There was a mingling of concerted yells before she actually jumped on Beatrice, her hands going over her shoulders and under her oxters, and pinning her arms. And Beatrice herself let out a scream of pain as she was borne to the floor. She fell, flat with Daisy on top of her, and it was evident that Daisy was winded, too, because she couldn’t speak for a moment. But then she was shouting up at the cook, ‘Something to tie her hands and feet! Quickly!’
The three women were looking around desperately when Daisy’s voice came at them: ‘Your apron straps! Tear them off, woman! Your apron straps!’
Cook pulled off her apron from her well-padded body and with a twist of her wrist tore the crossed linen straps from their base. And now Daisy, pulling herself up knelt on Beatrice’s thrashing legs, then cried to the girls, ‘Tie her wrists together!’ And this they did only too willingly, and when Daisy had strapped them tight with one piece of the linen, she used the other to do the same with her ankles. Now turning Beatrice onto her back, she stood up gasping, staring down at the mouth opening and shutting as she repeated one word, ‘You! You! You!’
‘Hoist her into the chair.’
Cook dragged the trussed figure none too gently towards a carved, bog oak hall chair, and with help from the girls pulled her up and dropped her into it, causing Beatrice to emit a groan as her bound hands hit the back of it, the while Daisy, bending over Mrs Falconer, said, ‘Come on, my dear, sit up, sit up. It’s all right. We’ve sent for the doctor.’
It must have been the word doctor that brought Beatrice fully back into consciousness, for she screamed, ‘No doctor . . . no doctor’s coming here! No!’ She tossed herself backwards and forwards in the chair, and Daisy, looking at Frances who was visibly trembling, said, ‘Does she take sleeping tablets?’
‘Yes, ma’am. Yes, she does. She does.’
‘Go and get them.’
This order brought forth another scream from Beatrice.
When within a minute Frances handed the box of sleeping tablets to Daisy, Daisy said, ‘I hear she eats chocolates?’
‘Oh yes, ma’am, yes, by the boxful. There’s an opened box in the drawing room.’
‘Fetch it!’
With the chocolates to hand, Daisy approached the writhing figure and, bending over her, she said, ‘Open your mouth, woman,’ which caused Beatrice only to clamp her jaws tighter together, until Daisy gripped her nose and gave it a twist. And when the mouth opened wide and she thrust in a sleeping tablet, it was immediately spat out back at her. Then taking another tablet from Frances’s trembling fingers, Daisy also picked up a chocolate, gave the nose another twist and inserted the two together into the gaping mouth. This time, however, she immediately clamped down hard on the jaws; and after hearing the guttural swallowing, she repeated the process.
Beatrice was now staring at her, and the look in her eyes was so malevolent that Daisy had to turn away, and going to John now, she looked pityingly down on to his twisted body, and her hand went tightly across her mouth. Then, her eyes closing, she muttered, ‘Oh my God!’ And she added, ‘Oh, my dear John. Dear John. What has she done to you?’
‘Couldn’t . . . couldn’t we straighten him out a bit?’ Mrs Falconer asked brokenly now; and Daisy said, ‘No, dear. Better leave him until the doctor comes. And he’s on his way.’
Catherine Falconer turned an enquiring look on her, as if to say, ‘How could he be . . .?’ And Daisy said, ‘The little maid, I told her to send my driver, and she’s gone for Robbie.’
It was as if the mention of his name had created Robbie, for there he was hurrying along the passage. But at the entrance to the hall he gazed in amazement from the trussed figure in the chair to the twisted form on the floor: ‘God in heaven!’ he cried.
When Robbie knelt down by John’s side, Daisy said, ‘I . . . I wouldn’t touch him until the doctor comes. He’s bleeding profusely, and I don’t know where it’s coming from.’
Robbie nodded, then looked down on the pallid face of the man who had been such a friend to him and found himself unable to find words to express his feelings.
‘She kicked him! She kicked the doctor in the back. Yes she did! Yes she did!’ Frances’s voice was touching on hysteria, and Cook first admonished her then drew the girl tightly towards her.
Looking questioningly at Daisy, Robbie said, ‘He’ll have to be taken to hospital. It’ll need the ambulance. Have you sent for one?’
‘No. No.’ Daisy shook her head.
