Sweet Sanctuary

by Charlotte Lamb

  "I asked you a question. What's Jimmy Whitney doing here? I just saw his face at a window upstairs."

  "Mrs. Butler's window, probably," she said, her own tone becoming sharp in response to the harshness in his.

  He shot her a dark look. "Aunt Elaine's room?" Then his eyes widened. "What the devil is he doing up there?" His face changed. "Is she worse? What's wrong—why didn't you let me know she was worse? Why didn't you ring me?"

  "I did!" His attitude had hurt, and she snapped back.

  He gave her an angry look and moved towards the other door. She caught at his arm.

  "You can't go up there looking like a thundercloud. Wait a moment and try to look cheerful."

  He looked down at her hand, resting on his arm. "Yes, Sister. Certainly, Sister." His voice had altered, grown lighter, had a tinge of amusement in it. "Very dictatorial all of a sudden, aren't we?"

  She let her hand drop, moving back from him. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to make sure you didn't upset her."

  "Well, how is she? And if you rang me, why didn't I hear about it?"

  "She's been ill today, but she's slightly better now. I rang you earlier because I was rather more worried then, but you were out. I rang Sylvia, but you'd left her, too, apparently. Your office knew I was looking for you, though."

  "I wasn't told." His frown boded no good for his secretary. "I was only out for an hour. Why didn't you ring again?"

  She flushed. "I would have done, but I thought they would be certain to tell you I'd rung. I explained the situation."

  "We had a bit of a flap this afternoon. I suppose it slipped her mind. She's fluffy-headed at the best of times." He gave her a long look. "You're pale yourself. You look exhausted. Have you been run off your feet?"

  Kate shook her head. "I've been sitting down all day, watching Mrs. Butler. Her temperature was very high, but it's come down a little now."

  "I'll go up now," he said. "Don't worry, I'll be bright and cheerful. I'll send Jimmy down. He came to hold your hand, did he?"

  Her face grew suddenly pink. "He came to help in an emergency," she said angrily. "I needed someone to fetch the prescription which the doctor left. That was why I rang you originally. You weren't there, and I had no choice but to ask Jimmy for help." She flung him a furious look. "Which he gave willingly! He's been here ever since. He cooked my lunch and he's taken over with your aunt so that I can have a short break. I'm very grateful to him."

  He grimaced. "Noble Jimmy! Don't sound so defiant, Kate. You're quite right—Jimmy has been a Trojan. I'm out of line. I'll remember to thank him, don't worry."

  "Don't be so sarcastic," she snapped.

  "I wasn't being sarcastic!" Nick looked surprised. "I'm sorry if it sounded like sarcasm."

  She eyed him furiously. He gave her a bright, faintly mocking smile and drifted out of the room. She turned her attention to the meal which she had been preparing. A mixed grill would be the easiest meal in the circumstances. She looked into the fridge and found bacon, sausages, some steak. With mushrooms and tomatoes, she thought, that would make a very acceptable meal.

  Jimmy appeared, smiling. "I'll shoot off now, if it's all the same to you. You'll have Nick as a backstop now."

  "I was just going to make some supper. Will you stay and have a mixed grill?"

  He grinned reluctantly. "I'd love to, but the old man will want me to help him with the usual evening jobs. I'll ring you tomorrow. If you need me, just shout." He came and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "You're an angel. Did you know that?"

  She smiled. "That makes us twins, then. I was just about to say the same thing to you. I'm very grateful for your help, Jimmy, I don't know what I would have done without you."

  He hugged her and went. Kate got on with the cooking. Nicholas came into the kitchen ten minutes later, and lounged in the doorway, watching her. She avoided his gaze, but she was deeply aware of his presence. His stare made her feel uneasy.

  At last she glanced at him crossly. "Is Aunt Elaine all right alone? Shall I go up and sit with her?"

  "She doesn't need permanent nursing now. She spoke quite rationally to me, and I gave her a large brass bell to keep on her bedside table. If she needs us she's to ring it like mad."

  "Do you think we'll hear it down here?" She was rather doubtful. The house was large, and swallowed sound.

