by Mark Place
Elinor said quickly, "Mr. Seddon - of Bloomsbury Square. But he wouldn't be there at this time of the evening, and I don't know his home address."
Dr. Lord said reassuringly, "Tomorrow will be in plenty of time. I'm anxious to set Mrs. Welman's mind at rest as soon as possible. If you will come up with me now, Miss Carlisle, I think together we shall be able to reassure her."
"Of course.I will come up at once."
Roddy said hopefully, "You don't want me?"
He felt faintly ashamed of himself, but he had a nervous dread of going up to the sickroom, of seeing Aunt Laura lying there inarticulate and helpless. Dr. Lord reassured him promptly. "Not the least need, Mr. Welman. Better not to have too many people in the room."
Roddy's relief showed plainly. Dr. Lord and Elinor went upstairs. Nurse O'Brien was with the patient. Laura Welman, breathing deeply and stertorously, lay as though in a stupor. Elinor stood looking down on her, shocked by the drawn, twisted face. Suddenly Mrs. Welman's right eyelid quivered and opened. A faint change came over her face as she recognized Elinor. She tried to speak.
"Elinor..." The word would have been meaningless to anyone who had not guessed at what she wanted to say. Elinor said quickly, "I'm here, Aunt Laura. You're worried about something? You want me to send for Mr. Seddon?"
Another of those hoarse, raucous sounds Elinor guessed at the meaning. She said, "Mary Gerrard?" Slowly the right hand moved shakily in assent. A long burble of sound came from the sick woman's lips. Dr. Lord and Elinor frowned helplessly. Again and again it came. Then Elinor got a word. "Provision - You want to make provision for her in your will? You want her to have some money? I see, dear Aunt Laura. That will be quite simple. Mr. Seddon will come down tomorrow and everything shall be arranged exactly as you wish."
The sufferer seemed relieved. The look of distress faded from that appealing eye. Elinor took her hand in hers and felt a feeble pressure from her fingers. Mrs. Welman said with a great effort, "You - all - you ..."
Elinor said, "Yes, yes, leave it all to me. I will see that everything you want is done!"
She felt the pressure of the fingers again. Then it relaxed. The eyelids drooped and closed. Dr. Lord laid a hand on Elinor's arm and drew her gently away out of the room. Nurse O'Brien resumed her seat near the bed. Outside on the landing Mary Gerrard was talking to Nurse Hopkins. She started forward.
"Oh, Dr. Lord, can I go in to her, please?"
He nodded. "Keep quite quiet, though, and don't disturb her."
Mary went into the sickroom.
Dr. Lord said, "Your train was late. You -" He stopped.
Elinor had turned her head to look after Mary. Suddenly she became aware of his abrupt silence. She turned her head and looked at him inquiringly. He was staring at her, a startled look in his face. The color rose in Elinor's cheeks. She said hurriedly, "I beg your pardon. What did you say?"
Peter Lord said slowly, "What was I saying? I don't remember. Miss Carlisle, you were splendid in there!" He spoke warmly. "Quick to understand, reassuring, everything you should have been."
The very faintest of sniffs came from Nurse Hopkins. Elinor said, "Poor darling. It upset me terribly seeing her like that."
"Of course. But you didn't show it. You must have great self-control." Elinor said, her lips set very straight, "I've learned not - to show my feelings." The doctor said slowly, "All the same, the mask's bound to slip once in a while."
Nurse Hopkins had bustled into the bathroom. Elinor said, raising her delicate eyebrows and looking full at him, "The mask?"
Dr. Lord said, "The human face is, after all, nothing more nor less than a mask."
"And underneath?"
"Underneath is the primitive man or woman."
She turned away quickly and led the way downstairs. Peter Lord followed, puzzled and unwontedly serious. Roddy came out into the hall to meet them. "Well?" he asked anxiously.
Elinor said, "Poor darling. It's very sad to see her. I shouldn't go, Roddy - till - till - she asks for you."
Roddy asked, "Did she want anything - special?"
Peter Lord said to Elinor, "I must be off now. There's nothing more I can do for the moment. I'll look in early tomorrow. Good-bye, Miss Carlisle. Don't - don't worry too much."
