Stardust

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Something quite, quite dreadful,’ was all Jerome could find to say as he stared into eyes which were already wide with fright.

  ‘It’s Bobby, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Isn’t it, Jerome? It’s Bobby. He’s been run over.’

  She looked so bewildered, so puzzled and fearful, Jerome just wanted to take her in his arms and rock her, hold her to him, hold her and rock her and tell her that everything was going to be all right. But he couldn’t. Not until he had broken the news. Not until he had told her what he had just been told. Until then, and even more importantly, afterwards, he must be strong. He must remain strong, and he must tell her as calmly as he could about the terrible thing which had just happened.

  ‘Darling Pip,’ he said, barely able to look at that precious face and those gentle grey eyes so full of love. ‘My darling girl, Pippa darling, it’s your mother, Pip. Darling Pippa your mother’s dead.’

  It was unacceptable. To Pippa, like most people who face moments such as these, the fact of her mother’s sudden death was unacceptable. As she kept saying to Jerome, over and over again, one moment her mother was there, in their lives, in life itself, and the next she was gone. She was gone totally, gone from her bedroom, her house, her village, gone from the very air she had breathed only a moment ago.

  Not only was it unacceptable because it was so totally unexpected, it was inadmissible because of the mystery surrounding its circumstances. There was no suicide note, nor it seemed had there been any indication that anything might have been amiss, at least certainly not according to Mrs Doris Huxley. On the Saturday morning the two women had gone for a long drive in Mrs Huxley’s old Morris round the lanes that run along the foot of the Downs, and had lunch in a pub at East Dean. On their return to Bay Tree Cottage they found the postman had called in their absence, and that the mail included yet another postcard from Pippa, the third one she had sent all told, sending her mother both their love and confirming that they would be back in London on Saturday night and down to Sussex the following day for lunch.

  In the evening they had played bridge, as they did every Saturday evening, with Dr Weaver and his wife Nora. Dr Weaver, besides being Mrs Nicholls’s GP, was also a close family friend of long standing. It had been a very relaxed and good humoured evening, according to Mrs Huxley, with the home side thrashing the visitors at the card table, and everyone enjoying the contest. So much so that Dr Weaver was moved to take Doris Huxley aside just before he left in order to tell her how impressed he was with his patient’s wellbeing, and to opine that the new arrangement was obviously proving a great success.

  Mrs Huxley related that Pippa’s mother and she had sat up for a while longer talking over the events of the evening and having a general ‘chinwag’, as she deemed it, before retiring for the night. Doris Huxley looked in on her charge on her way back from the bathroom to make sure all was well, and found her sitting up in bed reading. Mrs Huxley had asked if Pippa’s mother needed anything, and on receiving a negative answer, they had wished each other good night, and Mrs Huxley had then proceeded to bed.

  This was all repeated at the inquest, which Jerome attended with Pippa’s brother, James, home from Germany on compassionate leave, but without Pippa, it having been decided that since she would not be called to give evidence, her attendance could cause her nothing but further grief.

  ‘And that was all?’ the coroner asked, when Doris Huxley had finished. ‘There were absolutely no signs of anything untoward whatsoever?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ Mrs Huxley assured him. ‘I’m not the best of sleepers myself, anything wakes me. But I heard nothing at all that night.’

  ‘I gather the deceased was in the habit of taking sleeping pills,’ the coroner asked when Dr Weaver gave his testimony. ‘Barbiturates.’

  ‘Mrs Nicholls suffered from severe intractable insomnia,’ Dr Weaver replied. ‘She had done so for years, a condition which was instanced by the loss of her husband, and exacerbated by her later condition.’

  ‘Arthritis, I believe.’

  ‘Rheumatoid arthritis, more correctly. For her insomnia I had prescribed amylobarbitone sodium, otherwise know as sodium amytal, 120 milligrams thirty minutes before retiring, or when the pain was increasingly severe, and the insomnia totally intractable – 200 milligrams. The pills were bottled and labelled separately as 60 milligrams and 200 milligrams. As for her arthritis, I had been treating her with gold, and more latterly penicillamine, which is safe medication in that it causes no interactions between the two drugs.’