  "We'll hear it," he assured her. "I think they'll probably hear it in the next county. When I had measles she gave it to me, and she could hear it when she was in the paddock."

  She looked up at him, amused. "Measles? When was that?"

  He went red. "A couple of years ago."

  "Measles?" she teased him. "That's a childish ailment."

  His eyes narrowed on her face. "So it is, madam! I caught it late in life, and if you say another word about it I'll demonstrate just how childish I can be!"

  Kate began to lay the table. He came, silently, and took the knives and forks from her, and finished the job. She went back to her cooking.

  "I spoke to Mrs. Butler about leaving," she said suddenly. "As soon as she's really well again, I'll find another job."

  He didn't answer. She glanced round and found him watching her from beneath half-lowered lids. A frown curled his brow and his mouth was taut. They looked at each other in silence.

  "You'll be glad to see me go," she half accused, half reproached him.

  "I must be glad," he said flatly.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The course of Mrs. Butler's illness did not run smooth. Her temperature ranged widely, her appetite varied from hour to hour, and she presented a puzzling picture to her doctor, who came each morning to check on her progress.

  "It's this unpredictability which worries me," he told Kate with a frown. "She seems to swing wildly. One day I feel certain she's improving, the next she's much worse. I can't account for it."

  Kate, too, was puzzled. Nursing Aunt Elaine, she too found the same peculiar variability. Gradually she began to suspect that the older woman was playing some sort of game, using her illness for her own ends. Yet, as soon as this thought had entered Kate's head, she was shamed by finding Mrs. Butler in a state of quite genuine collapse, her face white, her breathing difficult and pitiful to hear. When Kate summoned the doctor, he, too, showed signs of alarm.

  "How long has she been like this?" He drew Kate to one side, out of earshot of the bed, but his eyes fixed on the fragile old face on the pillow.

  "I just found her like it a little while ago. I went down to prepare her lunch, I was gone half an hour. When I came back she was lying there, half unconscious."

  "How long has she been like this?" He repeated the words in a vague voice, frowning. "That's the thing that worries me. A pity you missed the point of change. If you'd seen a gradual change, or been here when she first collapsed, I might get a clue."

  "A clue to what?"

  "To what's causing these sudden collapses! Is she eating?"

  Kate shook her head. She had been having great trouble in persuading Aunt Elaine to eat anything at all. "I wish I could talk her into eating a good meal, but she'll only pick at a few vegetables,"

  He frowned. "Vegetables? She needs protein to build her up again. Do you give her eggs? Fish?"

  "I cook them, but she won't eat them."

  He turned to stare at the figure lying so still against the pillows. "Why not? Doesn't she like them?"

  "She was always a semi-vegetarian. She had a very small appetite before her illness—it has wasted away to nothing in the days since she first collapsed."

  "We must re-awaken her appetite, then," he said firmly. "She must eat. This must be the answer—she's suffering from malnutrition. It would explain a number of symptoms which had been puzzling me."

  Kate gestured with vigour. "I'll do anything I can, but how are we to get her to eat? I've tried my best. I've taken great pains with her meals, I assure you. I'm not a bad cook, and I try to make the food look really appetising. It seems to have no effect on her at all
. She just pushes it away."

  "Apathetic?" The doctor watched Kate keenly.

  "Yes, that describes her attitude to food exactly."

  He nodded. "Good. That sounds as if my diagnosis is pretty accurate. We'll use a mixture of science and magic…"

  Kate looked startled. "Magic?"

  He grinned at her with delight in his success at startling her. "Yes, magic—some people call it psychology, but I always think it has more in common with what witch doctors called their 'power'. We use our knowledge of the mind to cure people."

  Kate laughed. "Using knowledge sounds pretty scientific, doesn't it?"

  He shrugged. "Science is a more exact art. I'm going to have to use a mixture of guess work and intuition where Mrs. Butler is concerned. If I'm wrong, heaven help us." He pushed his hands into his pockets and rocked on his heels, studying Kate with laughing eyes. "At her next meal bring her the smallest portion you think you can prepare—a spoonful of fish, a boiled egg—tiny amounts. Put them on a big plate to make them look even smaller. Don't comment on their size. Just hand them to her. If she doesn't eat them, look sad. Go away slowly, give her wistful looks. Then at the next meal repeat the process. Once she actually eats everything you've brought her, you can begin to increase the amount—very, very slowly, a spoonful at a time. It may work."

