Grab Bag Page 15

  “But I do, every morning and evening.”

  “Then do it again, right now. And stay for more than two minutes this time.”

  “Oh, very well. But it’s so depressing.”

  “It’s not all jam for old Roger either, you know.”

  “How sententious of you, darling. Shall I hold his hand, or what?”

  “Why don’t you read to him?”

  “He loathes being read to.”

  “Read to him anyway. It will look well in front of the nurse. That’s our objective, Eleanor, to create the impression of devotion among the attendants. You must be able to act the bereft widow convincingly when we … lose him.”

  His mistress shrugged and turned toward the stairs.

  “Oh, and Eleanor,” Gerald lowered his voice yet another pitch. “We’d better postpone any further meetings until it’s over. We mustn’t take any risk whatever. And don’t be surprised if I start a flirtation with one of the village belles.”

  She arched one delicately pencilled eyebrow. “Have you picked out anybody special?”

  “One will do as well as another. Protective camouflage, you know. It’s only for a few weeks, darling.” He turned the full force of his dazzling smile on her, and went out.

  Eleanor stood for a moment looking after him. It was hard on Roger, of course. Still, she had her own future to think of. Her husband had offered her a divorce as soon as the doctors had told him the sports car smashup had left him paralyzed for life. Naturally she had refused. It wouldn’t have looked well, and besides, the settlement he’d offered was not her idea of adequate support.

  No, she would have it all. She and Gerald. It was clever of Gerald to have found the way. She arranged her features in exactly the right expression of calm compassion and went to visit her husband.

  Day by day she increased the length of time she spent in the sickroom. It was less tedious than she had anticipated. For one thing, Roger was so glad to have her there. She took to bringing him little surprises: some flowers, a few sun-warmed strawberries from the garden. She had the gramophone brought into his room and played the records they had danced to before they were married. Nurse Wilkes beamed. Marble the valet scowled distrustfully.

  Eleanor found herself looking forward to her visits, planning the next day’s surprise, thinking of new ways to entertain the invalid. The weeks went by and Gerald began to fidget.

  “I say, don’t you think we ought to be getting on with it?”

  “You said we mustn’t rush things.” And she went past him into Roger’s room, carrying a charming arrangement of varicolored roses she’d got up early to pick with the dew on them.

  As had become her habit, she took up the book she was reading aloud to him and opened it to her bookmark. Her eye, now attuned to Roger’s every expression, caught a tightening of the muscles around his mouth. She put the book down.

  “You hate being read to, don’t you, Roger?”

  “It’s just that it makes me feel so utterly helpless.”

  “But you’re not. There’s nothing the matter with your eyes. From now on, you’ll read to yourself.”

  “How can I? I can’t hold the book, I can’t turn the pages.”

  “Of course you can. We’ll just sit you up, like this—” Eleanor slid one arm around her husband and pulled him up. “Nurse, let’s have that backrest thing. There, how’s that?”

  She plumped a pillow more comfortably. “Now we’ll prop the book up on the bed table, like this, and lift your arm, like this, and slip the page between your fingers so that you can hold it yourself.” A pinching between the right thumb and forefinger was the only movement Lord Patterly could make. “And when you’ve finished with that page, we just turn it over. Like this. See, you’ve managed it beautifully.”

  “So I have.” He looked down at his hand as though it were something miraculous. “That’s the first thing I’ve done for myself since … it happened.”

  For the next half-hour, Roger read to himself. Eleanor sat at his side, patiently moving his hand when he signalled that he was ready, helping to slide the next page into his grasp. She found the monotonous task strangely agreeable. For the first time in her life, she was being of use to somebody else. When Marble brought in the patient’s lunch and Nurse Wilkes came forward to feed it to him, she waved the woman away.

  “He’ll feed himself today, thank you, Nurse.”

  And he did, with Eleanor setting a spoon between his thumb and forefinger and guiding his hand to his mouth. When he dropped a morsel, they laughed and tried again. At last Lady Patterly left Nurse Wilkes clucking happily over a perfectly clean plate and went to get her own lunch. Gerald was waiting for her.

