by Meira Chand
‘You see,’ croaked Reggie after the doctor had gone. ‘I’ told you I’d be better. But I’ve not a dose of Fowler’s left. You’ll have to send for more.’ Amy bent over him and rubbed his stomach with sugar of lead. The odour of the liniment clung to her hands.
After tiffin she wrote out the chits for Fowler’s Solution and gave them to Jessie Flack. There was also a book to take back to Kelly & Walsh and a note for the furniture dealer about the need to restain the bureau. It would be an outing for Cathy and Tom. If not so tired, she would have gone herself.
She was writing to her mother in the dining room when they all returned. The children ran to her, Cathy with some wild flowers, Tom with a beetle secreted in his pocket. Jessie Flack placed three small bottles on the desk. Her mouth was tight, and she looked at Amy sullenly with unusual accusation. Amy took no notice. She went to the sideboard and prepared some cocaine for Reggie in a glass of brandy and soda, as Dr Charles had prescribed.
The improvement Reggie had shown that Wednesday morning disappeared in the night. He was consumed by pain, his body strained to expel its very juices. He could not swallow and his thirst was a torture. Amy melted ice upon his tongue. He shivered and was clammy, his pulse abnormally slow. In the middle of the night she called the servants to light a fire and apply hot water bottles to him. The pain took him in convulsions. At five o’clock on Thursday morning she sent a chit to Dr Charles. He came with more cocaine and a draught of hydrate of chlorine.
‘Reggie is worse than ever. I feel extremely anxious. Nothing seems to work,’ she told him.
Dr Charles was silent, looking at her sternly. He bent and snapped his bag together. His cigar fell out of his pocket and he wheezed as he stooped to pick it up. ‘I have confidence in my treatment,’ he told her. ‘There is not a disease without its crisis. I regard his progress as satisfactory. I have to attend Mr Boag’s funeral. I’ll return in the afternoon.’
When he was gone she sent a chit to Mr Cooper-Hewitt, who visited Reggie regularly. He came at once and she explained her disagreement with Dr Charles. ‘Please talk to him,’ she implored.
‘I’ll go and see him now and return before we all have to go off to old Boag’s funeral. A suicide – I expect you know. Blew his brains out on his bed,’ Mr Cooper-Hewitt said with relish.
He returned as soon as promised, walking complacently into the room. ‘Old Charles says you’re alarming yourself unnecessarily. It’s the female nature to magnify anxiety. You’re worrying too much. Wait until after this funeral. Then we’ll all be free to confer,’ suggested Mr Cooper-Hewitt.
By nine-thirty the sun spread over the garden in a full and fleshy light. The children ran about, Amy heard their voices there below as they waited for Jessie to take them to the Bluff Gardens. Cathy bounced a ball, Tom buried a dead fledgling in a tin box that had once contained mint humbugs. Amy turned from the window to Reggie; he drifted in and out of consciousness. She sat near him through the morning, too tired to think of diversions, dozing as she could. Tomorrow Dicky would return from Kobe where he had gone for a series of inter-port cricket matches the day before Reggie fell ill. It would be a relief to see him back.
*
Above the Bluff Gardens the sky was blue and cloudless. Below, the passive lawns and neat box hedges were distant from the bandstand throbbing with audacity. A troupe of performing monkeys had been allowed to occupy the bandstand for the amusement of the children. The monkeys, dressed in hats and skirts and braided pantaloons, swung about and sneered with indiscriminate insolence at both their audience and trainers. One ran out amongst the children and snatched away a doll. The Gardens echoed with the terror of the amahs and their charges.
Jessie Flack and Bertha Kaufmann observed the chaos from their bench beneath a tree. Tom and Cathy and the Phelps children sat apart from danger, delighted with the trickery. The monkey picked at the eyes of the doll from underneath a bush, a trainer scrambled after it.
‘I returned home by twelve o’clock, just in time for tiffin. She was in the dining room, I put the bottles on the table.’ Jessie shivered. ‘It’s weird, it is. There’s something funny going on. Why should she be buying stuff like that?’
‘Stuff like what?’ Bertha whispered.
‘She gave me papers for Maruya’s. She wrote them out herself – she had no doctor’s prescription. And then, when I passed Schedel’s on my way home, there was their assistant waiting on the steps with another bottle for me. She must have sent a chit after I left and told them to look out for me.’
