Nursery Tea and Poison

by Anne Morice

  ‘The theory being that she confused one tin with the other?’

  ‘Undoubtedly, that’s what happened. They’re quite similar, you know, in colour as well as substance.’

  ‘Yes, but even so, my dear, could she really have made such a huge mistake? The poison is very plainly labelled, isn’t it? If I remember rightly, there is even a drawing of a vigorous, man-eating rat. She could hardly have missed that.’

  ‘Not in normal circumstances, I agree, Richard, but there’s something else I haven’t told you yet.’

  ‘Then please do so at once,’ he said, leaning forward and looking at her with an earnestness I could not quite account for.

  This is not a thing I could swear to in a court of law, but it seemed to me then, as looking back it does to this day, that there was a distinct pause before Serena answered him and that during it she tilted her head very slightly and shot me a warning, or it could have been an entreating look. Then she said:

  ‘She was very independent, you see; hated asking for help, but she was also much more blind than she cared to admit and that night she wasn’t wearing her spectacles. She couldn’t have been. They were lost several days ago.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  1

  If Dr Soames’s disclosure that there was to be an inquest on Edith Mary Childers came as no surprise to any of us, the one which followed it a few hours later amply compensated for that, both in unexpectedness and in its element of grotesquerie. At a small, and up till then subdued gathering at West Lodge after the funeral, Primrose and Jake announced their engagement.

  Naturally, given their separate styles of communication, the news was not revealed in one blinding flash. Primrose started the ball rolling in typically inept fashion, having evidently decided to fortify herself for the ordeal by grabbing a sandwich from the tray Mrs Thorne was handing round, with the result that she had her mouth full and those nearest to her were showered with wet crumbs when she bawled out:

  ‘Jake’s got something to tell you.’

  She then turned scarlet in the face, plumped herself down again and scowled at the lot of us, without any special fear or favour.

  There was probably no one in the audience who did not conclude from this introduction that Jake was about to declare his intention of terminating the Chargrove lease and in my own case the impression was actually strengthened when he began to speak. Punctuated by the regulation aw-ing and ahming and laboured sighs, he proceeded to relate in a long drawn out fashion that he had fully intended to end his days in this quiet haven, as a lonely old bachelor, tending his flock and husbanding his green pastures, or words to that effect, but that fate had decreed otherwise and it was now his pleasure to tell us of the great blessing which had been bestowed on him.

  Some of the others may have shared my opinion that his timing showed a want of tact, but there was no question that he had gripped our attention. Serena was biting her lip in anguish and even Pelham and Lindy had stopped nuzzling each other. Aware of this, no doubt, Jake manifested a high sense of drama by crossing the room in two manly strides grasping Primrose’s hand and announcing through tears of joy that this little girl had done him the honour of becoming the future Mrs Farrer. Whereupon Pelham ruined the scene by bursting into deafening shouts of laughter.

  This might not have been so disastrous had not Lindy, ever ready to oblige, echoed him with her own little trills, which so enraged Primrose that she was inspired to make one of the few pertinent remarks of her career:

  ‘Ha ha ha! Very funny!’ she said, breathing heavily. ‘I bet you find it jolly ridiculous for someone to marry someone twice their age –’

  In my opinion, she had scored a point.

  ‘I do beg your pardon, Jake . . . Primrose,’ Pelham said, tears of laughter still coursing down his face. ‘Of course, there’s nothing funny about it. It’s the very best thing that could have happened and I hope you’ll both be extremely happy.’

  ‘Oh yes, and so do we all,’ Serena fluttered unhappily. ‘I’m sure we do, but I mean, it’s all rather a shock, isn’t it? Why did neither of you tell me?’

  ‘We just have told you,’ Primrose growled.

  ‘Yes, I know, darling, but you see, you never gave me a hint. I simply don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Then simply shut up and say nothing. I don’t care.’

  ‘Well, perhaps that would be best. We can talk about it some other time.’

  ‘No, we can’t because there’s nothing to talk about. We’ve both made up our minds and you can like it or lump it.’

  I doubt whether she would have behaved quite so ungraciously in Jake’s presence, but in fact he had already left the room; though not, as it transpired, because he had taken exception to the somewhat tepid reception of his news, but in order to supply the final missing touch in this bizarre situation. When he returned, only two minutes later, he had a bottle of Moët stacked under each arm.

  For some reason I could not pin down, this sight evoked a teasing memory, and a sensation of having lived through the scene before which, being so unlikely, made it all the more puzzling. However, there was no time to track it down because fresh diversions were at hand. Admittedly, a funeral party is about the least appropriate occasion yet devised for raising champagne glasses and wishing people long life and happiness, but everything had become so unreal by this time that I daresay we might have taken it in our stride, given a suitable lead from our hostess. Unfortunately, Serena, who normally lived up to her name in the face of fiercest provocation from all sides, let us down with a wallop. Having taken only one sip, her mouth stretched into a grimace, which had no doubt begun life as a smile, and she then quietly dissolved into tears.

