. Toby? But why would the Stephens woman bring him up to the garden?

  She left the room and went back down the hall to the stairs. Her curiosity had gotten the best of her, and she had to find out. Down the stairs and across the dining room to the garden, all of it so familiar now she never felt the lack of a light. Keeping next to the house, she circled the outer rim of the garden, stopping from time to time to listen. She thought she heard the faintest echo of voices to the west of the stables, down near the cemetery, but when she reached the family plot, they had retreated toward the pool. She slipped along the path overhung by trees and came out at the pool, where the final tree drooped out over the water. As she approached the water, the sound of frogs croaking became louder and louder, and she realized with a laugh that these must have been the voices she had heard. She stood at the edge of the pool listening to the croaking and beneath it the splash of the water overflowing the dam and the duckings and gurglings and splashes of frogs and fish and other water life.

  Then suddenly, so near it seemed she must have touched them, came the sound of two voices laughing tenderly, throaty and warm and sated with love. Lisa didn’t even turn her head for fear the movement would give her away, and she froze, sifting desperately through her memory for the alien voice — the one was all too familiar.

  “Murderess!” a sexless voice hissed in her ear, and she was thrust violently into the icy water, where her robe and nightgown pulled her down, down until her bare feet, the slippers lost in her fall, touched slimy grass and rotting leaves on the bottom. She thrust up away from the bank and danger, toward the center of the pool, her lungs bursting. As she thought she must take a breath, her head broke the surface, and she flailed her arms and legs to stay afloat against the downward pull of her wet clothes. This was a far different kind of swimming from the paddling about she and Toby used to do in their underthings in the rain pools, but she managed to make it to the far side of the pool, where she hung on, panting. As she grasped the reeds growing around the edge, with horror she realized that she knew whose the other voice was. Eric’s she had recognized right away, but the other was that of Carrie Stephens.

  She dragged herself slowly from the water, shivering only partly from the cold, and began to make her dripping way back to the house. There was no more laughter, no more hissing whisper, either, and unmolested she left a trail of water through the garden, across the dining room, up the stairs, and into her room at last, where with chattering teeth she took off her wet things and towelled herself dry. Her bed felt icy when she first got in it, but gradually a feeling of warmth crept over her and she fell into a dead sleep, her hair wet on the pillow. Her last thought before nothingness descended was that she must get away from all of the sickness in this house. Jarrell had been more right than he knew — they were all tainted.

  The next morning she slept late and wakened to a bright sun splashing through the window and across the carpet. She would almost have thought her last night’s foray an evil dream except that there lay her clothes in a sodden heap on the floor. She held only one thought, that she must get Toby away and go before they were both destroyed. But where? There was nothing for it but to throw herself on the mercy of the Lawtons, who she could hope would not hold Teddy’s plight against her. Perhaps one of their friends needed a nursemaid and stable boy.

  She went to the kitchen to get something to eat, where Priddy was muttering to herself, “Good food gone ter waste. Not you nor the doctor nor Master Jarrell nor Missus Stephens for breakfast, and it’s all cold. Wat’s ter do with cold eggs, Ay ask you?”

  “You mean the doctor hasn’t eaten this morning, either?”

  “Shut up in ’is study, ’e is. ’E takes these spells like, but not for a long time now.”

  Lisa forced down some lukewarm eggs and half-congealed bacon, knowing she had a long ride ahead of her. She decided that getting Dancer would hardly qualify as breaking Jarrell’s rule about seeing Toby by herself, and went down to the stables, where Toby was still schooling Pearl over the jumps, patience itself. She saddled Dancer herself and went off at a canter, taking the shortcut that began behind the stables. He was in good shape, and even after the long ride the day before was offering to shy at anything and everything. During the almost three hours it took to Burresford, she found that recent events were going round and round in her head, and the flowering heather and golden morning went unheeded. In the end there were three real mysteries: who strangled Tommy, who cut the girth, and who pushed her in the pool, when there had been every reason to believe that she knew nothing about swimming.

  In Burresford all these concerns were forgotten. With a dry mouth and beating heart she sounded the ornate knocker on the door and stood there nervously twisting her handkerchief and wondering belatedly if she should have gone round to the back door. This time what was obviously a little scullery maid answered the door, but even she had a neat blue uniform.

  “Ay no be thinking they’ll see anyone, mum. Their little boy’s in a tumble bad way.”

