Bella argued no further. Dr. Frost, after all, could hardly be so inconsiderate as to insist.
Jack came over, took her hand and kissed her chastely on the brow. “Rest for now,” he said.
But there was not rest for long.
Just as Bella fell asleep, or so it seemed as she did not have the time since she had lost her watch, she was shaken awake and looked up to see Nancy standing over her. “What is it? What is wrong?”
“There’s nothing wrong, madam. Nothing at all. Only to make the bed.”
“You woke me up to make the bed?” Bella could not believe her ears. “When I’d just fallen asleep?”
“The Master’s orders, madam.” Nancy said brightly, fetching Bella’s dressing gown. “Mr. Manningham said to make it special.” She pulled back the covers. “You just sit in the chair, madam. It won’t take a moment.”
Bella put on the dressing gown and her bedroom slippers. She did not sit in the chair, but took the chrysanthemums and placed them on a table by the window where they could enjoy the light.
Then she sat at the dressing table brushing her hair, watching Nancy making the bed. She turned the feather mattress with a strength that Bella had not imagined the girl possessed and beat the feather pillow with a vigor that was almost savage.
Bella unlocked her jewel case, thinking to lay out the Persephone brooch, should she be forced to wear it. She lifted out the tray.
The brooch was gone.
Her first reaction was a terrible fear of what Jack would say to her, do to her . . .
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mr. Manningham did not come in promptly at noon, though Bella had no means of knowing that at the time. He had been unavoidably delayed, he explained, by whom he did not say, but by what Bella could smell from the odor of porter, which came to her as he sat upon the bed. He took her hands.
Bella had not been able to sleep after the discovery that the brooch was missing. Her fears which had been somewhat allayed by Jack’s gentleness, returned the stronger for not being able to decide with any certainty what she must fear. Was Jack’s new manner a change of heart or—heartless thought—only of tactic? Was this disappearance of the brooch a genuine lapse, some monstrous trick played by her own brain? Or was it done by her husband? These were questions which would have been hard enough for Bella to answer in a state of tranquillity; in her confusion, they were impossible. She hoped that she looked as ill as she felt, keeping her eyes closed, her fingers pressed on his.
“Are you not going to ask what Dr. Frost told me, Bella?”
“I thought I could trust you to tell me, Jack.”
Mr. Manningham pulled his hands away. “Ugh!” She heard him rise. “It’s hopeless!” She kept her eyes closed but could tell that he was pacing up and down the room. “Utterly hopeless!”
She lay inert.
There was silence in the room, broken only by the rattle of wheels and the clip-clop of a carriage and four from the street below.
Suddenly Bella felt the sting of a hand against; one cheek, then the other, then the first again.
She cried out in surprise and agony and opened her eyes.
His face was thrust down at hers, white flecks at the edges of his earthworm mouth. “You malingering madwoman!” He spat in his rage. “That made you open your eyes and sit up, didn’t it?”
She cowered, thinking he had gone insane, wondering could she escape from the room? But his fists gripped and squeezed her wrists until his jaw shook with effort. Was he at last going to kill her? She almost wished he would—anything would be better than her life of horror.
“I’ve been talking to Dr. Frost,” he said. “And his instructions are firm. You are to continue to take your medicine religiously. You will get up for luncheon. You will behave yourself in a normal, adult fashion, and you will come to dine and the play this evening.”
Bella looked at him imploringly. “But, Jack you can see! How can you suddenly change like this?”
He released her suddenly and went to the chimney-piece. “I have no understanding of conditions like yours,” he said, “or did not, until the doctor explained. There are people who can be killed by kindness and you are one of them, Bella. Look at your degeneration since this morning at breakfast time when I misguidedly tried kindness with you. I come back and find you so sunk in lethargy that you will not even open your eyes!”
“It is not at all like that!” cried Bella.
“But it is indeed,” Manningham said, “that is, if Dr. Frost is to be trusted, and between you and I, I credit his competence higher than yours, my poor, mad Bella!”
“I have the evidence of my own senses!”
“Dr. Frost has the evidence of the locked wards of lunatic asylums; of wretched creatures saved from self-destruction by the strait jacket; to say nothing of those still more unfortunate, who, indulged as you would wish to be, decay into private idiocy, or make away with themselves. I am sorry. You complained of the bitterness of the doctor’s physic. But his psychology must be painful, too, if we are to avoid the extremity we dread, none more than you. I really would hate to put you away in an asylum, but if I must, I must. After all, your dear mother died raving.”
Seeing her husband’s face and listening to his words, Bella thought, if either were certifiable, he was more a maniac than she, but he was still the master. “Then what must I do?”
He took from his pocket her fob watch. “I wonder what possessed you to hide this in the pocket of my evening dress waistcoat? Some secret wish to be taken to the theatre perhaps?” He compared its time with his own. “Luncheon will be served within the half hour. I shall expect you downstairs. Would you like the assistance of the undermaid?”
“In God’s name, no!” she said.
“I am glad,” he said. “Elizabeth has need of her.”
Bella was utterly without appetite. “You will please start without me. I will watch you eat. But I have no hunger.”
