“He was brought to the house by a friend of my mother’s,” she said. “He dined with us and afterward we walked in the gardens among the fan-shaped palms and the fireflies.”
“And he fell in love with you.”
“Yes,” she said, “for a time.”
Her lips were beginning to tremble so I started to play the amorous captain and the dusky beauty in the garden where the fireflies flitted about the fan-shaped palms.
Oh yes, poor Monique was certainly difficult during those days.
And when he was in the house it changed, because without meaning to he made his presence felt. And when I saw him I realized the attraction. He was certainly good looking—taller than Rex, more blond, lacking that reddish tinge which was Rex’s; but their features were similar. The Captain laughed more readily, talked more loudly; and I should imagine was less guarded than Rex. He was the adventurer type—the sea rover; Rex’s adventures would be confined to business deals. Rex seemed pale in comparison with the Captain whose skin was deeply tanned; his deep blue eyes were more startling than Rex’s topaz-colored ones.
I couldn’t help being excited by his arrival. But I did wonder whether his coming had added any happiness to the house. I daresay his mother was delighted to see him; and I wondered whether I ought to have a word with him regarding the seriousness of her illness; but perhaps that was for Dr. Elgin to do. Lady Crediton was cool toward him for obvious reasons and I heard from Edith that this seemed to amuse him rather than upset him. He was that sort of man. I was sorry for poor Monique because it became very clear to me that she was not happy. You’re fickle, Captain, I thought; the exotic little flower once plucked no longer charms you.
And I was thinking a great deal about Anna. I always do; but particularly now that the Captain was home. But it was long ago that he went to visit her and caused such trouble with old Miss Brett. I could understand the fascination he had had for Anna, though.
***
June 20th. The Captain came to my room this morning, nonchalant, at ease, very much the man of the world.
“Nurse Loman,” he said, “I wanted to speak to you.”
“Certainly Captain Stretton. Do sit down.”
“About your patients,” he went on.
Ah yes, he would be concerned about his wife and his mother.
“They are both a little better at the moment,” I said. “Perhaps it is due to their pleasure in your return.”
“Do you find any change in my wife since you’ve been here? Has her complaint…worsened?”
“No.” I watched him covertly and wondered what his feelings were for Monique. I suppose there is nothing more nauseating than to be pursued passionately by someone one does not want. I believed this to be the case with him. And I wondered: Is he hoping that a benevolent fate will give him his freedom? “No,” I went on. “Her condition is much the same as when I arrived. It depends a great deal on the weather. During the summer she will be a little better, especially if it is not too damp.”
“She was better in her own land,” he said.
“That’s almost inevitable.”
“And…your other patient?”
“Dr. Elgin will be able to give you more details than I, but I think she is very ill.”
“These heart attacks…?”
“They’re really a symptom of imperfections in the heart.”
“And dangerous,” he said. “Which means that at any time she could die.”
“I think that is what Dr. Elgin would tell you.”
There was a brief silence and then he said, “Before you came here you were on another case.”
“I was at the Queen’s House. You probably know the place,” I added craftily.
“Yes, I know it,” he admitted. “There was a Miss…”
“Brett. There were two Miss Bretts. My patient was the elder and her niece lived with her.”
He was rather easy to read, this Captain. He was not as subtle as Rex. He wanted to ask about Anna; and I felt a little more friendly toward him. At least he remembered her.
“And she died?”
“Yes, she died. Rather suddenly.”
He nodded. “It must have been rather alarming for Miss…er, Miss Brett.”
“It was decidedly unpleasant for us both.”
“She took an overdose of pills, I heard.”
“Yes. That was proved at the inquest,” I said quickly and I discovered that when I had mentioned the matter in the past I had spoken as though I defied anyone to deny it. That was what I did now.
“And Miss Brett is still at the Queen’s House?”
I said: “Yes, she is.”
He stared beyond me; and I wondered whether he was thinking of calling on Anna. Surely not. That would cause quite a scandal now that he had his wife actually living at the Castle. But one thing I did know; he was not indifferent to her.
Young Edward came in, looking for his father, I believed. He had little time for me now; there was no one for him but his father. His eyes were round with adoration. He had shown me the model of a ship his father had brought him. He took it to bed with him and clutched it all night, Miss Beddoes said; moreover he had nearly driven her frantic by sailing it in the pond, and had all but drowned himself; she had caught cold getting him out. He carried the boat under his arm now, and saluted the Captain.
“All present and correct?” asked the Captain.
“Aye aye, sir. Gale blowing up, sir.”
“Batten down the hatches,” said the Captain with a serious face.
“Aye aye, sir.”
I watched them. The Captain could charm a child as easily as he could women. He was that sort of a man.