‘Stuff like what?’ repeated Bertha.
‘Poison,’ Jessie said.
‘Poison?’ Bertha drew back in amazement.
Jessie nodded in confirmation. ‘I’d never have known the seriousness of it, but for that clerk in Maruya’s. I’d never been in there alone before. He took the paper quietly, never asked for a real prescription, but he inquired of me outright why at our house we bought “so plenty deadly poison”. That’s the way he put it. I was taken aback, and that’s when I asked him what the stuff was and he told me it was arsenic,’ Jessie disclosed.
Bertha gave a gasp and hunched herself forward near Jessie again.
‘Well, I told him,’ Jessie continued, ‘I didn’t know a thing about it. I hadn’t hardly been to his shop before. He said some had been bought the day before, once a rikisha had come, and once a lady, Mrs Redmore. He even asked if I was her. He couldn’t tell the difference between one foreign lady and another – we all looked alike to him, he said, on account of our bigger noses. He told me then to warn Mrs Redmore how she used so much arsenic, to be careful. You can imagine how I felt.’
Bertha sucked in her breath unsteadily.
‘Well, what else can I say,’ whispered Jessie, ‘except you know how sick the master is and no one attends him but her. She gives him all his medicines. She sent me up to him with something in a glass – cocaine, she said it was. I gave it to him but he refused, he shouted at me horribly. He said he had taken a whole chemist’s shop already that day, he wanted only brandy and not whatever else was in the glass. I took it back down and told her and then she went up and forced him to take it. I followed, I watched from the door. She told him Dr Charles had prescribed it and at last he drank it down.’
Jessie closed her eyes, for suddenly as she talked the sight of Mr Redmore’s suffering face came vividly before her. The memory of that terrible night thrust through her. She drew her breath in a sob. Bertha patted her arm, innocent of the reason for such emotion. Jessie had not told Bertha, and could not have told her if she had wished, of that night a week ago. The experience was embedded in her like a barb that if pulled free would bring with it a part of her flesh.
In the bandstand the monkeys were walking a tightrope whilst eating cake from blue plates. Jessie and Bertha sat in silence before either of them spoke again.
‘All these, they are very serious things you are saying,’ said Bertha at last.
‘Oh yes, indeed,’ agreed Jessie, her voice still thick with memory.
‘And nobody knows why he is so ill?’ Bertha reaffirmed.
Jessie shook her head. ‘The doctors are mystified; none of their prescriptions help.’
‘How could they, if she is giving him secretly all that stuff?’
‘I reckon she thinks she’ll be free of him and marry that Mr Huckle,’ Jessie whispered.
‘If you are knowing these things, then before God, it is your duty to tell the doctor. Otherwise he cannot know. And if your master dies and you have said nothing and it is known you went to buy the poison, even if she sent you, or that you had given him the stuff, even if she asked you, who can say what will happen or how it will look for you?’ Bertha said.
‘Yes, she might turn it all about. Otherwise why should she send me to buy the stuff? She’s trying to trap me,’ Jessie burst out in panic, the whole evil plan clear to her. She saw Mrs Redmore like a spider constructing a web for an innocent victim. ‘Oh God, please help me!’ She began
to sob. Bertha put a hand upon her. Jessie had looked ill all the week, preoccupied in an agitated way. Now Bertha understood; it was enough to frighten anyone.
‘God helps those who help themselves,’ Bertha reminded her. ‘I think there is no time to waste. We must inform my master. All the men will soon go to Mr Boag’s funeral. If we hurry we will catch him. He can tell the doctor when he meets him there. We have our evidence, those letters prove what Mrs Redmore is. This is the time to use them. We shall hand them now to Mr Phelps, then he will believe us. We must hurry.’ Bertha stood up, Jessie followed, pulling nervously at her bonnet.
‘The Dawsons’ amah can bring our children home. She will not mind, they live next door,’ Bertha decided before they left. They turned out of the gate and hailed a rikisha. Behind them the monkeys scratched their chests beneath the ridiculous clothing and bared yellow teeth while swinging upon trapezes. The children clapped and screamed.