“But you must eat,” said Manningham. “Your medicine must be taken after meals.”
Bella, try as she might, was five minutes late in the dining room. Jack was waiting for her, talking to Nancy. “Ah!” he said, “splendid! In fine trim, considering how vague and disordered we were so recently! Don’t you think madam has made an astonishing recovery, Nancy?”
“She looks just like ’erself again, sir!” Nancy blew the lift whistle as a signal to the cook.
“I am present,” Bella said.
“Pardon?”
“In polite society,” Bella said, “one does not talk . . . about people . . .” She collapsed into her chair, “. . . about people who are present . . . in the third person.”
Jack sat at the far end of the table. “You must listen to Mrs. Manningham very carefully, Nancy, if you are to better yourself. Mrs. Manningham is a very highly educated lady. She reads Homer in the original Latin and Virgilius Naso, the Nosey One, in Greek. I have always envied her reading and her fine mind.”
Nancy giggled, as she brought over the tureen of soup. She took off the lid and by the time Nancy had brought the soup plates, Bella had caught its aroma. “If that is artichoke soup,” Bella said, “there is no need for me to tell you that I do not drink it.”
Manningham ladled out one spoonful and Nancy passed it to Bella. “The artichoke makes one of the most nourishing of soups. You must build yourself up, Dr. Frost said.”
Artichoke soup appealed to Mr. Manningham. He consumed three ladlefuls while his wife sipped at her portion of what to her tasted like a tinny poison.
“If you don’t do better than that, my dear,” her husband said, “I’m afraid that you will vanish quite away. Wouldn’t you say, Nancy?”
Nancy said nothing, because she was dispatching the soup belowstairs.
For the meat course Jack had ordered a boiled leg of mutton with parsnips, potatoes and a white onion sauce. It was a dish that she disliked almost as much as artichoke soup. “Very little, please!”
Mr. Manningh
am sharpened the carving knife on the steel. Then he cut into the middle of the joint. A gap loomed. “Would that be enough?” he asked jocosely.
“I think it would, without vegetables.”
He proceeded to cut a thick fatty slice.
“No, that is enough,” Bella said, as she saw him cutting further.
He cut two more slices, laid them on her plate, piled high the roots, and passed the plate to Nancy. “I can’t possibly consume this,” Bella said.
Mr. Manningham looked up from cutting for himself an equally ample portion. “Little girls should eat what is put before them.”
There followed plum duff, a pudding which made her want to vomit, but of which Jack was inordinately fond. “On Dr. Frost’s behalf, Nancy,” he said, “if I am abroad for meals, I must ask you to see that Mrs. Manningham eats well. She is growing thin as a bird.”
“Yes sir.”
“I want you to consider yourself as a sort of nurse, Nancy, till Mrs. Manningham is recovered, that is.”
“I would like to go to my room,” Bella said.
“But of course,” Jack answered. “When you have taken your medicine. I expect you would like to lie down.” He turned to Nancy. “Would you give Mrs. Manningham her medicine? Shake the bottle for her.”
Nancy not only shook the bottle. She poured the medicine into the spoon and was going to feed Bella with it like a baby.
“I can take it perfectly well by myself, thank you,” Bella said, grasping the spoon and spilling half of it as she poured it down her throat.
“It doesn’t seem that you can, my dear,” Mr. Manningham said. “Would you pour some more, Nancy? A full dose is prescribed.”
Bella had already risen, hoping to escape, but Jack was quickly between her and the door. “I think Mrs. Manningham would prefer,” Jack said to the undermaid, who was poised with the spoon ready, if necessary, to force the medicine on the patient, “to administer the dose to herself.”
Bella looked from one of them to the other. This was what she might face in Bedlam. Her gullet was burning with the first half dose. She took the spoon from the maid and tossed the medicine back, went out of the door, which her husband involuntarily opened, climbed to the half-landing lavatory, and while the two of them were still downstairs, she vomited into the pan.
It was horrible. She felt unclean, dizzy, frightened. She pulled up the handle to flush the pan. There was a frosted window to the lavatory door. She thought that they might be waiting outside with spoon and medicine bottle, but she drew back the bolt, and opened the door. The door to the dining room was closed. She could hear Jack’s voice raised in what sounded like reassurance.
She struggled up the stairs as fast as she could. If only she could get to her bedroom and bolt the door!
She reached the bedroom, but the keeper of the bolt had been unscrewed. Her privacy had gone. There was no furniture she could move, which Jack could not push aside with the first pressure of a shoulder.
Bella looked wildly around the room. She was frightened, more frightened than ever before in her life, with fears as nebulous as those of childhood nightmares, but even more ghastly.
She saw the bell-pull. If she pulled it gently, there was a faint hope that it would be heard only by Elizabeth in the kitchen, supposing that Jack and Nancy were still in the dining room; there was a hope, perhaps fainter still, that Elizabeth might decide to answer it, instead of calling on Nancy, whose domestic duty it was.
The bell was operated by a wire which would become taut by depressing the cord. This, if done sharply, set the heavy bell jangling in the kitchen three floors below; if not done sharply enough, it made no noise at all. Trying to calculate the mean for producing a gentle ring was something only one so desperate as Bella would contemplate; and being so agitated, a desperate woman would be the least qualified to perform it successfully. Three times she drew the wire taut and then gave a short, sharp depression.