***
June 21st. Monique spat blood this morning and the sight of it so frightened her that she had one of the worst asthmatic attacks as yet. I believe there had been a scene between her and the Captain on the previous night. He occupied a room close to hers in the turret—and because I was not far off and Monique never controlled her voice, I often heard it raised in anger or protest. When Dr. Elgin came he was very grave. He said he thought her condition would worsen with winter. The English winter climate would be no use to her. He really thought she should get out before the autumn was over. After he had seen both of the patients he had a long session with Lady Crediton.
***
June 25th. We have had a death in the house. Jane Goodwin awakened me at four o’clock this morning and begged me to go to her mistress; I scrambled into my slippers and dressing gown but by the time I reached Valerie Stretton she was dead. I was horrified. I had known of course of her precarious condition but when one comes face to face with death and realizes that one will never see the person again, one feels shaken. I know I should be used to this by now—and I am to some extent. But I have never been so shocked by a patient’s death before. I had become so interested in this woman’s story and I was getting to know her. I believed that she had something on her mind and I wanted to discover what, that I might understand her case. There was that occasion when she had had her first attack and I knew she had been out because of the mud on her boots. I felt there was some drama in her life which was still going on, and I had wanted to understand it. And now she was dead.
***
June 27th. A house of mourning is a sad place. Lady Crediton finds it most inconvenient, Edith tells me. After all these years her rival is dead. I wonder what she really feels. What passionate emotions erupt within these walls. The Captain is grieved. She was after all his mother. Monique is alarmed. She is afraid of her own death. Edward is bewildered. “Where is my grandmamma?” he asked me. “Where has she gone?” I tell him she has gone to heaven. “In a big ship?” he asked. I said he should ask his Papa, and he nodded as much as to say Papa would surely know. I wonder what the Captain told him. He had a way with children…childre
n and women.
The west turret is the turret of death. Lady Crediton does not wish the funeral gloom to penetrate to the rest of the Castle. In Valerie’s old room the blinds are drawn; the coffin stands on its trestles. I went in to see her for the last time; she lies there with a white frilled cap hiding her hair and her face looks so young that it seems one of Death’s roles is that of a laundress to iron the lines out. I can’t help thinking of her coming to the Castle all those years ago, and of her love for Sir Edward and his for her. All that violent passion and now he is dead and she is dead. But their passion lives on for there is the Captain, virile, so vital, so alive to give proof to it. And there is young Edward too, and the children he will have, and their children, and on forever, so that that love affair will have left its mark for generations to come. I feel frustrated that I had not been able to discover what had frightened this poor woman and what may well have hastened her death. I went back and back again to that darkened room to take a look at her. Poor Valerie, what was her secret, whom did she go to meet? That was the question. That person whom she had gone to meet, the person who had written the letter to her. That was the one I should like to discover. I should like to say: “You hastened her to her death.”
***
June 28th. Last evening at dusk, I went along to that chamber of death and as I put my hand on the door handle I heard a sound from within. I felt a strange sensation in my spine. I am not superstitious and my profession has made me familiar with death. I have laid out people for their burials; I have seen them die. But as I stood outside that door I did feel this strange sensation, and I was afraid to go into that room. Lots of foolish images flashed into my mind. I imagined she would open her eyes and look at me and say: “Leave me and my secrets alone. Who are you to pry?” And I was shivering. But this foolishness passed and I heard that sound again. It was a stifled sob from a living throat. I opened the door and I looked in. The coffin loomed up in the gloom and there was a shape…beside it. For a moment I thought that Valerie had left her coffin. But only for a moment. Common sense returned, and as soon as it did I saw that it was Monique standing there. She was crying quietly.
I said sharply: “Mrs. Stretton, what are you doing here?”
“I came to say good-bye to her before…”
“It’s no place for you.” I was brisk, efficient, as much for my own benefit as for hers. I could not imagine how I could have been so foolish. I had almost had an attack of the vapors.
“Oh, it is terrible…terrible…” she sobbed.
I went to her and shook her firmly by the wrist. “Come back to your room. What possessed you to come here! You will be ill if you act so foolishly.”
“My turn next,” she said in a whisper.
“What nonsense!”
“Is it nonsense, Nurse? You know how ill I am.”
“You can be cured.”
“Can I, Nurse? Do you really believe that?”
“With the right treatment, yes.”
“Oh, Nurse…Nurse you always make me laugh.”
“Don’t laugh now. You come back to your room with me. I’ll give you some warm milk and a little cognac, eh? That will make you feel well.”
She allowed me to lead her from that room and I have to admit that I was glad to get outside. For some odd reason I couldn’t get out of my mind that something in that room was watching us…that it was probing into our innermost thoughts.
She felt it too for she said as the door closed behind us: “I was frightened in there…yet I had to go.”
“I know,” I soothed. “Come along now.”
I got her to her room where she began to cough a little. Oh dear! That fatal telltale stain! I would have to report it to Dr. Elgin.
I said nothing of it to her.
I tut-tutted as I got her into bed. “Your feet are like slabs of ice. I’m going to get you a hot-water bottle. But first the hot milk and the cognac. You should not have gone there, you know.”