‘Oh.’ He got to his feet; but still looking down on John, he said, ‘He can’t be left like that for long. The doctor won’t be here for at least twenty minutes, that’s if he’s in; I’ll go and see about it.’ And with this he ran from the hall, and as he did so there came a weird laugh from the tied figure in the chair and a drowsy voice said, ‘Too late, too late.’ . . .
And those were almost the words that Doctor Cornwallis muttered to himself when, twenty-five minutes later, he entered the house. And as he gently cut the trouser leg and small clothes down from the bent limb, he muttered, ‘Almighty . . . !’ for now he was looking at the bones piercing the flesh.
When he heard Mrs Falconer’s drawn-out cry of pain, ‘O . . . h!’ he said to Daisy, ‘Take her away into another room.’
As he felt the erratic pulse on the limp wrist, he made no outward sign but inwardly he was shaking his head.
He looked up at Daisy now and said, ‘An ambulance.’
‘Robbie . . . Mr MacIntosh . . . has gone for one.’
The doctor now turned to look at the drooping figure in the chair and he asked quietly, ‘How did that come about?’
And Daisy answered simply, ‘With some effort,’ and her left hand was bearing witness to this for she knew that, in falling to the floor, she had sprained it.
As Doctor Cornwallis lumbered to his feet his words were enigmatic: ‘He’s got all the proof he needs for his release, but it may be too late now.’
It was just five minutes later when the ambulance arrived and under orders from Doctor Cornwallis, the men did not attempt to straighten the twisted leg as they laid John gently on the stretcher.
‘I’ll follow you there,’ Doctor Cornwallis said to them; but before doing so he turned to Beatrice, whose chin was now resting on her breast, then enquiringly to Daisy, who said, ‘I’ve given her a couple of sleeping tablets.’
‘Oh, wise, the best thing. Yes. Two, you say?’
‘Yes, two.’
‘Well, she’ll sleep till tomorrow morning, when I’ll be along to see her; but I won’t be alone. Oh no, I won’t be alone. And whoever else is here, I want that girl’ – he pointed to Frances – ‘to remain as a witness to what happened,’ to which Daisy said, ‘I’ll be here, too.’
He nodded, then said, ‘Good,’ before leaving.
When Daisy saw Mary sidling along the passage towards her, she called to her, ‘It’s all right. Everything’s all right now, dear.’ And then she patted her shoulder, adding, ‘Good girl.’
Emerging from the drawing room and seeing her helpmate, Cook said to her, ‘You did well, Mary;’ then turning to Daisy, she added, ‘We’ve made the couch ready for her, ma’am.’
‘Good,’ said Daisy. ‘Then just before I leave I’ll untie her. But what are you going to do, Cook?’
‘I’m away this very night to my sister’s, ma’am, and I’m taking Mary and Janie with me. We had already decided to leave, and Janie’s got herself a job; she can walk into it tomorrow. That only leaves Frances.’
All attention was now set on Frances, who was standing shaking her head, and it was Catherine Falconer who put in quietly, ‘If you have no other plans, Frances, I’d be glad of your help: I need someone with me’ – she now turned to Daisy – ‘that is, if Lady Spears will agree to the arrangement for the time being.’
‘O
h yes; yes, I can give you her word on that,’ Daisy answered immediately. ‘So that’s settled; and as Cook says, it’s the outside man’s day off, and he always makes for his little stable rooms at the far end of the grounds; so he won’t know anything until tomorrow morning. And neither will she, once we leave her on the couch; so we can lock up and go.’
Eleven
Dawn was just breaking when Beatrice came to; although she remained curled up on the couch for some time, for she was feeling distinctly odd; only gradually did she become aware of her aching head, also of the pain in her body, particularly in her arms and ankles. Slowly, she pulled herself up into a sitting position to discover that she was in the drawing room and that the gas chandelier was still alight. What had happened?
Then, as if a gate in her mind had suddenly swung open, realisation of all that had taken place came to her, passing like a series of pictures before her eyes, one rapidly falling into the other. She had killed him. Her foot had landed right in the middle of his back. Oh, that had given her a feeling of joy, as had seeing him lying there, his life’s blood ebbing away. There returned to her a moment of elation, quickly blotted out by the feeling of that strange creature jumping on her and tying her up. She suddenly put her hand to her mouth, for she could feel the woman stuffing in the chocolates in order to make her swallow the pills. They had been sleeping pills, which is why she had slept so long. But why hadn’t Frances taken her upstairs and put out these lights?