  ‘What was the estimated dosage of barbiturates in the contents of the deceased’s stomach, Dr Weaver?’

  ‘The estimated dosage at time of death was 2000 milligrams of sodium amytal.’

  ‘Which I understand is classed as a lethal dose, Doctor, particularly when taken with alcohol, as in this instance.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Dr Weaver agreed. ‘But if I may, I would like to detail this case in the hope of clarifying the late Mrs Nicholls’s situation. She had been playing cards that evening with myself and my wife, and her companion, Mrs Huxley. Mrs Nicholls had served us with whisky, which was her usual habit, but what was unusual was that she herself drank whisky that night. Normally she might have one, perhaps two, sherries before dinner, then nothing afterwards. But this evening she drank in company with the rest of us, taking I believe it was two whiskies all told during the course of the game. I mentioned this to her privately, remarking that this was not her normal habit, and reminding her of the dangers of mixing alcohol and barbiturates, recommending that she left her sleeping pills locked up when she retired, and relied upon the whisky to put her to sleep, which I assured her it most certainly would.’

  ‘And yet,’ the coroner wondered, ‘the deceased ignored your advice, and went ahead and took the barbiturates. A dose which quite clearly caused her death. Can you offer us any explanation, Doctor? For this most uncharacteristic behaviour? And its subsequent, and tragic, aftermath? Unless this was, of course, the deceased’s intention.’

  ‘I doubt that very much,’ Dr Weaver replied. ‘Mrs Nicholls was a practising Christian, and would have been only too well aware what such an act would mean in the eyes of God. I can, however, hazard a guess, a guess based on my previous medical experiences, and that is the deceased became confused, firstly as a result of drinking whisky, which as far as I know was something the deceased was not in the habit of doing, not regularly anyway.’

  ‘Are you saying the deceased was intoxicated, Doctor?’

  ‘Mildly, yes, perhaps she was. She had taken a quota of sherry before dinner, a glass or so of wine over it, and a couple of whiskies afterwards, so yes, she could have been intoxicated enough later to forget my advice, and if this was so, she would perhaps have considered it safe enough to take her normal dose of sleeping pills.’

  ‘But her normal dose would surely not have proved fatal, Doctor?’ the coroner enquired. ‘Even on top of alcohol.’

  ‘Indeed not,’ Dr Weaver replied. ‘But this leads me to my second conclusion, namely that the deceased was doubly confused. You see, one of the contradictory side-effects of barbiturates is often the onset of a somewhat bewildering state prior to sleep itself, namely one of excitement, and extreme disorientation. The state of disorientation is the salient point here, for what often occurs is that the patient, particularly if having consumed alcohol earlier that evening, cannot recall whether or not he or she has taken the prescribed dose of sleeping pills. Consequently, they inadvertently overdose, normally with the complete absence of any ulterior motive.’

  ‘Is it possible to overdose up to a level such as found in the deceased?’

  ‘If the resultant confusion is severe enough, I would say yes, most certainly. The pills would not be taken all at once, but over a short span of time, perhaps half an hour or so.’

  ‘And this on occasion has been your experience, Dr Weaver?’

  ‘On several occasions. This is why I only prescribe barbiturates once the patient has full
y understood the nature of the drug. But I have to admit that I was not unduly worried in this instance, because I knew the deceased to be a highly responsible person, and assumed once she had been reminded of the dangers of mixing her medication with alcohol, she would act on these advices. I can only assume in this instance I was wrong.’

  The coroner thanked Dr Weaver for his testimony and recalled Doris Huxley.

  ‘Would you be so kind as to tell this court, Mrs Huxley,’ the coroner asked her, ‘whether or not to the best of your knowledge the deceased partook of any more alcohol that evening?’

  Like all hardened drinkers, Mrs Huxley thought she knew her own capacity, and that of everyone else. Like all hardened drinkers, she also forgot at the end of each session precisely how much she had drunk, knocking at least two if not three drinks off the grand total.

  Most importantly, as far as that particular night had gone, Doris Huxley couldn’t even remember going to bed, let alone what she had done or said in the hour or so previous to retiring.

  So she answered in the way that all hardened drinkers answer when they are not quite sure. She lied with conviction.