He held her hand in his for a moment or two. He had a strangely reassuring and comforting clasp. He looked at her, Elinor thought, rather oddly as though - as though he was sorry for her. As the door shut behind the doctor, Roddy repeated his question. Elinor said, "Aunt Laura is worried about - about certain business matters. I managed to pacify her and told her Mr. Seddon would certainly come down tomorrow. We must telephone him first thing."
Roddy asked, "Does she want to make a new will?"
Elinor answered, "She didn't say so."
"What did she -?" He stopped in the middle of the question.
Mary Gerrard was running down the stairs. She crossed the hall and disappeared through the door to the kitchen quarters.
Elinor said in a harsh voice, "Yes? What is it you wanted to ask?"
Roddy said vaguely, "I - what? I've forgotten what it was." He was staring at the door through which Mary Gerrard had gone. Elinor's hands closed. She could feel her long, pointed nails biting into the flesh of her palms. She thought, I can't bear it - I can't bear it. It's not imagination - it's true. Roddy - Roddy, I CAN'T lose you. And she thought, what did that man - the doctor - what did he see in my face upstairs? He saw something.... Oh, God, how awful life is - to feel as I feel now. Say something, fool. Pull yourself together! Aloud she said, in her calm voice, "About meals, Roddy. I'm not very hungry. I'll sit with Aunt Laura and the nurses can both come down."
Roddy said in alarm, "And have dinner with we?"
Elinor said coldly, "They won't bite you!"
"But what about you? You must have something. Why don't we dine first, and let them come down afterward?"
Elinor said, "No, the other way's better." She added wildly, "They're so touchy, you know."
She thought, I can't sit through a meal with him - alone - talking - behaving as usual. She said impatiently, "Oh, do let me arrange things my own way!"
Chapter 4
It was no mere housemaid who wakened Elinor the following morning. It was Mrs. Bishop in person, rustling in her old-fashioned black, and weeping unashamedly.
"Oh, Miss Elinor, she's gone."
"What?"
Elinor sat up in bed.
"Your dear aunt. Mrs. Welman. My dear mistress. Passed away in her sleep."
"Aunt Laura? Dead?"
Elinor stared. She seemed unable to take it in.
Mrs. Bishop was weeping now with more abandon. "To think of it," she sobbed.
"After all these years! Eighteen years I've been here. But indeed it doesn't seem like it."
Elinor said slowly, "So Aunt Laura died in her sleep - quite peacefully. What a blessing for her!"
Mrs. Bishop wept.
"So sudden. The doctor saying he'd call again this morning and everything just as usual."
Elinor said rather sharply, "It wasn't exactly sudden. After all, she'd been ill for some time. I'm just so thankful she's been spared more suffering."
Mrs. Bishop said tearfully that there was indeed that to be thankful for. She added, "Who'll tell Mr. Roderick?"
Elinor said, "I will."
She threw on a dressing-gown and went along to his door and tapped. His voice answered, saying, "Come in."
She entered. "Aunt Laura's dead, Roddy. She died in her sleep."
Roddy, sitting up in bed, drew a deep sigh. "Poor dear Aunt Laura! Thank God for it, I say. I couldn't have borne to see her go on lingering in the state she was yesterday."
Elinor said mechanically, "I didn't know you'd seen her?"
He nodded rather shamefacedly. "The truth is, Elinor, I felt the most awful coward, because I'd funked it! I went along there yesterday evening. The nurse, the fat one, left the room for something - went down with a hot-water bottl
e, I think - and I slipped in. She didn't know I was there, of course. I just stood a bit and looked at her. Then, when I heard Mrs. Gamp stumping up the stairs again, I slipped away. But it was - pretty terrible!"
Elinor nodded. "Yes, it was."
Roddy said, "She'd have hated it like hell - every minute of it!"
"I know."
Roddy said, "It's marvellous the way you and I always see alike over things."
Elinor said in a low voice, "Yes, it is."
He said, "We're both feeling the same thing at this minute: just utter thankfulness that she's out of it all."
II
Nurse O'Brien said, "What is it, Nurse? Can't you find something?"
Nurse Hopkins, her face rather red, was hunting through the little attache case that she had laid down in the hall the preceding evening.