  At this point, Mrs Thorne, who had been standing by the door, stiff and expressionless as a telegraph pole, darted forward, placed an arm round Serena’s shoulder and gently guided her to a chair, while Pelham, Lindy and I hovered uncertainly, looking for something to do with our glasses.

  There was a moment of incredulous silence on the part of the happy pair, then Primrose slammed her own glass down, spilling most of the contents on the rosewood sewing table, and barged out of the room. Jake shook his head dumbly, followed up the gesture with a quizzical smile, then realised the act was a waste of time and loped after her, as Serena let out a long, grief stricken wail.

  ‘Oh, my poor child!’ she bleated. ‘Oh, poor Primrose! What have I done to her now?’

  2

  ‘And what had she done to her?’ Robin enquired, when I had described this scene to him. ‘Did you ever discover?’

  ‘Not exactly. She’d obviously been knocked sideways by the news and was blaming herself for Primrose making such a hash of her life, which is a thing I suppose all mothers are prone to.’

  ‘It sounded more specific than that. As though a fresh element had crept in.’

  ‘And so it has. I suppose the truth is that the poor girl draws some special feeling of security from elderly people and now she’s lost her old Nan she wants to be babied by Jake instead.’

  ‘And could Serena be blaming herself for the old Nan’s death? Is that what set her off?’

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me, Robin. Serena could find a way to blame herself for practically anything you can name. No doubt, she’s now convinced herself that as soon as Nannie lost her spectacles it was her clear duty to lock up every harmful substance in the house. She probably imagines that by neglecting this small precaution she has literally flung Primrose into Jake’s arms. Personally, I can’t see that it matters if she has. They have loads of interests in common, and when he dies she’ll still be reasonably young, as well as rich. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t live out her dream and spend the rest of her life at Chargrove. Pelham might even be persuaded to get the entail broken and sell it to her. He doesn’t want to live there himself and after this weekend I should imagine he’ll have even less affection for the place.’

  As forecasts went, this was fairly wide of the mark, but
in that respect it was modest compared to the one which followed soon afterwards. The conversation was taking place in the parlour and almost as I finished speaking the telephone rang. Through the open doorway I saw Serena coming from the kitchen to answer it and, after the most laconic and unilluminating of exchanges, she replaced the receiver and came to tell us the latest news:

  ‘That was Richard. He says the inquest is to be the day after tomorrow. I wish you could stay for it, Robin. You’re such a steady old prop.’

  ‘I know. Isn’t it sad? I used to be quite dashing and flighty until Tessa came into my life.’

  ‘Seriously, Robin . . .’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, my dear, but I’m on my way back to London and I have to clock in early tomorrow morning. I couldn’t very well ask for compassionate leave on those grounds. The question would inevitably come up as to whether there was no one in your family you could call upon, and I should have to confess that there was not only a grown up daughter on the premises, but a middle-aged brother-in-law as well.’

  ‘And I don’t need to tell you what a fat lot of use they’ll be. Primrose will probably be carried out in hysterics and it will surprise me if Pelham even bothers to turn up. He can be remarkably elusive when things get rough.’

  ‘Well, at least you’ll have Tessa. One could hardly call her steady, but she’ll stick around till this is over.’

  ‘You really will, won’t you, darling?’ Serena asked me.

  ‘You bet! Barring a last minute request to take over the lead at the National, I’m here for the duration.’

  ‘That’s a great comfort, and a great weight off my mind.’

  This remark would have been even more flattering if she hadn’t sounded as though I had still left several tons on it and Robin said in a rather puzzled tone:

  ‘Anyway, it beats me what you’re worrying about.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, it was something Richard said on the telephone just now.’

  ‘About the inquest?’

  ‘Yes, and not quite so much what he said as how he sounded. Sort of cross and at the same time embarrassed, the way men do sometimes when they feel guilty. There was something about how I ought to be prepared for a few surprises and he hoped I wouldn’t mind too much, but he had to warn me that things might not be quite so straightforward as we’d hoped.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I simply have no idea. I couldn’t make it out at all. Naturally, I was dying to ask him what he meant, but I didn’t dare. I had the distinct impression that he had rung me up against his better judgement and that, if I were to press him, he’d get angrier and more embarrassed than ever. I don’t think I imagined it.’

  ‘Maybe not, but your mind may well be seizing on details just now and magnifying them out of all proportion. You’ll probably find that he was in a hurry and had a lot on his mind and I’ve yet to meet a medical man who hasn’t mastered the first requirement of that profession, which is to intimidate the patient who’s in the mood to ask a lot of time wasting questions.’

  ‘So you think there’s nothing whatever to worry about?’

  ‘Oh, it’s possible that some new facts about her case may come to light, but I can’t see how they could affect the outcome. After all, you’ve put forward a very plausible theory as to how she came to swallow the stuff. She was in her eighties and had already had one coronary attack, so Tessa tells me, so I don’t see how there could be any argument over the verdict.’

  ‘And you promise me, Robin, that you’re not just saying that to cheer me up?’

