MARIE BELLOC LOWNDES - British Murder Mysteries Collection: 17 Books in One Edition. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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acting on Dr. Lancaster’s fussy advice, had marked “Prescriptions.” Fool, fool that she had been!
There was that in the lovely, sensitive face of her patient’s wife that caused the nurse to run forward and put her arms round her.
“Don’t be so upset, Mrs. Lexton! We’ll have the doctor round in a few minutes. Though he’s not my sort, Dr. Berwick is very clever, and maybe he’ll think of something to bring him round—quick! But do please now ‘phone at once!” And she almost ran out of the room.
But Ivy did not go over to the side of the bed where stood the telephone. Instead, she went and sat down again in front of the pretty dressing-table. She shrank with terror from the thought of sending for Dr. Berwick “all in a hurry, like this.”
Oh! What had made her give that large, that dangerous, dose of the—the stuff, to Jervis today? He had felt weak, weak and what he oddly called “spent.” So she had mixed him a stiff brandy and soda. And the doing of that had seemed such a good opportunity for . . . Ivy did not end the sentence, even to herself.
Again, why wasn’t Roger Gretorex in London? What a fool she had been to let him go for a long week-end down to Sussex to his tiresome mother. There was such support in his unquestioning love, in his adoring devotion, especially as he no longer asked her, with pleading, ardent, burning words of longing, to go to that horrid little house in Ferry Place.
At last, slowly, and with dragging steps, she went over to the telephone and rang up the doctor’s house.
To her relief it was a woman’s voice, kindly, gentle, which answered.
“My husband is away. He won’t be back till tomorrow morning. Mr. Lexton less well? I’m so sorry. I’ll have a message sent round at once to Dr. Singleton, who always takes over Dr. Berwick’s work. He only lives two doors off, and his telephone is unluckily out of order.”
Ivy waited for what seemed to the other a very long time.
“Are you sure he’ll be able to come at once?” she asked.
There came the slightly impatient answer, “I can’t be sure of that, for Dr. Singleton may be out. But he’ll come as soon as he can.”
“We want someone at once,” and the voice sounded so sad, so woeful, that Mrs. Berwick, at the other end of the telephone, felt ashamed of the suspicion she had harboured about young Mrs. Lexton ever since the night she had read Roger Gretorex’s love-letter. It was, however, a suspicion she had kept to herself. Even if these two had been lovers, they were so no longer. And in any case it was none of her business.
But what was this Mrs. Lexton was saying?
“There’s a doctor living in Duke of Kent Mansion. I think I’d better try and get him, don’t you? My husband is so very ill. Nurse is quite frightened!”
Without waiting for Mrs. Berwick’s assent, Ivy hung up the receiver.
She felt very much less afraid than she had felt just now. Surely fate was playing into her hands? She told herself that it was really a most fortunate thing that Dr. Berwick happened to be away.
She went out into the hall and listened. But no sounds were coming from the sick man’s room.
Timorously she called out, “Nurse!”
She was afraid to open Jervis’s bedroom door, for she was determined not to see him. To do so, she told herself, would do him no good, and only make her feel miserable.
The kitchen door, situated some way off, at the end of the long corridor, swung open, and the nurse appeared, a jug of boiling water in her hand.
“I’m coming,” she called out, “I’m coming, Mr. Lexton. Is the doctor here already?”
“Dr. Berwick has gone away till tomorrow morning. Shall we try and get the doctor who lives in number 1A, downstairs?”
“Oh, I don’t think Dr. Berwick would like us to do that! He was so disagreeable about that nice Dr. Gretorex. Surely Dr. Berwick has someone who takes his patients when he’s away? I never heard of such a thing as a doctor leaving his patients unattended! But I’ve thought of something to give Mr. Lexton that may ease the dreadful pain. He seems a little better now.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Ivy fervently. And she was glad. It hurt her, made her feel wretched, when she had time to remember it, to think of poor Jervis suffering.
As time had gone on, Nurse Bradfield had liked Dr. Berwick less and less. He had such a short, unpleasant way with him. Also, she was too experienced not to have quickly seen that he was both puzzled and irritated by his patient’s lack of reaction to his treatment. Once or twice she had thrown out a feeler about this. But he had rebuffed her, almost rudely, while yet giving her strict instructions never to leave her patient alone, and always to administer herself the food and the medicines prescribed. This had surprised, and even offended her.
Not only had the nurse become fond, in a way, of beautiful Mrs. Lexton, but for Jervis himself she had now almost a tender feeling. He was such a real gentleman, giving as little trouble as he could, and even when in sharp pain invariably patient and good-humoured.
“I suppose you’d like me to stay in to-night?” asked Ivy nervously.
Nurse Bradfield hesitated.
“I don’t think you need, really. It isn’t as if you could do anything, Mrs. Lexton? I can manage quite well; and if I think it necessary I can always send cook for the doctor in the flat downstairs.”
So Ivy went off, with a sensation of intense relief, to a theatre-party, composed of a young married woman of much her own age and two men. Her own special escort was a good-looking bachelor whom she had met since her return to London, and with whom she spent a great deal of what she called her spare time.
She determined to banish Jervis from her mind, and, in quite a short time, she succeeded. After all, he was “a little better,” and Nurse Bradfield was kindness itself.
Ivy had abstained from saying to which theatre she was going, and after an amusing evening spent in laughing at a really funny farce, the four went on to supper at the Carlton.
Her new man friend drove her home at almost one in the morning, and she lingered for quite a long while in the deserted hall of the Duke of Kent Mansion, bidding him farewell. When at last he went off she felt quite “good,” for she had only allowed him one kiss.
Lightly she ran up the stairs, for the lift stopped working at midnight. But when she reached the landing outside her front door, Ivy Lexton did not at once put her latchkey in the lock. Indeed, she waited for quite a long time. At last, however, she did put the key in the lock, and slowly she turned it.
Then she gave a stifled cry of surprise, for Nurse Bradfield was sitting in the hall, waiting for her.
There was a look of great distress, almost of shame, on the nurse’s kind face. She got up, and looked straight into the now terrified eyes of the merry-maker.
“I’ve bad news for you—very bad news, Mrs. Lexton.”
She waited, hoping the other would say something that would imply she understood what that bad news must be.
But Ivy remained silent, staring at Nurse Bradfield with terror-filled, dilated eyes.
“Mr. Lexton took a very serious turn for the worse about half-past ten. I sent at once for the doctor downstairs, but he was out; and—and——” she did not finish her sentence. “I don’t think anything could have saved him. His heart gave way—that’s what it was! He looks so young, so boyish, so peaceful.”
The tears came into her eyes. “Would you like to see him?”
“Oh no! I—I couldn’t!”
The newly-made widow burst into tears, and the older woman led her tenderly to her bedroom, and helped her to undress.
“I’ll never forget how kind you