  “I’ve got it all figured out, darling,” he whispered as soon as they were alone. “I’ve been reading up on digitalis. The doctor’s been leaving it, I know, on account of that heart of his. All we have to do is slip him an extra dose and out he goes. Heart failure. Only to be expected in a helpless paralytic.”

  To her own surprise, Eleanor protested. “He is not helpless. He’s handicapped.”

  “Rather a nice distinction in Roger’s case, don’t you think, sweet? Anyway, there we are. You’ve only to notice which is the digitalis bottle, watch your chance, and slip a tablespoonful into his hot milk, or whatever they give the poor bloke.”

  “And what happens when Nurse Wilkes notices the level of the medicine’s gone down in the bottle? Not clever, Gerald.”

  “Dash it, you can put in some water, can’t you?”

  “I suppose so.” Eleanor pushed back her chair. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Think fast, my love. I miss you.”

  Gerald gave her his best smile, but for some reason her heart failed to turn over as usual. She got up. “I’m going for a walk.”

  She started off aimlessly, then found herself heading toward the village. It was pleasant swinging along the grassy lane, feeling her legs respond to the spring of the turf under her feet. Roger had loved to walk. For the first time since the accident, Eleanor felt an overwhelming surge of genuine pity for her husband.

  She turned in at the bookshop. It was mostly paperbacks and greeting cards these days, but she might find something Roger would enjoy now that she’d found a way for him to manage a book.

  That was rather clever of me, she thought with satisfaction. She liked recalling the look on Roger’s face, the beaming approval of Nurse Wilkes, the unbelief in old Marble’s eyes as he watches His Lordship feeding himself. “There must be any number of things I could help him do,” she mused. “I wonder how one goes about them?”

  She went up to the elderly woman in charge. “Have you any books on working with handicapped people? Exercises, that sort of thing.”

  “Physical therapy.” Miss Jenkins nodded wisely. “I do believe there was something in that last lot of paperbacks. Ah yes, here we are.”

  Eleanor ruffled through the pages. “This seems to be the general idea. But don’t you have any that go into greater detail?”

  “I could always order one for you, Lady Patterly.”

  “Please do, then, as quickly as possible.”

  “Of course. But—excuse me, Lady Patterly—we all understood His Lordship was quite helpless.”

  “He is not!” Again Eleanor was startled by her own reaction. “He was sitting up in bed reading by himself this morning, and he ate his own lunch. You can’t call that helpless, can you?”

  “Why … why no, indeed. Good gracious, I can hardly believe it. Nurse Wilkes said—”

  “Nurse Wilkes says entirely too much,” snapped Eleanor. She would have a word with Nurse Wilkes.

  She walked back slowly, studying the book page by page. It seemed simple enough. Manipulating the patient’s limbs, massage, no problem there. If only they had a heated swimming pool. But of course Roger wouldn’t be ready for that for ages yet. And by then she and Gerald … Gerald was getting a bit puffy about the jawline, she’d noticed it at lunch. Those
big, beefy men were apt to go to flesh early. He ought to start exercising, too. No earthly good suggesting it to him. Gerald made rather a point of being the dominant male. Roger was much more reasonable to deal with.

  He was positively boyish about the exercises. When the doctor dropped around for his daily visit, he found them hard at it, Roger pinching on to Eleanor’s finger while she swung his arm up and down.

  “See, Doctor, he’s holding on beautifully.”

  “She’s going to have me up out of this in a matter of weeks.”

  The doctor looked from one to the other. There was color in Lord Patterly’s face for the first time since the accident. He had never seen Her Ladyship so radiant. Why should he tell them it was hopeless? Life had been hard enough on that young pair. Anyway, who knew? There was always the off-chance the long bed rest had allowed some of the damaged nerve endings to mend themselves.

  “By all means go on as you’re doing,” he said. “Just take it a bit slowly at first. Remember that little heart condition.”

  Eleanor suddenly thought of Gerald and the digitalis. Her face became a mask. “I’ll remember,” she said tonelessly.

