Ladies’ Bane

by Patricia Wentworth

  She was gazing at Ione now out of those over-bright eyes with their effect of being all iris.

  “What was your doctor’s name, Ally?”

  “The one here-or the one in London?”

  “Both.”

  “The one here is Dr. Whichcote. He’s rather old, but very kind. The one in London -no, do you know, I’ve forgotten. Geoffrey wanted me to go and see him, and Dr. Whichcote fixed it up. I only saw him once, and his name has gone right out of my head, but he gave me my lovely medicine, and he said, just like Dr. Whichcote does, that I’m quite all right, so there’s no need for anyone to fuss. And now will you please let go of my hands, Io?” Ione let them go. She wasn’t satisfied-no one could possibly have been satisfied with this shallow empty tale. She would have to take it to Geoffrey and have a show-down. That Allegra was being drugged was apparent. Neither Ally’s own denials nor those of anyone else were going to shake Ione about that. And if Geoffrey hadn’t a very good explanation, she was prepared to bring the family about his ears. What she could not understand was why he should have let her come here, knowing as he must have known that Allegra’s state could hardly pass unnoticed. Her visit had been postponed often enough. There had been excuse after excuse. And then suddenly she was not only invited, but positively urged to come. Was she considered to be such a fool that she couldn’t put two and two together? Or had things come to such a point that Geoffrey no longer cared whether she guessed or not?

  Allegra’s tongue ran on. She had left the subject of her medicine and was talking about the house.

  “It’s terribly old, isn’t it? I expect all these old houses have stories about them. Geoffrey says they are just nonsense-but-I don’t know-” Her voice dragged on the words. She looked over her shoulder and back again. Then she leaned forward and whispered, “Do you know what they call this house in the village? It was made into a dower house when the eighteenth-century Falconers built the big place which was burnt down in the blitz. They changed the name then from the Manor House to the Ladies’ House. But that’s not what they call it in the village. They never have, and they never will. Florrie told me about it-she is the daily housemaid, and she is a chattering kind of girl. She didn’t want to tell me, but I got it out of her. Her family has lived in Bleake almost as long as the Falconers have, so she knows. And she says even when it was the Manor House, hundreds of years before the big place was built, it had another, secret name. And do you know what it was?” She put her lips quite close to Ione’s ear and dropped her voice to a thread. “They called it Ladies’ Bane.” Ione was startled.

  “Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know-some old story.” She shook back her hair and gave that tinkling laugh. “Stupid, isn’t it? A thing like that couldn’t be true.”

  “A thing like what? If you don’t tell me, I shall ask Geoffrey.”

  A fleeting look of terror passed over the little pointed face. Allegra’s hands came out and clutched her.

  “No-no-you mustn’t ever! I’ll tell you. But it’s all nonsense, and you mustn’t think about it or speak about it-especially not to Geoffrey, because it would make him dreadfully angry. I oughtn’t to have said a word, but sometimes it frightens me. Oh, Io, it does!” She came very close again and whispered as she had done before. “It’s just-they say-that anyone who is mistress here-will lose the thing-she cares for most-in all the world.”

  The last words came in a terrified rush. And only just in time, because Geoffrey Trent came into the room. There had been no sound of an opening door. If it had been unlatched, would that frightened whisper have reached him? Ione did not think it possible. Then how much had he seen of the frightened whispering attitude? Allegra had been quick to lean back in her corner of the sofa and to call his name in a tone of pleased surprise. Curiously enough, it was this which made the least agreeable impression. The Allegra of two years ago would not have known how to change her part like that. She had had no need for that or any other part. She had been simple, candid, sincere. She had also been loving and vulnerable. There were obvious changes now.

  That bright blue glance of Geoffrey’s travelled over the sisters and came to rest upon his wife. She met it with a flush and a smile.

  “I was telling Ione about the house. But I really oughtn’t to-I told her so. You do it so much better.”

  He laughed and came to stand in front of the fire.