She grunted, "Most annoying. How I came to do such a thing I can't imagine!"
"What is it?"
Nurse Hopkins replied not very intelligibly: "It's Eliza Rykin - that sarcoma, you know. She's got to have double injections - night and morning - morphine. Gave her the last tablet in the old tube last night on my way here, and I could swear I had the new tube in here, too."
"Look again. Those tubes are so small."
Nurse Hopkins gave a final stir to the contents of the attache case.
"No, it's not here! I must have left it in my cupboard after all! Really, I did think I could trust my memory better than that. I could have sworn I took it out with me!"
"You didn't leave the case anywhere, did you, on the way here?"
"Of course not!" said Nurse Hopkins sharply.
"Oh, well, dear," said Nurse O'Brien, "it must be all right."
"Oh, yes! The only place I've laid my case down was here in this hall, and nobody here would pinch anything! Just my memory, I suppose. But it vexes me, if you understand, Nurse. Besides, I shall have to go right home first to the other end of the village and back again."
Nurse O'Brien said, "Hope you won't have too tiring a day, dear, after last night. Poor old lady. I didn't think she would last long."
"No, nor I.I dare say Doctor will be surprised!"
Nurse O'Brien said with a tinge of disapproval, "He's always so hopeful about his cases."
Nurse Hopkins, as she prepared to depart, said, "Ah, he's young! He hasn't our experience." On which gloomy pronouncement she departed.
III
Dr. Lord raised himself up on his toes. His sandy eyebrows climbed right up his forehead till they nearly got merged in his hair.
He said in surprise, "So she's conked out - eh?"
"Yes, Doctor."
On Nurse O'Brien's tongue exact details were tingling to be uttered, but with stern discipline she waited.
Peter Lord said thoughtfully, "Conked out?" He stood for a moment thinking, then he said sharply, "Get me some boiling water."
Nurse O'Brien was surprised and mystified, but true to the spirit of hospital training, hers not to reason why. If a doctor had told her to go and get the skin of an alligator she would have murmured automatically, "Yes, Doctor," and glided obediently from the room to tackle the problem.
IV
Roderick Welman said, "Do you mean to say that my aunt died intestate - that she never made a will at all?"
Mr. Seddon polished his eyeglasses. He said, "That seems to be the case."
Roddy said, "But how extraordinary!" Mr. Seddon gave a deprecating cough. "Not so extraordinary as you might imagine. It happens oftener than you would think. There's a kind of superstition about it. People will think they've got plenty of time. The mere fact of making a will seems to bring the possibility of death nearer to them. Very odd - but there it is!"
Roddy said, "Didn't you ever - er - expostulate with her on the subject?"
Mr. Seddon replied dryly, "Frequently."
"And what did she say?"
Mr. Seddon sighed. "The usual things. That there was plenty of time! That she didn't intend to die just yet! That she hadn't made up her mind definitely, exactly how she wished to dispose of her money!"
Elinor said, "But surely, after her first stroke?"
Mr. Seddon shook his head. "Oh, no, it was worse then. She wouldn't hear the subject mentioned!"
Roddy said, "Surely that's very odd?"
Mr. Seddon said again, "Oh, no. Naturally, her illness made her much more nervous."
Elinor said in a puzzled voice, "But she wanted to die."
Polishing his eyeglasses, Mr. Seddon said, "Ah, my dear Miss Elinor, the human mind is a very curious piece of mechanism. Mrs. Welman may have thought she wanted to die, but side by side with that feeling there ran the hope that she would recover absolutely. And because of that hope, I think she felt that to make a will would be unlucky. It isn't so much that she didn't mean to make one, as that she was eternally putting it off. "You know," went on Mr. Seddon, suddenly addressing Roddy in an almost personal manner, "how one puts off and avoids a thing that is distasteful - that you don't want to face?"
Roddy flushed. He muttered, "Yes, I - I - yes, of course. I know what you mean."
"Exactly," said Mr. Seddon. "Mrs. Welman always meant to make a will, but tomorrow was always a better day to make it than today! She kept telling herself that there was plenty of time."
Elinor said slowly, "So that's why she was so upset last night - and in such a panic that you should be sent for."