  ‘We had nothing more to drink that night, sir,’ she told the coroner. ‘Except for a cup of Ovaltine each as we sat talking by the fire.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Huxley,’ the coroner said.

  On the strength of Dr Weaver’s evidence, and in the absence of any note or notice of intention, the coroner instructed that a verdict of death through misadventure be returned.

  ‘Yes,’ Pippa said to Jerome as they walked in the garden on Jerome’s return from Midhurst. ‘Yes, well he would do, wouldn’t he? This is a very small community, and Colonel Rogerson served under my father in the war. He was bound to err on the side of mercy.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Jerome replied. ‘If there was any doubt, wouldn’t you rather he returned an open verdict?’

  ‘There isn’t any doubt, Jerome,’ Pippa said, stopping by the gate which led on to the fields beyond. ‘You know as well as I do. As well as everyone does. My mother killed herself.’

  ‘There was no note, Pippa!’

  ‘Why should there have to be a note. Jerome?’

  ‘People always leave notes, Pippa my darling. Always.’

  ‘In plays perhaps,’ Pippa replied. ‘Or in films, and books. But suppose she just decided it, there and then, as she lay there in bed? If that was the case, she wouldn’t get out of bed and start writing notes. She’d just – she’d just – just do it.’

  ‘But why, Pippa?’ Jerome pleaded. ‘Why? You still haven’t been able to think of one good reason why.’

  Pippa opened the gate and then turned back to face Jerome.

  ‘Because of me, Jerome, that’s why,’ she said, and then walked away from him, out across the heavily frosted fields.

  ACT TWO

  8

  Had Elizabeth wished someone to design such a turn of events, no-one, she thought, but no-one, not even dear, sweet Oscar Greene could have matched the masterstroke which fate had provided. No playwright on earth would have dared play such a trump card so early in the drama. Imagine, Elizabeth would think to herself as she lay happily soaking in her bath at night, or as she dozed on in her bed after Sebastian had left for work, the young lovers marry and go off on their honeymoon, and then – on the very eve of the lovers’ first visit back home as husband and wife, the bride’s mother inexplicably kills herself. Not even Ibsen would have dared, Elizabeth laughed, not even Shakespeare. (Well, perhaps Shakespeare.)

  Neither was there any doubt in Elizabeth’s mind that the Bumpkin’s mother had committed suicide. There was no other explanation, at least that was Elizabeth’s conclusion after Jerome had recounted the story to her in full detail, including a complete and wonderfully histrionic reconstruction of the inquest.

  ‘It was utterly fascinating, Bethy,’ he had recalled in her dressing room, during a break on the first day of filming The Eve of Night. ‘And extraordinary to be there as an actor, of course! Because as you can imagine, there was so much material! So much to use at a later date! Amazing, don’t you think? What a natural amphitheatre life is?’

  But Jerome had been at his very best not in his physical recollections of the coroner, and the local doctor, Elizabeth considered, but in his wicked re-creation of the obviously quite beastly housekeeper, or companion, or whatever the wretched woman was. Mrs Huxtable, was it? Elizabeth tried to remember as she plumped up her feather-filled pillows, and resettled herself in her bed. No, she remembered, it was the same name as that famous writer – Huxley. Mrs Huxley. Elizabeth shuddered at just the thought of such a creature, pulling her bedclothes tightly round her as she recalled the portrait as described by Jerome in her mind’s eye of a small-boned woman grown gross through drink, with rolls of fat on her neck, shifty little currant bun eyes sunk deep in fattened cheeks, and podgy hands clasped tightly on the handle of her cheap handbag.

  ‘Of course, I knew she was lying, Bethy,’ Jerome had announced, ‘the moment she was called. Do you know how I knew? Because of what I’d been taught by Terry Vaughan. You remember what they taught you about lying, Bethy.’

  ‘Of course,’ Elizabeth had lied, having never needed to have been taught one thing about acting by anyone, while privately thrilling as always to the use of the nickname Jerome had bestowed on her.

  ‘The feet,’ Jerome had continued, ‘you show you’re lying through your feet. The feet have it, Bethy! Not the eyes! Not the eyes! Mrs Huxley couldn’t keep her fat feet still for a minute! Her eyes – yes. She looked the coroner straight in the eyes, the picture of a good and honest woman. But her feet. When she was sitting down either one of her feet was forever jiggling, or waggling, or twisting, and when she stood up – look! They were like this!’