  “I’ve just about exhausted her patience, I should think. But”-with a return of his eager manner-“it is all rather absorbing, isn’t it?” Ione smiled and nodded.

  “I feel as if I had been on a personally conducted tour of the fourteenth century.”

  “And you didn’t like it?”

  “Well, not the underground part. But then I’ve got rather a thing about cellars, so if I scream in the night, you’ll know why.”

  Allegra’s little restless hands were plucking at one another. They stopped for a moment now. She stared at them and said,

  “No one would hear you if you did-the walls are too thick.”

  If there had been a pause just then it would not have been a pleasant one. But there was no pause, because Geoffrey spoke, still with that pleasant eagerness about him,

  “I’m not suggesting anything about the inside of the house, but I did wonder whether you would care to see the outside. Of course there’s nothing in the garden at this time of year, but you can see how it’s been laid out. There’s a really wonderful rock garden in what used to be an old quarry. Those Americans spent hundreds on it, and it’s really very hot stuff indeed. Wouldn’t you like to see it? And if you come, perhaps Allegra will too. She doesn’t get out enough. Dr. Whichcote says she ought to have plenty of fresh air.”

  “It’s so cold-” Words and tone were those of a fretful child. She shrank back into her corner as if an attempt might be made to dislodge her by main force.

  “You would be much warmer when you came in, my dear.”

  Allegra shook her head till the light, fine hair flew up in a cloud.

  “No-no-I wouldn’t! I just get colder and colder until the last bit of warmness is gone!” Her eyes implored him. The hands were plucking at one another again.

  Ione got up.

  “All right, darling, we won’t make you come this time-will we, Geoffrey? I’ll just get a coat.”

  CHAPTER 10

  They went out by a door at the end of one of the narrow stone passages. It brought them into a small enclosed courtyard shut in on three sides by the house, and on the fourth by a wall with an arched doorway in the middle of it. The door was open and showed a glimpse of green. Beyond it lay first a stone terrace with formal trees in tubs, and then three other terraces, of grass, and stone, and grass again, set with rosebeds growing from a carpet of pansy and viola. The effect in summer would be lovely. Even now there was bloom upon the pansies, a bud showing purple, and even an occasional draggled flower. Steps went gently down to a lawn. There was a fine cedar, and a magnificent leafless tree which Geoffrey told her was a copper beech.

  She had made up her mind to say nothing of what was weighing upon it until he had had his fill of showmanship. The garden was certainly beautiful. Even the bare bones of it in this winter month were a delight to the eye. After the lawn there were trees-a glade that would be full of bluebells and primroses in the spring. And then out again on to open ground which began to slope.

  “This is what the American spent his money on,” said Geoffrey Trent. “I said hundreds, but it must have been nearer thousands-a couple at least. It was an old quarry with a derelict pond at the bottom. Most of the tin cans and dead cats of the neighbourhood used to find their way into it, I believe. He got one of the first landscape gardeners in the country to come down, and you can see what he has done. This side there wasn’t much drop, and it’s all been very carefully laid out with these shallow steps and the right settings and exposures for alpines. Those small rhododendrons are an absolute sheet of colour in the spring. The pond has been made into a magnific
ent lily pool, and those weeping willows over there are coming along like a house on fire. But the real feature is the steep face of the quarry over there. It has a south exposure, and when everything has had a little more time to grow it will be one of the loveliest things in England-sheets of aubrietia in every shade from lilac to crimson, curtains of white and purple wistaria, and every kind of flowering bush which could be persuaded to root itself. You can’t be surprised we are crazy about the place, now can you? The bother is that my capital is all in stuff that is pretty far down now but is bound to recover, and it would be madness for me to sell out. So unless we can persuade those obstinate trustees of yours to let Allegra use some of hers I’m afraid we’re in the soup. I shall wear them down, if it’s to be done-I’m quite good at going on until I get what I want. As a matter of fact, I believe I really have made some impression at last, because Mr. Sanderson is sending a chap down to vet the place tomorrow.” Ione had no intention of letting herself be drawn into a discussion as to whether Allegra’s money should or should not be used for the purchase of the Ladies’ House. The fact that she already held very strong opinions on the subject was a good enough reason for holding her tongue while she was Geoffrey’s guest.