  “I know, but please just ask — I’ll wait right here.” After a long
time the maid she had seen the day before came. “Ay’m sorry, mum, but the master and mistress are both asleep. Their little boy’s — ”

  “Sick,” broke in Lisa. “Yes, I know.”

  “If you could come by again late this afternoon, perhaps they would be receiving.”

  That meant that she would be riding home in the dark, but she supposed it would be worth it. “How is Teddy?”

  “Oh, much improved, mum. ’Is fever’s down and that awful swelling, too. Nurse says it’s a miracle like — she wus sure he wus going ter die.”

  “Thank heavens,” Lisa said fervently. “The doctor will be glad to hear that.”

  The maid hesitated, as if wondering whether to say something. “The doctor you come with yesterday, mum, well Ay don’t think the master wants ter see ’im again, and Ay’m none too sure ’e wants ter see you, either.”

  “Even though Teddy’s better?”

  “ ’E puts that on God, not any doctor, though when they took off all Teddy’s covers and put cold cloths on ’im, Ay thought they wus like ter kill ’im right then.”

  So they did what Jarrell suggested after all, Lisa thought. With Teddy better, they might be feeling more charitable now, and she would have a chance. “Thank you, I’ll come back this afternoon,” Lisa said.

  Now what was she going to do for three or four hours? She knew no one in Burresford but the market people and the Prices’ neighbors, and she couldn’t very well go seeing them now, what with the murders and all. She rode back past the outskirts of town and sat down under a tree, taking the bit out of Dancer’s mouth so that he could graze.

  More and more she saw the closed study door, silent, secret, giving no hint of what went on inside. She knew he hadn’t eaten — had he slept? What did he do in there? Was he drinking? She tried to visualize him drunk and couldn’t. Now Eric was easy to visualize drunk; he would laugh a lot and be even more reckless than when he was sober. Would it make a difference if Jarrell knew that Teddy was better? Was it really just Teddy’s plight that made him shut himself up? Questions, questions, questions. He would be glad of the news, she thought; it would lessen his suffering. She had no idea how she knew so well he was suffering; she just knew. Well, of course, you ninny, she told herself, people don’t just lock themselves in rooms and refuse to eat for sport.

  When she put the bit back in Dancer’s mouth an hour later and remounted, she didn’t even stop to think about it much anymore; she turned his head for home and put him at a distance-eating canter. Once back, she gave Dancer to Toby to take care of and headed for the house, but not before she noticed that Christian was gone. Good, she thought, I’d be just as happy not to see Eric right now. Yet the shock was already gone; it was surprising how quickly the human mind could adjust itself to the most shameful knowledge. She found herself pitying the lot of them — poor, stunted, crippled creatures who turned in upon themselves and ate their own hearts.

  Amy was lighting the lamps downstairs when she came in. She crossed the hall and knocked firmly on the study door. Amy gasped and disappeared, as if she thought Jarrell might come boiling out and eat her. There was only silence. Was he still in there? She knocked again. “I’m going to keep right on knocking until you answer this door,” she declared. She was suddenly sick and tired of the whole lot of them, with their lusts and sensibilities all out of kilter. “I’ve news of Teddy, but if you want to know what it is, you’ll have to open the door. I’m not going to shout it at you through a piece of wood.”

  He flung open the door and stood aside sullenly, swaying slightly, as she entered and closed it behind her. He was in his shirtsleeves, his hair mussed, his eyes bloodshot, in need of a shave. On the desk was an empty bottle of brandy and another bottle three-quarters empty. The butts of the long thin cigars he smoked overflowed the bowl and littered the desk top.

  “You shouldn’t have come in here,” he said, and though he looked bad, his enunciation was perfect.

  “Look at you! You ought to be ashamed, a grown man acting like a child who’s had his sweets taken away.” He looked startled.

  All of her frustrations and fright and distaste broke out. “You are probably too interested in staying in that disgusting condition to care what happened with Teddy, but I’ll tell you anyway. I talked to the maid, and she said that they did what you told them to. Teddy’s fever has broken and the swelling is down.” It all came out in a rush.

  “You mean you rode all the way to Burresford to find out about the boy?”

  “No, as a matter of fact I didn’t. I went to ask for a job for Toby and me, but the Lawtons were asleep. I want to leave here just as soon as I possibly can.”

  Jarrell closed his eyes and slowly sat down. “I — I’ll see you get a position in London if the Lawtons won’t take you.” His voice sounded suddenly young and unsure, and she reminded herself he was only in his mid-thirties. There was a pause, then he said, “I’ll miss you.”