Mr. Seddon replied, "Undoubtedly!"
Roddy said in a bewildered voice, "But what happens now?"
"To Mrs. Welman's estate? "The lawyer coughed. "Since Mrs. Welman died intestate, all her property goes to her next of kin - that is, to Miss Elinor Carlisle."
Elinor said slowly, "All to me?"
"The Crown takes a certain percentage," Mr. Seddon explained. He went into details. He ended, "There are no settlements or trusts. Mrs. Welman's money was hers absolutely to do with as she chose. It passes, therefore, straight to Miss Carlisle. Er - the death duties, I am afraid, will be somewhat heavy, but even after their payment, the fortune will still be a considerable one, and it is very well invested in sound, gilt-edged securities."
Elinor said, "But Roderick- "
Mr. Seddon said with a little apologetic cough, "Mr. Welman is only Mrs. Welman's husband's nephew. There is no blood relationship."
"Quite," said Roddy.
Elinor said slowly, "Of course, it doesn't much matter which of us gets it, as we're going to be married." But she did not look at Roddy. It was Mr. Seddon's turn to say, "Quite!" He said it rather quickly.
V
"But it doesn't matter, does it?" Elinor said. She spoke almost pleadingly. Mr. Seddon had departed. Roddy's face twitched nervously. He said, "You ought to have it. It's quite right you should. For heaven's sake, Elinor, don't get it into your head that I grudge it to you. I don't want the damned money!"
Elinor said, her voice slightly unsteady, "We did agree, Roddy, in London that it wouldn't matter which of us it was, as - as we were going to be married?" He didn't answer.
She persisted, "Don't you remember saying that, Roddy?"
He said, "Yes."
He looked down at his feet. His face was white and sullen; there was pain in the taut lines of his sensitive mouth.
Elinor said with a sudden gallant lift of the head, "It doesn't matter - if we're going to be married.... But are we, Roddy?"
He said, "Are we what?"
"Are we going to marry each other?"
"I understood that was the idea." His tone was indifferent, with a slight edge to it. He went on: "Of course, Elinor, if you've other ideas now"
Elinor cried out, "Oh, Roddy, can't you be honest?" He winced. Then he said in a low, bewildered voice, "I don't know what's happened to me."
Elinor said in a stifled voice, "I do."
He said quickly, "Perhaps it's true that I don't, after all, quite like the idea of living on my wife's money."
Elinor, her face white, said, "It's not that. It's something e
lse." She paused, then she said, "It's - Mary, isn't it?"
Roddy muttered unhappily, "I suppose so. How did you know?"
Elinor said, her mouth twisting sideways in a crooked smile, "It wasn't difficult. Every time you look at her - it's there in your face for anyone to read."
Suddenly his composure broke. "Oh, Elinor - I don't know what's the matter ! I think I'm going mad! It happened when I saw her - that first day - in the wood ... just her face - it - it's turned everything upside down. You can't understand that."
Elinor said, "Yes, I can. Go on."
Roddy said helplessly, "I didn't want to fall in love with her - I was quite happy with you. Oh, Elinor, what a cad I am, talking like this to you"
Elinor said, "Nonsense. Go on. Tell me."
He said brokenly, "You're wonderful. Talking to you helps frightfully. I'm so terribly fond of you, Elinor! You must believe that. This other thing is like an enchantment! It's upset everything: my conception of life and my enjoyment of things - and - all the decent, ordered, reasonable things."
Elinor said gently, "Love - isn't very reasonable."
Roddy said miserably, "No."
Elinor said, and her voice trembled a little, "Have you said anything to her?"
Roddy said, "This morning - like a fool - I lost my head -"
Elinor said, "Yes?"
Roddy said, "Of course she - shut me up at once! She was shocked. Because of Aunt Laura and–of you–"
Elinor drew the diamond ring off her finger. She said, "You'd better take it back, Roddy."
Taking it, he murmured without looking at her, "Elinor, you've no idea what a beast I feel."
Elinor said in her calm voice, "Do you think she'll marry you?"
He shook his head. "I've no idea. Not - not for a long time. I don't think she cares for me now; but she might come to care."
Elinor said, "I think you're right. You must give her time. Not see her for a bit, and then - start afresh."