The Stoat - ebook

CHAPTER ONE

As little Dr. Brownrigg drove yawning homeward through the twisting, deserted streets of Cullerton, the surly old clock of St. Mary’s squat tower chimed two. The end-of-September night had turned damply chill; he had had, as usual, a long, busy day of it; and only once in the three years for which they had lived in the neighbourhood had the Margessons employed him professionally. None the less, when he found awaiting him on his hall table the message, “Please ring up Colonel Margesson tonight,” he complied at once with this request. For beneath her message his wife had written and underlined twice the word “Urgent.”

“Colonel Margesson? Brownrigg this end. Sorry I’m so late ringing up. Been detained by a troublesome hæmorrhage. Anything I can do for you?”

“I hope so,” replied a pleasant, sonorous voice. “Can you possibly come out here to Cullerside tonight. I hate bothering you at such an hour. But–”

“Not at all,” replied the doctor briskly. “I’ll go along right now.”

The authentic route from the town to the Margessons’ very secluded residence involved two uphill miles along the main road crossing the moor to eastward and then a further mile and a half down a very gloomy, rough, narrow private road running through the dense belt of woodland between the moor and the River Culler. But, as he started up his long-suffering car once more, Dr. Brownrigg decided to cut a long mile off his journey to Cullerside by taking the road running northward to Ockenford, up the narrow valley at the southern foot of which Cullerton lay astride the river. He could park his car in the grounds of the Grammar School, he reflected, cross the river by the Margessons’ private footbridge almost directly opposite the school’s gates, and so reach the house at the cost of a short walk through the grounds.

A dark and devious footpath, he knew, zigzagged up from the footbridge steeply–for the slope on which Cullerside stood rose sharply from the riverside–and disappeared into the trees. Dr. Brownrigg, like many other people in Cullerton, couldn’t for the life of him understand why when the Margessons had built their big house a couple of years ago, they hadn’t made a decent and rational approach to it from the Ockenford road–the route by which, obviously, it could most easily and speedily be reached from the town–instead of the roundabout way they had chosen. Bad as it was, that private road of theirs up there–formerly a mere cart-track–must have cost them a pretty penny.

For that matter, he couldn’t for the life of him understand why anyone should want to spend a lot of money on building a house in such an out-of-the-way, depressing spot as they had selected–hidden away among all those confounded trees–hanging right over the river with its flies and mosquitoes in summer and its damp mists all the rest of the year. However, like most people in the neighbourhood, he had by this time accepted Mrs. Margesson’s marked desire for seclusion (it was Mrs. Margesson who had the money, he understood, and who had built the house) as a normal feature of the Cullerton scene. If people liked to cut themselves off from other people and sun and air, that was their own affair. So he contented himself with assuring himself preliminarily of the reliability of the battery in his pocket-torch.

Colonel Margesson himself admitted the visitor. A largely built, handsome man of fifty or so, growing a bit heavy now, his sunburnt face–obviously one accustomed to placid cheerfulness and good nature–wore tonight, without attempt at concealment, an expression of frowning perturbation. He led the way to his own particular sanctum, ensconced the doctor in a big armchair, persuaded him to a modest drink, and then, himself similarly equipped, came, as was his habit, to the point without delay and with a frankness that was engagingly boyish in its simplicity.

“I’m frightfully worried about my wife, Dr. Brownrigg,” he began. “Been worried about her for a long time back. You haven’t seen her for a very considerable time–”

“Not since she had that poisoned hand. That was–that was almost exactly two years ago. As a matter of fact I don’t believe I have even set eyes on your wife since then....”

“Probably not,” agreed Margesson gravely. “Yes. That was in the October of ’36. Well... it was about that time that I first noticed–seriously–an extraordinary change coming over her.... A change in–well, in her habits, her interests, her outlook on things generally–in her whole disposition and character, in fact.”

“What age is your wife?” asked the doctor bluntly.

“Forty-two.”

“Um. Often a difficult sort of age for women, you know. Two children, isn’t it? How old are they now?”

“The boy–Leonard–is nineteen. The girl, a year younger.”

“Joan–I believe is her name. Just left school, hasn’t she? A very pretty girl, I’ve heard. Well–this change you say you’ve noticed in your wife–over a period of two years or so; it has been–progressive?”