  Kate nodded. "I get the idea."

  He wrote out a prescription. "At the same time, we'll give her extra doses of vitamins and iron—to build up her reserves. Together they should help. You need strength to face the daily strain of living when you are her age."

  When Kate told Nick, later, what the doctor had said, he was amused despite his anxiety for his aunt. "Next time I'm ill I'll send for a witch doctor. It sounds a civilised way of being cured!"

  Kate glanced at him, noticing with a pang that there were dark shadows beneath his eyes and a tightness around his mouth which had not always been there.

  He had been sharing her watches in the night. They had taken turns in sitting up in case Aunt Elaine needed attention. She had insisted that Nick must go to work, although he had wanted to help Kate during the day, too. Had those difficult nights, followed by working days, worn him down, or was it some other strain which put the darkness into his eyes?

  He was leaning against the wall in the kitchen, watching her blend a sauce, and the limpness with which he half reclined on one arm made her frown.

  "Why don't you go and sit down for half an hour? Supper will keep."

  "I'm starving," he retorted indignantly. "I thought it was almost ready!"

  She looked at the sauce, dropping deliciously from her spoon. It would be a shame to ruin it, she thought. She shrugged. "Well, after supper, why not go to bed early?"

  "Do I look that bad?" He pretended horror, peering at himself in a mirror on the wall, putting out his tongue at his reflection.

  "Too much lost sleep, too little rest," Kate said firmly.

  "Yes, miss, sorry, miss," he mumbled, giving her a glinting look from beneath half-lowered lashes.

  She moved past him to get a sauceboat. He was so close that she could see the graining of his skin, the faint gold tips of his lashes, the faun-like folding of his ears.

  She turned hurriedly away, her heart thumping. It was both pain and delight to be so near him.

  Sylvia came visiting next day, bearing expensive, plastic-tasting grapes in a silver wicker basket tied with pink ribbons. She asked if she might go up to see Mrs. Butler and give them to her personally, and Kate uneasily said that she would see if Mrs. Butler was awake.

  Mrs. Butler was reading, having gained a little in energy since the doctor's last visit. Kate had actually persuaded her to eat a small bowl of rice pudding that lunchtime, even though she had already eaten some plaice masked with a cheese sauce. The food had had some obvious effects. She looked up, smiling, as Kate entered her room.

  When Kate told her about her visitor, however, the smile vanished, and a scowl replaced it.

  "I will not have her coming up here! She's only come because she hopes I'm on my deathbed."

  Kate looked shocked. "That isn't very nice!"

  "I know Sylvia!"

  Kate sighed. "I think you ought to see her."

  "Give me one good reason!"

  "For Nick's sake? She'll resent it if you don't, and she'll make Nick miserable for days."

  Aunt Elaine sighed. "Oh, very well, you little blackmailer, bring her up. But don't leave us alone! I need support if she's to burden me with her presence!"

  Sylvia was all smiles and sympathy, her slanting green eyes skimming everywhere, meanwhile. Kate busied herself with various domestic tasks while Sylvia sat on a chair beside the bed, despite Sylvia's irritated glances every now and then.

  Aunt Elaine, out of a perverted sense of humour, sat up with a great display of health and vigour, talking in her old, determined way, her features irradiated by a flush which was born of anger rather than health.

  Sylvia studied her carefully, assessing her state, and Kate saw the corners of the lovely, selfish mouth turn down as Aunt Elaine impressed Sylvia by her apparent strength.

  Was Aunt Elaine right? Had Sylvia come out of a hope that she would be visiting a deathbed?

  It would, of course, have been the perfect release from the fraught situation in which Sylvia found herself! Aunt Elaine would leave the battlefield for good, and Sylvia, without a blow struck, would be clear winner.

  After ten minutes Sylvia left, obviously only too glad to go, and Kate ushered her out of the house. On the stairs Sylvia paused to look down into the hall.

  "Dark and dingy! Needs white paint and that front door replaced with a glass one—to let in light. All that old-fashioned hall furniture can go, too."