  ‘No. If he’s one of those busybody coroners, he may treat you to a little homily on the carelessness of people who leave dangerous poisons lying around where blind old people can get at them, but I’ll practically guarantee that’s the worst you can expect,’ Robin told her, thereby setting up a new world record for false prophecy.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  1

  The verdict, as became inevitable five minutes after the proceedings opened, was Wilful Murder by Person or Persons Unknown, and within forty-eight hours of his leaving the house I was on the telephone to Robin, urging him to return.

  ‘This is a case for compassionate leave, if ever there was one,’ I told him. ‘The principle object of compassion being myself.’

  ‘Things a bit dicey, are they?’

  ‘Well, naturally, it didn’t come as a lovely surprise, or even the sort of nasty little pinprick that Dr Soames hinted at. Serena insists that the whole thing is just a stupid mistake, but the evidence doesn’t bear her out and in any case it won’t go away just because she refuses to face it. Everyone else seems too shocked or scared even to discuss it. I blame myself too.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘For not speaking up. I guessed all along there was something fishy about Nannie’s death, but you seemed so confident that I thought we were safely out of the wood.’

  ‘What difference would it have made if you hadn’t?’

  ‘None to the verdict, of course, but at least Serena would have been prepared. She could have had her solicitor there, for one thing, and between us we might have cooked up a slightly better story than the one she produced.’

  ‘What was wrong with it?’

  ‘Simply that the medical evidence didn’t tally in any way with that cosy little theory of her having sprinkled rat poison on her cereal in mistake for wheat germ.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because, unbeknown to herself or anyone else, except Dr Soames who prescribed it and the chemist who made it up, she’d been taking regular doses of this Warfarin stuff for the past two months.’

  ‘You’re joking?’

  ‘Not for one moment. This may come as news to you, Robin, it certainly did to me, but it appears it’s quite commonly used in some cardiac conditions. It thins down the blood and reduces the risk of a clot. They don’t often give it to old people, but Dr Soames tried it on Nannie as a last resort, because he’d entirely failed to get her to stick to a diet or lead a sensible kind of life. She’d been on it for weeks and there hadn’t been any ill effects whatever, so you can see what that means?’

  ‘That she’d acquired a degree of tolerance?’

  ‘Right. In other words, a small amount such as she might have swallowed by mistake probably wouldn’t have done her any harm at all.’

  ‘Hang on a minute though, Tessa. You said just now that this drug, or whatever it is, isn’t normally prescribed for elderly people, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So doesn’t that mean it can be risky, even in quite small doses?’

  ‘Exactly the point which the Coroner raised and Dr Soames got very peeved about it. Of course his professional reputation was at stake, so he was extra touchy, but he was absolutely positive this didn’t apply in Nannie’s case. He’d been meticulous about taking blood counts and so on, from the moment he put her on the stuff and he swears that he’d have noticed at the first sign of anything going wrong. In any case, the autopsy showed up a far greater quantity than should have been present in the circumstances.’

  ‘When did he last visit the patient?’

  ‘About ten days before she died. The theory being that during the week before death the intake had been stepped up to about four times the regular dose. We were given a small straw to clutch at when it was put to him that she might have increased it herself, on the principle that the more of this preventive medicine she took the more she could lash into the rich food. That would have been quite in character, but unfortunately it wouldn’t stand up. She was on the National Health, so could only get the stuff on prescription and she had to produce a new one each time she wanted a fresh supply from the chemist.’

  ‘In other words . . .’

  ‘Someone else has been systematically increasing the dose.’

  ‘Who collected the medicine from the chemist?’

  ‘Sometimes the doctor brought it up himself. Otherwise, practically anyone who happened to be going down to t
he village, and in fact I’m sure she won’t mind a bit,’ I continued, without a break but with an abrupt switch of tone, ‘she’s always saying how much she wishes you were here.’

  There had been a sound on the landing above, followed by Serena’s descent to the hall, and I had implicit trust in his ability to catch on. This was not misplaced.

  ‘Have you gone mad or can you be overheard?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, marvellous!’

  ‘Well, I’ll do my best for you. It may take a bit of re-arranging, but there’s a weekend coming up and I might conceivably wangle an extra day and join you on Friday.’

  ‘Oh, good! We’ll expect you about tea time.’

  ‘Don’t count on it.’

  ‘Yes, I will. Goodbye, darling.’

  2

  ‘The only trouble is,’ Serena said, swiftly filling the vacuum left by the removal of one worry, ‘I don’t know where we’ll put him. You can’t both squeeze into the boxroom. There’s the nursery, of course, but one could hardly suggest his sleeping in there.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it would bother him in the least, he’s not nearly so squeamish as you or I would be, but I shouldn’t dream of letting you put him up. You’ve got more than enough to do already, without saddling yourself with an extra guest and Robin is expert at finding his way around. He’s bound to get fixed up with somewhere to stay before he leaves London.’

  ‘I suppose we could give him Primrose’s room and ask her to move over to the big house for a couple of nights,’ she went on, unaccustomed to having problems swept from her path so expeditiously. ‘There’s really no reason, when they’re so soon to be married, why he should be rattling around there on his own, with at least fifteen empty bedrooms, but I’m afraid his old world scruples would prevent his sharing the same roof with the bride until after the ceremony.’