  Her husband laughed. “Oh, nonsense. Everybody’s got these idiotic heart murmurs. My father had and he lived to seventy-nine. Gerald has, and look at him. Shoots, swims, rides, all that.”

  “Gerald had better watch himself,” said the doctor. He picked up his bag. “Well, the patient appears to be in good hands. “You’re doing splendidly, Lady Patterly, splendidly. Don’t be discouraged if progress is a little slow. These things take time, you know.”

  “Time,” said Lord Patterly, “is something of which we have plenty. Haven’t we, darling?”

  His wife smoothed his pillow. “Yes, Roger. All the time in the world.”

  “I’ll leave you to it, then.” The doctor moved toward the door. “Watch his pulse, Nurse. Give the prescribed injection of digitalis if it seems advisable after the exercises. You keep the hypodermic ready, of course?”

  “All in order, Doctor. Right here on the medicine tray if need arises.”

  Gerald was right, Eleanor thought as she gently kneaded the wasted muscles of her husband’s arms. It would be easy. Too easy. She drew the covers up over him. “There, that’s enough for now. I don’t want to wear you out the first day. Shall put on some music?”

  “Please.”

  She had taken to playing the classical records he liked. It whiled away the time for her, too, sitting beside the bed, letting the long waves of melody sweep over her, daydreaming of all the things she would do when she was free. Today, however, she found her mind dwelling on more homely pictures. Miss Jenkins’s face when she’d dropped her little bombshell at the bookshop. The doctor’s, when he’d found her giving her husband therapy. Her husband’s now, as he lay with his eyes closed, the long afternoon shadows etching his features in sharp relief. He was as good-looking as ever, in spite of everything. That jaw would never be blurred by fat. What would it be like, living in this house without Roger? She tried to imagine it and could not.

  After dinner the following evening, Gerald suggested a walk. “You’re looking peaked, Eleanor. Needn’t stay cooped up with your patient forever, you know.”

  His double meaning was plain. She rose and followed him out the French windows to the terrace.

  “Rather an inspiration of yours, that therapy thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Easy enough to overdo a bit. Make the heart attack more plausible, eh?”

  She did not answer. He went on, confident of his power over her.

  “You were right about the digitalis, I decided. I’ve thought of something even better. Potassium chloride. I was a hospital laboratory technician once, you know. One of the jobs I batted around in after they turned me down for the army. Rum, when you come to think of it. I mean, if it hadn’t been for my wheezing heart I shouldn’t have drifted into this post, and if it weren’t for Roger’s I shouldn’t be … getting promoted, shall we say? Anyway, getting back to the potassium chloride, it’s reliable stuff. Absolutely undetectable. Do an autopsy and all you find is a damaged heart and an increased potassium rate. Exactly what you’d expect after a fatal coronary attack.”

  “Gerald, must you?”

  “This is no time to turn squeamish, Eleanor. Especially since it’s you who’ll be giving it.”

  “Don’t be a fool. How could I?”

  “Oh, I don’t mean directly. We’ll let Nurse Wilkes do that. She keeps a hypodermic of digitalis on the beside table, ready to give him a quick jab if he needs it.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I’m the dear old pal, remember? I’ve been a lot more faithful about visiting Roger than you ever were until your recent excess of wifely devotion. Nurse Wilkes and I are great chums.”

  “I can imagine.” Men like Gerald were always irresistible to servant girls and barmaids and plain, middle-aged nurses. And rich women who thought they had nothing better to do.

  “I took careful note of the type of hypodermic syringe she uses,” Gerald went on. Yesterday when I was in London, I bought one just like it at one of the big medical supply houses, along with some potassium chloride and a few other things so it wouldn’t look too obvious. I’d dropped in beforehand to visit some of my old pals at the hospital and pinched a lab coat with some convincing acid holes in it. Wore it to the shop and they never dreamed of questioning me. I ditched it in a public lavatory and got rid of the rest of the stuff in various trash bins on my way back to the station.”

  “You think of everything, don’t you, Gerald?” Eleanor’s throat was dry.