Things happened quickly once they handed the letters to Mr Phelps. A number of expressions passed through his face as he read what he could of the patchwork sheets and listened to their story. Mrs Phelps was also in the room. Jessie began to sob with anticipation and importance.
‘You must both wait here until I come back. I’ll bring the doctor with me,’ Mr Phelps instructed. He was a bald man with thick-fingered hands, he spoke in a tired, bare manner.
He returned an hour later with Dr Charles, who looked at Jessie in a hard, strange way and asked abruptly, ‘What is this I hear about arsenic?’
‘Oh,’ she sobbed, the strain overcoming her so that she had to sit down. ‘Oh, doctor, what do you suspect about that?’
‘I suspected last night and again this morning, but I didn’t know where he was getting it from,’ Dr Charles replied. She did not believe him. It was only because she had pointed it out that he now suddenly understood. She gave him a sullen look.
‘I would like you to put your suspicion in writing and send it to me at my house. I shall act now as I feel best. We must remove him to the hospital; we must get him away from that house. Only then will he be safe,’ Dr Charles declared. He left the room with a curt nod, but lingered outside with Mr Phelps for a further while.
At first Jessie refused to write a thing. A sudden terror filled her at all she was precipitating. Mr Phelps stood over her, but her hand still shook too much. In the end it was Bertha who wrote on the paper, ‘Three bottles of arsenic in one week from Maruya’s.’ She did not wish to sign her name and Mr Phelps agreed she need not, just the evidence at this point was enough. He sealed the note in an envelope and sent it to the doctor. Before tiffin Jessie went home with the children as if nothing had happened.
Dr Charles returned before Jessie to the Redmores’. He walked into the house authoritatively, his voice had a ring that had been absent in the early morning. Amy supposed he was upset by her questioning of his competence, but it seemed to have determined him to take some positive steps.
‘I am removing him to the hospital,’ Dr Charles said. A smell of stale cigars hung about him, some crumbs were caught in his whiskers. ‘He is only going from bad to worse.’
Amy was surpised by the sudden change in his opinion. Before he left Mr Cooper-Hewitt arrived, they exchanged a look that annoyed her. Mr Cooper-Hewitt announced he would stay with Reggie until Dr Charles returned with a stretcher. She left them together and went downstairs to instruct the cook about some tiffin for Mr Cooper-Hewitt. When it was served he refused to eat.
Dr Charles arrived again at the Redmores’ by two o’clock with an ambulance and a stretcher. Jessie bobbed a curtsey but he took no notice of her. She watched from inside the nursery door as they carried Mr Redmore out, groaning on the stretcher, Mr Cooper-Hewitt was still there. Her heart beat with excitement. She did not care if Mr Redmore lived or died, she had not spoken out to rescue him. Whatever must happen could now rightly happen. She was free of Mrs Redmore’s evil plan.
Reggie gasped for breath. He tried to raise himself on an elbow as Dr Charles bent over him but fell back, convulsed by pain. Dr Charles injected him with a stimulant. The room was full of ambulance men, they clustered around the bed. Amy hovered in the background as the men heaved Reggie upon the stretcher. She came forward with an extra blanket to wrap about his feet.
The Naval Hospital was a few hundred yards away along the Bluff. Amy walked silently with Mr Cooper-Hewitt behind the horse-drawn ambulance. At the gates of the hospital, although she pleaded, she was not admitted. Mr Cooper-Hewitt offered no help. Women could not enter the hospital, but she had heard of numerous exceptions in extenuating circumstances.
‘Those is my instructions,’ argued the gatekeeper. ‘You’ll have to speak to the doctor.’ She looked to Mr Cooper-Hewitt for an explanation, but he had already slipped inside the gates and walked behind the stretcher up the drive. As she watched, the hospital doors opened, then closed upon them. The gatekeeper eyed her curiously. She was too tired to fight. The tall, faceless walls of the hospital filled her with a sudden feeling that made her turn away.
It was Mr Cooper-Hewitt who returned at four o’clock with the news of Reggie’s death. Jessie Flack was not surprised. She had already confirmed that God was on her side. It was nothing more than retribution. The news filled her with exhilaration. Now at last she could leave the Redmores’ without fear of recrimination. She would give Mrs Redmore her notice. She was now living with a murderess; the thought alone pole-axed her.