  “Will you? I think you’re like Eric — out of sight, out of mind.”

  He bristled. “Oh, and what led you to that conclusion?”

  “For one, look what you did to Cynthia. You must have at least told her you cared for her to get her with child and give her that revolting illness. No wonder she took to her bed. And you with all your high and mighty airs and talk about suffering ... ”

  He took a deep breath. “I’ve never told anyone outside the family, not even Mrs. Lewis, who stuck with me anyway, bless her. By the way, how did you find out about the syphilis?”

  “The doctor in Dunwiddleston took great delight in telling me.”

  “Meddling old fool. If I’d known about the pox, I’d never have had him in. And even with a dead child he tore her to pieces getting it out.”

  “You a doctor, and didn’t know you had the pox?”

  “Lisa, Lisa,” he said impatiently, “it wasn’t I who got her with child, it was Eric.”

  “Eric!” Of course Eric, how could she have been so stupid. Who went with prostitutes? Who was most likely to have had a case of the pox? “But then why did you marry her?”

  “I don’t know anymore, I really don’t.” He shook his head wearily. “Eric wouldn’t, and as far as I was concerned, life was over. My wife and child were dead; my work was a shambles. Cynthia’s life was over, too. Eric had refused to marry her, and her parents were about to throw her out. God knows what I thought, but somehow I felt that if I could save her and the child, it would make my life worth something. The baby would be the child I never had. She had already tried twice to kill herself, and sooner or later she would succeed. So I married her.”

  “And you accuse me of being a romantic!” Lisa exclaimed.

  “She was so besotted with Eric,” he went on, “that somehow she thought just being near him would be enough, and she was content to wait until the child was born. It wasn’t until a year after the child died that she broke out in a rash, mercury or no mercury. Of course, I had treated Eric until his hair fell out, but the trouble is that the disease has long remissions, and it’s impossible to say if there has been a cure. What we don’t know either is what finally happens if it isn’t cured. My mentor Carstairs thought, and I’m inclined to agree with him, that the insanity and blind staggers we see so much of in older men are a result of syphilis. If so, and if the mercury didn’t cure him, Eric too will eventually become demented or crippled.”

  “But why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded. “He could have given it to me as well.”

  “Not this many years after. That is almost the only thing we do know.”

  “I owe you an apology, Dr. Jarrell,” she said stiffly. “I’m afraid I’ve had some very uncharitable thoughts.”

  He poured a glass of brandy and took a gulp, shuddering. “No more than I’ve had about you. ‘Dr. Jarrell,’ ‘Dr. Jarrell.’ I’m sick of being ‘Dr. Jarrell.’ I see you laughing and flirting with Eric, and I feel like wringing your neck.”

  Lisa could only stare at him, astonished.


  He raised his eyebrows and smiled wryly. “I see I was successful at concealing my feelings — I’m glad I was successful at something. Did you know there were times I wanted you so much I shook with it?”

  “But you never let on.”

  “No, I never let on. I was married, for better or for worse, and I’m still fifteen years older than you are. Men don’t preserve as well as women, you know.”

  “And Eric said you were a cold fish ... ”

  “For all Eric knows about it. As far as he’s concerned, if you don’t go out drinking and whoring, you’ve got no feelings.”

  “I still wonder that you didn’t go to the equivalent of Burresford.”

  “Oh, I thought of it, I did indeed think of it. But then I thought of coupling like an animal, without love, and I also thought of ending up a crippled insane old man like those who fill the hospital wards, and I got drunk and broke things up instead.”

  She looked at him carefully. “Why, you’re frightened, aren’t you? You’re frightened half to death.”

  She knew that there had been a change, that she would never again be able to see him with any degree of objectivity. Whatever goes on between two people that brings them close for even a short time, also distorts the sight, and from then on the other is someone at least partially made up of the beholder’s hopes and needs and dreams. She had never quite reached that point with Eric, which was all that had saved her from Cynthia’s lot. But all unknowing, this other relationship had slipped up on her silently, stealthily, fed by all of those rides, all of those long, long talks about nothing and everything, all of those times he had molded in some way her feelings about her hand and her feelings about herself. It had been his steadying influence that alone had saved her from becoming yet another of Eric’s willing victims. He had been like a rock to which the entire household had clung, and it was only now that he showed himself so vulnerable that she listened to him as to the beating of her own heart. She had no idea what he really felt for her and perhaps would never know, but it was enough now — as much as she thought she could bear — to recognize what she felt for him.