Then she waited.
The action, whether successful or not, had crystallized a resolve. She must at all costs get away from Number Thirteen. After all, that was what Jack wanted; if he couldn’t drive her to suicide, he wanted to put her away. There was no other explanation for the way he was carrying on. Perhaps he would suddenly kill her. She would go away; seek protection with the Jamesons, and, when she recovered her wits, she could earn her living as a schoolteacher. If she hadn’t the money for the fare, she would raise it somehow. The red beads from the cameo brooch should fetch enough for fare from a jeweler. She shook the vase on the chimney mantel to make sure that they were still there. Of course, they were. If Jack had only known about them, she thought grimly, they should have disappeared and then turned up somewhere such as in his collar box or the glove drawer in the hall.
The resolution taken, Bella felt an access of strength. She had only to withdraw until the coast was clear; she was not a prisoner in a cell but a hermit in seclusion.
No one answered the bell.
Bella took off her dress and, putting on her dressing gown, lay down on the bed with only the feather eiderdown covering her. She was soon asleep.
She was wakened by a rapping on the door and, as she opened her eyes, she saw Jack come in. “It is time to be getting dressed.” He spoke less like a husband announcing preparations for a pleasure outing than an executioner proclaiming the readiness of the noose.
Bella looked at him with different eyes. Having resolved on physical separation, she was already growing apart in spirit. Legally her husband still, Jack would be better served by being rid of her.
“Are we losing our hearing again?”
Bella did not move, though her body was tensed to slip away on the other side of the bed if Jack launched a sudden physical assault. “The cameo brooch,” she said, quietly, “it is gone.”
“Gone!” He walked over to her jewel case and lifted out the tray. Then he turned, his expression grave. “This is not a joke, Bella. I cannot impress this on you too strongly.” He grasped his left fist in his right and cracked the finger-joints. “Pull yourself together! Where is that brooch?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps you do, or that little tramp of a maid does, but I don’t. Ask her, she’s your confederate, isn’t she?”
“This is something which I will not tolerate.” He made a lunge, but she slipped from the bed to the other side. He glared at her, the veins on his temples thick. “You did this in order to avoid the excursion this evening, didn’t you?” He came round to the end of the bed. Bella backed away, behind an armchair. “Well, my girl. You have succeeded. You will not have to dine at the Criterion, or sit in the stalls of the Prince of Wales. You can have your quiet evening at home, but I warn you that tomorrow morning Dr. Frost will wait upon you with a colleague.”
“You mean you want to put me away?” Bella could not really believe that her husband was capable of such cold-bloodedness.
“I want to do, as always, what is best for you, my girl. As to what that may be, I must be guided by the medical practitioners. Meanwhile I must cancel the reservation and return the tickets.” He made for the door.
“Could you not do that by messenger?”
“But I do not choose to. The fresh air will do me good.”
“You will be back directly, though?”
“I am touched by your solicitude,” he answered as he prepared to leave, “but I shall possibly visit the club. Witty they may not be, but at least they are not witless. Well, I don’t plan to put up with your demented behavior for much longer. One way or another I shall take action.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bella stood at the window looking down at the street. On the far side she noticed a young man wearing a brown bowler hat with a cream silk handkerchief in the breast pocket of his brown worsted jacket and white spats over his brown shoes. He walked slowly up the street, reading a folded copy of The Pink ’Un, in which he appeared immersed. Having covered thirty yards or so, he turned and started to walk back.
Sudde
nly he stopped and unfolded the newspaper to turn to another page. While he was doing this, Mr. Manningham appeared, crossing the street in the young man’s direction.
Bella was about to turn away when she noticed that her husband stopped and looked over the newspaper at the young man. The young man awkwardly tried to gather the newspaper in one hand, take off his hat with the other and answer some question addressed to him by Mr. Manningham. Then, with a nod of his head, Mr. Manningham strode off, leaving the young man to refold his newspaper.
Bella was puzzled until she realized that the young man must be Nancy’s beau, Bert Booker, a steady young fellow who was, according to Elizabeth, “worth two of her.”
Bert Booker waited until Mr. Manningham disappeared around the corner, then he walked briskly across the street and disappeared, hidden from view by the protrusion of the drawing room balcony.
Taking off her dressing gown, Bella began to dress. It was Nancy’s evening out. She went off duty at half-past five, but while the undermaid was still in the house, Bella could unobtrusively pack. She could check to see how late trains ran to York, but she did not dare to speak to Elizabeth until Nancy was out of the way. She needed Elizabeth’s assistance, especially if she was to take Cerberus with her, and she could not bear to leave the puppy behind.
She was just finishing dressing, when there was a light tap on the door. It was Elizabeth, earnestly deferential. She came on Nancy’s behalf. Could she get off early? Bert Booker was downstairs and wanted to take Nancy out in a quarter of an hour’s time. Elizabeth said she could manage.
“Certainly,” Bella said. “She may go now if she wants. But as soon as she has gone, I want to have a talk with you.”
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