*
There were people coming and going in commiseration for hours. Jessie had to wait until the evening. Mrs Redmore sat with her feet on the couch. She leaned back upon the cushions, her face destroyed by strain.
‘I wish to give you my notice, ma’am.’ Jessie pulled at a pleat of her skirt as she entered the room to stand before Amy.
Amy started, a look of alarm crossed her face. ‘But why, Jessie? Why now, when I need you most? I could understand if you had left last week after … after … But now Mr Redmore is ….’ She broke off in confusion. ‘I don’t know what my plans are. Probably I’ll return to England as soon as I can settle my affairs. I can take you back with me then.’
‘I want to leave your service, ma’am,’ Jessie said, taking a breath. ‘Certain things have come to my notice, I can no longer remain.’
‘Things? What things?’ Amy swung her legs off the couch, her voice gaining strength. She did not like Jessie’s manner.
‘Jessie?’ Amy demanded.
‘I have reason to believe Mr Redmore is dead from arsenic poisoning. I have told Dr Charles and he agreed,’ Jessie said in a rush, her voice uneven. ‘I believe you have poisoned him. Believing that, I cannot stay.’
‘Jessie!’ Amy jumped to her feet. ‘For what reason should I poison him? What nonsense all this is!’
Jessie’s voice rose, all the stress of the days before releasing suddenly now. ‘You poisoned him to marry Mr Huckle, ma’am.’ She felt the warmth of satisfaction as she saw the shock in Mrs Redmore’s face.
‘Mr Huckle? Jessie, are you mad? This is too absurd.’ Amy gave an anxious laugh.
‘I have proof, ma’am, in Mr Huckle’s letters to you, plain for anyone to see. You tore them up, but I sewed them together. This is an evil house, I will not stay another day!’ Jessie’s voice filled the room hysterically. ‘Mr and Mrs Phelps and my friend Bertha have seen the letters and their proof of your wickedness, ma’am. And I have told Dr Charles of all the arsenic you made me buy, and that you bought yourself.’
Amy sat down suddenly. The room reeled about her. Jessie’s thin face swung and then steadied. She held her head in her hands until she felt better before looking at the woman again.
‘You little ….’ All the breath had left Amy. ‘You have given the letters to Mr Phelps? Dr Charles you have told of the arsenic? What a thorough job you’ve done.’
‘I am going now. I have already packed. I am going to stay with Miss Brittain.’ Jessie turned on her heel and left the room.
Amy h
ad written already to Dr Charles, asking him to visit, thinking it strange he had not come to give her the facts of Reggie’s death. And, apart from telling her tersely of that news, Mr Cooper-Hewitt too had stayed away. Now she understood. Things were maturing suddenly with uncomfortable clarity. All day she had been tossed from one emotion to another; the stress of the night and Reggie’s torture, the shock of his death and the terrible guilty relief that had flooded her at the news. God had heard her wish to be free and released her at last. Nobody had guessed her relief. Except maybe Mabel who, subdued and strangely useless in a crisis, had sat with her for hours.
‘How odd to think that only the other day we even talked of killing him. And now it has really happened. You’re free,’ Mabel had said faintly, again and again.
‘You said so, not I,’ Amy reminded her.
‘I’m sorry. Truly, I’m sorry,’ Mabel apologized, her voice unsteady with emotion.
It was late when Dr Charles arrived, almost eleven o’clock. Amy sat in an unlit room, staring from the window at the silhouette of the Naval Hospital, visible over the loquat trees. It seemed already, even in death, as if Reggie’s grip on her life continued in a sullen way.
Rachel let in Dr Charles; she showed him into the drawing room. Amy left the darkness and went across the hall to meet him. The lights in the house seemed to blind her. His manner was impatient, he hovered near the door, his sympathy strained in the way Mr Cooper-Hewitt’s had been.
‘We’ll have the results of the autopsy tomorrow. It’s possible there will be an inquest. You must be prepared,’ he said. He observed her curiously, as if he might locate within her things to disinter. She looked away.
‘There is one thing, doctor, I ought to have told you before. Reggie suffered from stricture and he was in the habit of taking arsenic to relieve it.’ She saw a muscle move beneath the thick flesh of his jaw; his eyes showed no expression.
‘It is a pity you did not mention it before,’ he said.