She pulled herself up from the couch and staggered down the drawing room and into the hall. Where were they? Where were the servants? Oh, it must be early. Yes, it must be early. But she’d waken them. Yes, she would. She needed a drink; she was dry.
Still walking as though drunk, she entered the kitchen, there to be met by a dead fire. She went from the room shouting, ‘Cook! Cook! Frances!’ and when she received no reply, she staggered to their quarters, only to see open doors with the early light revealing empty rooms and here and there a cupboard with drawers left open.
Back in the hall she walked round in a circle, then came to a stop at the foot of the stairs and peered at the polished boards, where large dark patches showed here and there. As she now bent down and ran her fingers over a large patch of the dried blood, she again experienced that ecstatic feeling. She had killed him! Well, she had known she would sometime. He had died in her house. What time they had moved him, she didn’t know. But she knew from the look on his face and the way he had been lying with his blood flowing out that his body was wrecked; the body that he wouldn’t give to her. And now because she had done it, they would come and take her away. They would say she was mad. Well, perhaps she was a bit mad. But she wasn’t so mad that she would let them have the last word as to what she would do with her life. Her life was her own, and this house was hers. Oh, yes, this house was hers. But what would happen when she was dead? Because he wouldn’t inherit now, would he? Oh no. But her sister could. Oh, yes. Yes, Dearest Helen could. The very thought sent her running into the drawing room again and there, throwing herself onto the couch, she beat her hands into the cushions, yelling aloud, ‘Oh, no! No! Never! Never!’ For what would she do with it? Knowing that she herself had loved it so much, Helen would take a delight in selling all this lovely furniture, and then the house; or turning it into flats for common people; or . . . or . . .
She was on her feet again, running now from one room to another: the dining room, the study, the billiard room, the smoke room that had been her father’s room, and sacrosanct. And she repeated to herself, the smoke room, the smoke room, as she ran up the stairs and into her bedroom, where she stood panting as she held on to the rail at the foot of the bed. She was sweating. Her body wanted release, it wanted to be free. Free. She tore off her clothes until she reached her whalebone corsets and, looking down on them, she said, ‘After, after; do the shutters first.’
She now ran down the stairs and, starting in the drawing room, she tugged hard to release the shutters that were packed and pressed close against the side of the deep bay window. They hadn’t been drawn into place for years, and she was panting heavily by the time she had covered the three windows.
It took her a full half-hour to go through the rest of the ground floor of the house. The only windows without shutters were those in the kitchen; and with the exception of one, these were barred on the outside.
Only the cracks in the shutters let in the early morning daylight; the whole of the downstairs was dark, except for the drawing room where the gaslight was still glowing.
She now sat on the third step of the stairs and, as a child might have done, she hugged her knees as if she had succeeded in doing something clever. And then she started to laugh; but the sound was not of childish laughter, for she was yelling in her head that she was going to fool them, fool them all, especially her. She would never get this house, her beautiful house, her child. And it had always been her child: when she was very young the house had been her doll’s house; in her teens, through her mother’s death, her goal had been achieved, and from then she had tended it with pride. This house was hers and would always remain hers. It would never belong to her sister, whom she had disliked in her teens, then hated in her womanhood.
She now got to her feet, then stepped down into the hall. She felt gay, she wanted to dance. She had been dancing on and off of late. The bedroom restricted her, but here there was plenty of room. Not yet though. Not yet. There was something she must do.
She now ran into the kitchen. They kept paraffin somewhere. Yes; yes, in the boot room; it had been kept there following a gas leak, when they’d had to light the lamps.
The can was full and heavy, but she managed to carry it into the kitchen and to heave it up onto the table. And there, she grabbed two wide-mouth brass jugs from the mantelpiece and filled them from the can. Then, as gaily as if she had been carrying jugs of ale, she hurried into the drawing room and sprinkled the paraffin over the curtains, moving from one window to another. This done, she did the same on the couch and chairs. She dealt similarly with the other rooms, not forgetting the annexe. Oh, she sprayed the annexe well.
The last jug of paraffin she used on the stairs and on the bedroom curtains.
Had she locked all the doors? Yes.
It was still not fully daylight when, downstairs again, she made a number of torches from tightly rolled paper, and now, starting with the annexe, she went tripping from one room to another, setting them alight.