“By fits and starts. In the beginning–for the first year or so–there were intervals when she seemed to return to her old self more or less for a while. But then there would be a speeding-up. And each time, when it happened, the speeding-up became more marked–”

“And naturally, more alarming for you. Why didn’t you send for me twelve months ago, then?”

“I wanted to. I suggested time after time that she should see you and have a talk with you about things. But she always refused point-blank to do that. And–well, to be quite candid with you, Doctor, one of the most marked changes in her has been the change in her attitude towards myself. As matters stand now, the mere fact that I make any suggestion to her, is sufficient to cause her to turn it down at once. So–I’ve given up making suggestions to her. For instance, she hasn’t the slightest idea that I’m consulting you this way, preparatorily....”

“I see. Suppose you give me, briefly and explicitly, the other symptoms that make you uneasy about her.”

“To answer that question, it’s necessary to tell you first that, until–well, I had better say three years ago–until then my wife was a very gay, live, sociable, energetic sort of woman. We were living in Surrey at that time, and both of us had a lot of friends living in and around London. She took a tremendous interest in life then–in other people–in clothes, theatres, music, painting–she’s rather clever at water-colour work–in books, in golf and tennis, in world affairs generally, in her house and her garden, her food–even in myself. In the children, of course. But steadily and gradually, one by one, all these interests have died out until, now, not one of them is left–except, in a very modified form, her interest in the children.”

“How does she get on with them?”

“With the boy–Leonard–quite well. She’s almost fanatically devoted to him. And I think he’s very attached to her in his way. He’s rather a queer fish. She’s fond of Joan still, too, I think–in a fussing, fidgetting way. She gets on fairly well with her, however.... I really see so little of either my wife or my children nowadays–”

“Her interest in you, you say, has declined noticeably during these last few years?”

“I regret to say, most noticeably. We’ve been married now for–let me see–nineteen years. And I think I can honestly say that for sixteen of them, at any rate, she and I were the best of pals. Little differences of opinion, of course now and then. My wife is by temperament rather impulsive and quick-tempered naturally. But–”

“I understand, yes. But now–?”

“Now–well, I’m afraid the mere sight of me seems to set her all on edge. Indeed, she carefully avoids being with me–especially being alone with me–when she can possibly manage to do so. And so–naturally–I keep out of her way as far as possible. And yet the curious thing is that she hates me to leave the house–even for a couple of hours, to get a round of golf or a game of bridge. She spends nearly all her time in her own rooms now, you see.”

“How does she occupy herself?”

“She doesn’t. Just sits doing nothing–or lies down. But every half-hour or so she sends her maid downstairs to discover where I am and what I’m doing–or where I’ve gone to and when I’m coming back. That’s a new development, comparatively–since things reached what you might call an acute stage with her, a few months back.”

“An acute stage? Can you be a little more precise?”

“An acute speeding-up–which, this time, hasn’t slackened off. It began about the beginning of July–just after my daughter had come home from school. Not that that had anything to do with it. But it fixes the date for me. Suddenly everything that had made me anxious about her before became much worse. For instance–well, there was that determination of hers not to be left alone with me. Then–well, last year she gave up going out anywhere. I mean, outside the grounds of this house. But now she gave up going out even about the grounds. Her appetite had been poor for a long time. But now it became almost impossible to induce her to eat anything whatever. She stopped sleeping practically altogether–except to doze during the day–didn’t even bother to open the boxes from the Times Book Club–spent the whole day in a dressing-gown or a fur coat huddled on over her sleeping things.”

“All these symptoms of the new phase developed simultaneously?”

“Yes. And quite suddenly. She had been irritable for a long time before that. But now she began to have fits of furious anger. I mean–breaking things–or tearing them–or throwing them about. For no cause whatever that one could discover. We’ve had endless trouble about servants during the past few months. Servants nowadays won’t stand being abused and hectored constantly. I don’t know how her own maid–Georgina–sticks it. My wife bullies her and storms at her from morning to night. Although, as I’ve told you, I think she’s still fond of Joan–whenever Joan goes into her room, she attacks her furiously about some quite trifling thing or other....”