  She darted away from Kate to peer into the rooms, exclaiming over the shortcomings of the decor and furnishing.

  "Nick must give me a free hand. I'll give this house a new lease of life!" Her green eyes glowed feverishly as she hurried to and fro, examining, admiring, deprecating.

  She had, Kate saw, a real passion for the house In one sense Aunt Elaine misjudged her. Sylvia was as obsessively held by Sanctuary as Aunt Elaine herself—it was just that they saw the house differently. Aunt Elaine liked it in its present shabby, elegant state. She wanted no changes at Sanctuary. Sylvia had sweeping plans for changes here, but she, too, loved this house.

  She paused to look at Kate with her face alight. "It has good bones," she said. "Don't you see it? You must see it. The house has been neglected. It's dirty and decaying, but underneath the dirt and the rubbish you can see the bones of a beautiful house."

  Kate nodded slowly, recognising the justice of what Sylvia said. "I do see what you mean!"

  Sylvia's features were alive with passion. "I must have it," she breathed hoarsely. "It's wicked what they've done to it—what's happening to it now. It could be the most elegant house in the county."

  Kate remained silent. There was really nothing useful to say. Sylvia turned to look at her after a moment, her eyes narrowed in thought.

  "That old woman upstairs," she said brutally, "how long do you think she'll live? I thought she might be dying this time. Nick seemed to be afraid she would. He hasn't been near me for days—he kept saying he couldn't leave her alone. I was sure she was really ill."

  "She was," Kate protested. "Really ill! I was very worried about her, too."

  "What did the doctor say?" Sylvia moved at once to the essential question.

  "He was concerned, too. She was so weak,"

  "She doesn't look weak now," Sylvia said sullenly.

  Kate was silent. She could hardly tell Sylvia the truth, that Aunt Elaine had been deliberately assuming a vigour she did not have in order to annoy her unwelcome visitor!

  Sylvia looked at her searchingly. "Tell me the truth —is she going to pull through?"

  Kate nodded. "I'm sure she will, this time."

  The lovely face contorted with rage. "And then? Do you think she'll be as s
trong as she used to be? They always say that a few weeks in bed can be very weakening when you're old."

  Kate was almost tempted to laugh, so blatant and childish was the selfishness and wicked dislike which Sylvia was displaying for her now. She swallowed down a chuckle, and answered with as much sober care as she could. "I think Aunt Elaine has a very strong will. If she wants to get well again, she will."

  "And she isn't going to die and leave me in possession of Sanctuary if she can help it," Sylvia said astutely.

  Kate half smiled, then sobered quickly as she met Sylvia's cool stare. "I wouldn't know about that."

  "Oh, I think you have a pretty shrewd idea of the situation," Sylvia drawled. "You've been pretty lucky so far—Nick would have got rid of you at the start if he hadn't been a soft-hearted fool, and then the old lady got ill and made you indispensable. Odd, that, isn't it? Providential, one might say."

  Kate gave her a wide-eyed look without answering. Sylvia glared at her.

  "I suppose you think that the old lady is really fond of you? Nick certainly believes it." Sylvia smiled unpleasantly. "But I know better. The only thing in this world that matters to her is Sanctuary, and she would use any weapon to keep the house out of my hands. You're just a tool to her. If you had any pride you- would find that distasteful. But you haven't any pride, have you? Just an instinct for finding a comfortable nest and settling down in it. Well, I'll put a stop to that. You can resign as soon as you like. If you don't, I'll save you the trouble!"

  She turned on her heel and walked away, her blonde head held high. Kate watched her, drained of all emotion save a sick sense of disgust at the cruelty of which human beings are capable when self-interest dictates it.

  It was not so much Sylvia's threat of getting rid of her that hurt. It was the idea that Aunt Elaine had merely used her as a tool.

  And what of Nick? He, as much as herself, was merely the means to an end for Sylvia. Sylvia needed Nick if she was to possess Sanctuary. But did she love him? Kate had seen them together, seen Sylvia look at him with something of the acquisitive hunger with which she looked at the house. Was that all it was? Or did Sylvia in her own way love Nick?