She was crying quietly now, and the quietness was more alarming than her noisy outbursts.
“It would be better if I were the one lying in that coffin.”
“You’ll have a coffin when the time comes like the rest of us.”
She smiled through her grief. “Oh, Nurse, you do me good.”
“The cognac will do you even more good, you see.”
“At times you’re the stern nurse and at others…at others you’re quite something else.”
“We all have two sides to our natures, they say. Now let’s see the sensible one of yours.”
This made her laugh again, but she was soon in tears.
“Nobody wants me, Nurse. They’d be glad…all of them.”
“I won’t listen to such nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense. They’d be glad, I tell you, if I was the one in that coffin. He’d be glad.”
“Drink up this nice milk,” I said. “The bottle will be ready in a little while. And let’s think about this nice feather bed. It’s more comfortable than a coffin, I do assure you.”
And she was smiling at me through her tears.
***
June 30th. The day of the funeral. Gloom in the house. In the servants’ hall they will be talking of the love affair between the dead woman and that legend which is Sir Edward. There may be some of the older servants who will remember. I wonder if there are. I would like to talk to them about her. Jane Goodwin is heartbroken. I wonder what she will do now? I expect she will stay on at the Castle. Baines will be asked to find some job for her. Poor Jane, she was closely associated with Valerie Stretton for years. Valerie must have confided in her. She must know something. The Captain is the chief mourner. Monique was too ill to go; and little Edward did not either. Rex went. He is very fond of the Captain and the Captain of Rex. The tolling bells are very depressing. Jane lies in her room engulfed in desolation; Monique cries that it should have been her because that is what some people want. And I went down to draw the blinds in the death chamber and while I was there who should come down but Miss Beddoes. For some reason she dislikes me. It is mutual. She looked a little disappointed when she saw that I was merely pulling up the blinds. I wondered what she expected. In my room in the turret I can hear the bells of the nearby church tolling, telling the world that Valerie Stretton has passed away.
***
July 4th. Edith came to my room with news.
“It’s almost certain that Mr. Rex is going away,” she said.
“Going away?” I echoed, by which I really meant: Tell me more.
“He’s going to Australia,” Edith smiled slyly. “Well, we know who he’ll meet there.”
“The Derringhams have a branch there,” I said, “and so have we.”
“Well you see how it’s working out, don’t you?”
“Brilliant strategy,” I said.
“What’s that?” she asked but did not wait for an explanation. She was sure that what she had to say was more interesting than anything I could. “Mr. Baines heard her ladyship talking to Mr. Rex. You must see what’s happening over there,” she said. “Your father always believed in keeping in touch.”
“Keeping in touch with the Derringhams?”
“Well, this could put everything right. After all he’s had the time he wanted now, hasn’t he?”
“I should think so.”
“Mr. Baines thinks it is almost certain that Mr. Rex will leave for Australia fairly soon. Changes never come singly. Mrs. Stretton’s passing away…and now Mr. Rex.”
I agreed that there would certainly be changes.
***
July 5th. Dr. Elgin questioned me very closely about my patient.
“She is certainly not improving, Nurse.”
“She is always so much worse on the damp days?”
“That is natural, of course. The conditi
on of the lungs has worsened.”
“Also the asthma, I think, Doctor.”
“I was going to suggest that you try the nitrite of amyl if there should be a bad attack. But perhaps in her case this would not be advisable. Himrod’s Cure has been known to be effective. Not that I like patent medicines, but there is nothing harmful in this one. You know it, Nurse?”
“Yes,” I said. “One burns the powder and the patient inhales the fumes. It was effective with one of my patients. I also found burning paper which had been dipped into a solution of saltpeter effective.”
“H’m,” he said. “We have to remember the lung complication. I will give you a mixture of iodide of potassium and sal volatile with tincture of belladonna. We’ll see how that goes. This can be given every six hours.”
“Yes, Doctor. And I shall hope that the weather stays warm and dry. So much depends on it.”
“Exactly. To tell the truth, Nurse, in my opinion they should never have brought her over here.”
“Perhaps it would be advisable for her to return.”
“There is no doubt in my mind of the wisdom of that.”
And with those words he went down to report to Lady Crediton.
***
July 8th. In the gardens today I met Rex.
He said: “Snatching a little recreation, Nurse?”
“It is necessary now and then,” I replied.
“And walking is a good substitute for dancing?”
“I would hardly say that.”
“And you prefer your Chatelaine’s robes?”
“Infinitely.”
“Well, those are equally becoming, but perhaps yours is the kind of beauty which needs no enhancing.”
“All beauty needs the right setting. I have heard that you will shortly be leaving us. Is that true?”
“It’s almost a certainty.”
“And you are going to Australia. Is that so?”
“How well informed you are.”
“There is a very good news service in the Castle.”
“Ah,” he said, “servants!”
“I am sure you will enjoy your trip. When does it start?”