Lastly, amid the strange patterns of flames and smoke she ran up the stairs and into her bedroom. There she tore off her corsets and her chemise, then her shoes and stockings. And now flinging her arms above her head, she pranced round the room. Of a sudden she stopped in front of the cheval mirror and put out her hand towards her reflection, crying, ‘It’s a good body, a young body, but he didn’t want it, did he? I should have given it away to someone else. Just as Mrs Wallace did.’ Strangely at this moment she was feeling no animosity towards that woman, rather a feeling of sorrowful envy. And she didn’t want to be put away like Aunt Ally. She put her hands above her head and started to sway as in a dancing movement; then she was overtaken by a fit of coughing, and she whimpered, ‘I’m cold; I must put on my dressing gown.’
She was making for the foot of the bed on which her dressing gown lay when the whole house was rocked by an explosion. She was lifted off her feet and flung flat onto the floor under the window.
By the time Robbie returned with the fire brigade, the house was ablaze from end to end, with Rosie and Tom Needler standing helplessly by. Crying bitterly, Rosie rushed to the fire chief as he jumped down from the engine and she cried, ‘My . . . my sister, she . . . she must be in there. Please! Please!’
‘All right! miss. All right!’ He turned and gazed at the house, then shook his head. ‘We’ll do what we can.’
It was the following day, as the house smouldered, that the body of
Mrs Beatrice Falconer was found beneath the window of her bedroom. She was lying across a number of charred beams.
The newspapers used big headlines to report the tragedy of husband and wife. The reporter, waxing eloquent, also revealed that while the house was burning Dr Falconer himself was lying at death’s door in a hospital.
Twelve
Helen and Rosie stood by Beatrice’s grave. Although they were both dry-eyed, they were full of pity for Beatrice and the way she had died. But that she had planned her own death was now evident. As Dr Cornwallis had said, the love of her life had been the house, and she had taken it with her; but not before she had, as she imagined, killed her husband. The evidence given by the four staff had verified this fact, together with that of Mrs Freeman Wheatland, who had apparently had to wrestle with Beatrice to bring her under control.
As they both turned from the grave, Helen put her arms around Rosie’s shoulders, for she knew that this young girl, or woman that she was now, had more reason to hate Beatrice than had she. Beatrice had heartlessly aimed to ruin her life, and in the process had changed the course of that of the man who might now have been her own husband. Yet there was no-one happier than Rosie now, with her lovely baby and the doting affection of Robbie.
Outside the churchyard they stopped and looked at each other and Helen said, ‘I . . . I must get back to the hospital.’
‘Robbie says he’s fully conscious now.’
‘Yes; yes, he is.’
‘I’ll look in tonight,’ said Rosie; and Helen answered, ‘Yes, do that, dear. Do that.’
And they turned together and joined the mourners gathered at the door of the church.
Dr Cornwallis was standing near John’s bedside and he was not talking to him, or with him, but at him. ‘Now you can hear what I’m saying, laddie, so take it in. You’re all right, as I’ve told you. Your back was unscathed. Badly bruised, yes, but no bones were broken. You were lucky. By God! you were lucky. Your leg is smashed, but after they have operated again, it’ll likely be all right. The other leg is healing fine. Now you listen to me.’ He bent closer to John, his voice soft and insistent now: ‘You’ve got to make a stand. You know as well as I do what I mean. In seventy-five cases out of a hundred, you can make your mind up to go or stay. Now you’ve got a lot to stay for. There’s that girl out there, that woman, that lady becoming ill herself because of you. You understand what I’m saying? You must, because your head’s all right. You were concussed, but no serious damage was done. But this dead-pan attitude isn’t good enough. You’ve got the idea into your head that you won’t walk again, haven’t you? Well, you’ll walk all right. Oh, it’ll take weeks, perhaps months, but you’ll walk. And anyway, I want you back on the job. Young Rees is all right, but he’s not you. And I didn’t realise that you were more popular than I am: all those people coming in and asking for a run-down on your condition. I’m very jealous of my practice and my patients, but there they are in streams. So, do as I say. You’ll make a stand and if my latest piece of news doesn’t do the trick, nothing will.’ His voice dropped lower still. ‘I’ve been into it and so has my solicitor. A law has recently been passed enabling a man to marry his deceased wife’s sister, so everything could be plain sailing that way.’
The Obsession Page 29