  And the quarry shook her. It was already beautiful, even in its winter sleep. And what it would be like in the spring-in the summer-Already there was prunus in a pale rosy mist, and witch hazel in a golden cloud. There were winter roses, and iris stylosa. There was yellow jasmine, and the winter-blooming heather. She could turn whole-heartedly to Geoffrey and say,

  “What a perfectly marvellous place!”

  He was flushed with pleasure.

  “Well, it is, isn’t it! But you mustn’t let me bore you with it. Jacqueline says I do, you know. She says I don’t know where to stop. So you’ll just have to tell me quite frankly when you’ve had enough.”

  That sounded very downright for Margot’s governess. She said,

  “You have known Miss Delauny a long time?”

  “Oh, not so very long. I’m very grateful to her. Margot is a bit of a problem, and she is good at managing her.”

  It was not Margot whom Ione wanted to discuss with Geoffrey Trent. She made a slight gesture with her hand as if to put her aside, and said,

  “Geoffrey, I want to talk to you about Allegra. What is she taking?”

  A very decided change came over his face. The pleasure went out of it, and he met her look with a very direct one.

  “What makes you ask me that?”

  “Because I saw Allegra last night, and I’ve seen her this morning. I’m not quite a fool, and it is perfectly obvious that she is under the influence of a drug-morphia for choice. Besides, she told me about her wonderful medicine.”

  “I see. Did she tell you I gave it to her?”

  “No. She said the specialist she went to in London gave it to her, but that you were always trying to prevent her taking it.”

  He turned aside for a moment, walked a few paces away, and came back again to say father curtly,

  “If you know anything at all about drug cases you must be aware that they all have one thing in common-they are incapable of speaking the truth.”

  He saw her colour come with a rush and then fade.

  “You mean she wasn’t telling the truth-about the medicine?”

  “Of course she wasn’t! The man I took her to was Blank.” He mentioned a world-famous name. “What he wanted her to do was to go into a sanatorium. She has refused, and goes on refusing. Every time the subject is mentioned she cries herself into a state of exhaustion. Frankly, I am at my wits’ end.”

  “And the medicine she spoke of?”

  He threw up a hand.

  “A harmless tonic prescribed by Dr. Whichcote.”

  “Then where does the drug come in?”

  “If we knew that, we could stop it, but I just haven’t a clue. She’s got some hiding-place-she must have. Mind you, I don’t suppose she’s got very much of whatever it is. But I’m afraid she did manage to get hold of a fresh stock when she was in town. I went up with her of course, and we lunched together. But I didn’t want to butt in on her interview with Sanderson. I didn’t want him to think that I was pushing her in any way-about the house, or anything. So I arranged to drop her at his office, and she said she would take a taxi as soon as she had finished her talk with him and meet me at the club for tea. Well, she arrived very late and in one of those excited moods. My heart went down like a stone. Of course she swore she hadn’t got anything-turned out her bag and made me feel in her pockets. It was pathetic-” He broke off suddenly and put a hand on her arm. “Ione-is this really all news to you? Was there nothing which aroused your suspicion before she was married?”

  Nothing could have exceeded the horrified surprise in her voice.

  “Before she was married?”

  He said in a dreadfully bitter voice,

  “I found out that Allegra was a drug addict before we had been married a week.”

  The shock was overwhelming. She heard herself say, “No-no!” But even as she said it her mind was battling with the thought of how little she had seen of Allegra in those crowded weeks before the wedding. She said in an exhausted voice,

  “I didn’t know-I can’t believe it-”

  “Do you suppose I wanted to? I took her to a very clever French doctor, and he told me what to do. He said it hadn’t been going on very long, and she would be all right. I thought we had got her cured, but six months later it started again. It’s been hell.” Ione steadied herself.