  “Have to, my love. So here we are. I give you the doings all ready for use. You watch your chance tomorrow morning and switch the syringes. Then you put old Roger through his paces till he works up a galloping pulse, back off and let Nurse take over, and get ready to play the shattered widow. The stuff works in a couple of minutes. And then this is all ours.”

  “It’s all ours now,” Eleanor told him. “Mine and Roger’s.”

  “I say! You’re not backing out on me, are you?”

  “Yes I am. I won’t do it, Gerald.”

  No woman had ever refused Gerald anything before. His face puckered like an angry baby’s. “But why?”

  “Because I’m not quite the idiot I thought I was. You’re not worth Roger’s little finger.”

  It was astonishing how ugly Gerald could look. “And suppose I go to Roger and let him know the loving-wife act was just a buildup for murder? Suppose you’re caught with the evidence? You will be, Eleanor. I’ll see to that.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. What would you get out of it?”

  “You forget, my love. I’m the boyhood chum and devoted steward. I’ll be the chap who saved his life. I’ll be in charge here, far more than I am now. And with no wife to pass things on to, Roger just might be persuaded to make me his heir.”

  “How long would he survive the signing of the will?”

  “That won’t be your concern, my sweet. You’ll be where you can’t do a thing about it.”

  Eleanor stared at him, frozen-faced. He began to wheedle.

  “Oh, come on, old girl. Think of the times we’ll have on dear old Roger’s money. You don’t plan to spend the rest of your life in that bedroom, do you?”

  “No,” said Eleanor, “I don’t.”

  Her mind was forming pictures, of Roger being carried down to a couch on the terrace to get the sun, of Roger being pushed around the garden in a wheelchair, of Roger taking his first steps on crutches. And some day, of Roger and herself walking together where she and Gerald were walking now. It would happen. She knew it would because this was what she wanted most in all the world, and she always got what she wanted.

  “Very well, Gerald,” she replied. “Give me the syringe.”

  “Come down into the shrubbery first so we can’t be seen from the house.”

  She hesitated. “It’s full of wasps do
wn there.”

  He laughed and steered her toward the dense screen of bushes. Once hidden, he took the hypodermic out of his pocket. “Here you are. Be sure to handle it with your handkerchief as I’m doing, so you won’t leave any fingerprints. Now have you got it all straight?”

  “Yes, Gerald,” she said. “I know exactly what to do.”

  “Good. Then you’d better go back to the house and tuck Roger in for the night. I’ll stroll around the grounds awhile longer. We mustn’t be seen going back together.” He blew her a kiss and turned to leave.

  “Wait, Gerald,” said Eleanor sharply. “Don’t move. There’s a wasp on the back of your neck.”

  “Well, swat it, can’t you?”

  Lady Patterly’s hand flashed up. “Oh, too late. Sorry, that was clumsy of me. Did it sting you badly?”

  She left him rubbing his neck and walked easily across the terrace. The hypodermic barrel felt pleasantly smooth in her hand. She lingered a moment by the garden well, idly dropping pebbles and listening to them plop into the water far below. If one plop was slightly louder than the rest, there was nobody but herself around to hear it. She went in to her husband.

  “How are you feeling tonight, Roger?”

  “Like a man again. Eleanor, you don’t know what you’ve done for me.”

  She slipped a hand over his. “No more than a wife should, my darling. Would you like to read for a while?”

  “No, just stay with me. I want to look at you.”

  They were sitting together in the gathering twilight when the gamekeeper and his son brought Gerald’s body back to the house.

  “How strange,” Eleanor observed to the doctor a short time later. He mentioned his heart again this evening. It kept him out of the army, he told me, But I’m afraid I didn’t take him all that seriously. He always looked so healthy.”

  “That’s always the way,” said the doctor. “It’s these big, hearty chaps that go in a flash. Now, His Lordship will probably live to be ninety.”

  Lady Patterly smoothed back her husband’s hair with a competent hand. “Yes,” she replied. “I don’t see any reason why he shouldn’t.”