  Every time she remembered Jerome’s impersonation, Elizabeth laughed, as she did this morning as she lay in her bed, putting one slender hand up to her mouth to silence herself as she recalled the picture of Jerome in her dressing room, standing so still and so primly, holding an imaginary handbag just below an imaginary vast bosom, a figure of rural reliability except for his feet, which fidgeted and twisted in his shoes, like rabbits trying to escape from a sack.

  ‘Oh no, sir,’ Jerome had said in what Elizabeth knew had to be the most perfect imitation of the wretched woman, ‘we had nothing more to drink that night, except, I seem to remember, a cup of Ovaltine while we sat by the fire. A cup of Ovaltine, Bethy? I’ll bet you anything you like Mrs Huxley was completely and quite utterly rats! I’ll bet you she’d been drinking all evening, and the next morning she hadn’t the faintest idea of what had happened the night before! Or what sort of state poor Pippa’s mother had been in!’

  ‘Oh your poor wife,’ Elizabeth had sighed, knowing she was judging her performance just right, conveying an exemplary blend of muted sympathy and strange bewilderment. ‘Your poor wife. Your poor, sweet little wife.’

  ‘I don’t think she’ll ever get over it, Bethy,’ Jerome had announced, striding up and down the dressing room. He was in his costume for the film, that of an officer in the Duke of Wellington’s army, and it did wonders for his figure, Elizabeth remembered with a happy sigh, particularly the breeches, which showed off his long, elegant legs to perfection, so much so that Elizabeth found it all but impossible to keep her hands off him.

  ‘She blames herself, Bethy,’ a puzzled Jerome had continued. ‘I don’t know why, but she’s determined the whole thing should be her fault. Does that make any sense to you?’

  He had then come and sat on the arm of her chair, one arm propping himself up on the back of it, and crossing his long white-breechered legs. Elizabeth had needed to clasp her hands together very tightly to prevent them from straying, and close her eyes to stop herself staring where a lady should not.

  But she had used the closing of her eyes to good effect, to impart a sense of deep concern.

  ‘Tell me, Jerome,’ she had asked. ‘If your poor wife’s mothe
r, if poor Mrs – Mrs . . .’

  ‘Nicholls, Bethy. Mrs Nicholls.’

  ‘If poor Mrs Nicholls, yes, if poor Mrs Nicholls really did kill herself, has anyone any idea why?’

  ‘Not any hard and fast ideas, Bethy, no. Notions, yes. But no real idea, not one you can make stick.’

  ‘A suicide must be terrible to come to terms with, don’t you think?’

  ‘If it was suicide, Bethy.’

  ‘Your poor little wife.’

  ‘There is nothing to say it definitely was suicide, darling.’

  Jerome had sounded distinctly irritated at that moment, so Elizabeth had taken a risk, justifying her move as one intended to bring succour, and had briefly and very lightly laid one hand on his knee.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ she had stage whispered. ‘No-one takes that amount of pills, not barbiturates certainly not – who doesn’t intend something very serious indeed.’

  ‘That wasn’t the opinion of the coroner, Bethy.’

  ‘Yes, but in your opinion, darling, the coroner was a cloth-head. You said so yourself. And quite right, too. If it was that obvious that beastly woman was lying.’

  What had happened between them next was something Elizabeth kept locked in her mind. It was a fixed mark, which whenever she felt doubt or fear about the future she would look upon, to restore her belief.

  Jerome had turned to her and taken her hand, the hand which she still had lightly resting on his knee. He had taken her hand, not to remove it, or press it gratefully before returning it to its rightful place, but he had held it, and looked at it as he held it, before looking up at Elizabeth and into her eyes, as still he held it.

  ‘Bethy,’ he had said. ‘I need your help. As a woman you can help me. I’m frightened for Pippa, you see. I don’t think something like this – how can she get over something like this?’

  And still he had her hand in his.

  ‘Jerome darling,’ she had replied. ‘I wish – oh, how I wish I knew. How I wish I could help you.’