  “Has she never told you how she gets the stuff? Can’t you get it out of her?”

  He said grimly,

  “I can get a string of lies. If you really, genuinely don’t know anything, then I think it must have been someone at one of the house-parties we went to who induced her to try the stuff. There was a fairly wild crowd at a couple of the places, but I can’t even begin to make a guess at who could possibly have done such a damnable thing. Allegra was being run off her legs. That’s the way girls begin with that sort of thing-it’s just something to pick them up and carry them over a sticky patch.”

  As he spoke, there was a loud “Coo-ee!” from the quarry top. Margot Trent was leaning over and waving. When they looked up, she shouted, “Watch me!” and began to run along the edge, balancing with an arm out on either side. Geoffrey shouted, “Get back!” But she only burst out laughing. She had just passed out of sight behind a tall conifer rooted some four feet down, when there was a most appalling scream followed by the sound of a crash.

  Geoffrey said, “Oh, my God!”, swung round upon his heel, and ran. Ione followed him, her heart banging, her breath coming short.

  A rock garden is no place through which to run a headlong course-steps going up and steps going down-the unexpected pool-the sudden sharp descent-the boulder which masks an unexpected twist in the path. Looking back afterwards, she could not understand why she had not stumbled and come down. Geoffrey at least knew the way, yet she came up with him almost as he reached the foot of the quarry wall.

  And there was nothing there.

  He stood staring down at the harmless shrubs and plants which were all that there was to see. And then, very slowly, his glance travelled upwards whilst Ione’s followed it. There might be a crumpled, broken body caught somewhere on that irregular rocky face. Three-quarters of the way up, and nothing yet. The lower branches of the conifer came into view only a matter of four feet from the top. It rose up in a blue-green pillar, very beautiful and shapely, and from behind it there came great gusts and shouts of laughter.

  Ione stepped back. She had to see, and she was too nearly under the cliff. She stepped back, and she saw Margot holding to the tree, her face scarlet, her eyes streaming. She bent this way and that in her paroxysms of mirth. In a voice which Ione would hardly have recognized Geoffrey shouted, “Keep still!”

  But this merely provoked her to fresh explosions.

  “Didn’t I take you in beautifully
! Didn’t you think I’d come to a sticky end!” She leaned against the tree and shook the tears away. “That was a stone I pushed over, wrapped up in a bit of sacking! You’ll find it behind the thing with the red berries! And didn’t I give a lovely scream! I’d got it all thought out, because I’ve got a rope round my waist, and it’s tied to the tree so I couldn’t fall if I tried! All right, all right-I’m going up now! Just watch me!”

  In a moment she had scrambled, wriggled, and jerked herself to the top of the cliff. It was not a graceful performance. One of her suspenders had broken, and the stout pink leg which the fallen stocking exposed was covered with scratches. As she stood there laughing and undoing the rope at her waist, Geoffrey turned with a sound of pure rage, and went striding away in the direction of the house.

  CHAPTER 11

  Oh, no, we never scold her,” said Jacqueline Delauny. Her tone was that of the civilized person who is addressing a member of some backward tribe.

  Ione’s reactions were of the simplest. She felt an inward glow of fury, and she said,

  “Why?”

  Miss Delauny’s superiority became a little more pronounced.

  “It would not help.”

  “Have you tried?”

  “Oh, no. Any harshness would only make things worse.”

  “Well, I think you should see what a good scolding would do. I quite agree that she doesn’t mean any harm, but she ought to be made to realize that this sort of thing isn’t funny. I never had such a shock in my life, and I don’t suppose Geoffrey had either. Well, that’s all right-we can take it. But supposing Allegra had been there-are you going to tell me she is fit to have a shock like that, or that she ought to be in the house with someone who is liable to give her that kind of shock at any moment? Margot probably won’t do that particular thing again, but can you, or can Geoffrey, guarantee that the next thing she does may not be equally horrible and even more dangerous? Because that rope might have slipped or broken, you know. The whole thing makes me feel quite sick.”