Margesson paused to regard his listener questioningly, his tanned forehead wrinkled in anxiety.

“But–as a matter of fact, I’ve no doubt that you’ve heard most of all this already, from other people. You doctors hear all the gossip–Well–I won’t embarrass you–I’ve given you, so far, the new developments of earlier symptoms. But there’s one absolutely new symptom which worries me even more. My wife was always a most courageous–even reckless–sort of person. But now–well, she appears to me to live now in a state of chronic terror–”

“Terror? Of what?”

“No idea. So far as I know, she has not the slightest grounds for even uneasiness about anything on earth–except her own health, if she goes on as she is going. But there it is. It’s my conviction that she lives in a state of appalling terror–unceasing. By night as well as by day. Even in her sleep. I should tell you that lately she has apparently been taking some stuff to make her sleep–I’ll come back to that. But even in her sleep, apparently, this fear of hers, whatever it is, continues. She wakes up screaming quite often–half-crazy with–with terror. I’ve tried, I needn’t tell you, to get her to tell me what it is in her mind that causes this fear of hers. For I’m perfectly convinced that whatever she fears exists only in her own mind. But it’s perfectly useless. I can’t get anything out of her–”

“She has a maid of her own, you tell me. Does the maid sleep near her?”

“In the next room, for several months past. My wife insists on her bedroom lights being left on all through the night, and by her directions the maid looks in at intervals during the night to see how she is getting on. But of course–the way things always happen–these fits of screaming and so on never come on while the maid is in the room with her.”

“How often do they come on–roughly?”

“It varies. Twice a week–three times a week. Sometimes twice in the same night. Afterwards, she’s almost in a state of collapse–faints right off, sometimes. And–well, my God, Doctor–I simply can’t bear to see the expression in her eyes...!”

“You say she’s been taking something. Not under medical advice, I presume?”

“No. My daughter Joan mentioned casually one day some time ago that her mother was using some stuff–sleeping cachets, she said. I let it go at that–foolishly. Like most healthy people, I suppose, I have a horror of drugs. Still, it didn’t occur to me for a moment that my wife could possibly have got hold of anything actually dangerous–until tonight. I changed my mind about that tonight, however–and that’s why I sent out that S.O.S. to you. What do you think these things are? I know nothing about drugs. But–by the merest accident I discovered tonight that my wife is using a hypodermic syringe. I found the syringe in her room–and quite a big supply of these things. I saw one of them partially dissolved in a glass–What are they?”

Dr. Brownrigg examined the two white tabloids handed to him, but, after a sniff or two, laid them aside.

“I can’t tell you–from the outside. Home-made, by the look of them. I’ll take them back with me, if I may, and let you know about them–tomorrow probably. I suppose you have asked your wife what they are–and where she got them? Or have you?”

But Colonel Margesson had judged it prudent merely to purloin a couple of the tabloids and beat a cautious retreat from his wife’s bedroom before her return to it. He explained that–apparently while she had been preparing an injection there–she had been summoned to the telephone, which was downstairs. Nowadays, it seemed, such a summons for her was almost a phenomenon. Quite in ignorance that she had gone downstairs, he had entered her bedroom to give her some illustrated papers which he had brought out from Cullerton for her, and to his startled dismay had caught sight of the hypodermic syringe and the open box of tabloids. The box, which he estimated had originally held about fifty tabloids, had been about half empty.

“I knew quite well that it would be perfectly useless my asking her any questions about them,” he continued ruefully. “I thought the best thing to do was to sneak a couple of samples–and show them to you. You see–thinking back now–I mean, tonight–since this discovery–I’ve begun to–well, it may seem a damn’ queer thing to say–but, honestly, I’ve begun to hope, actually, that these troubles of my wife’s may be due purely and simply to–well–to dope of some sort. I realize I needn’t say, how dangerous any sort of dope is–and how hard it is to break people off it, once they get started. But–compared with the thought that my wife’s mind was going–And that’s the fear that has made my own life a perfect hell for months and months past. What do you think, Doctor? Well, you can’t say, of course, yet.... But if those things turn out to be dope of some sort–why then–willy-nilly, she’s got to be broken off it. You’ll decide how–”

“Very well, Colonel,” Dr. Brownrigg agreed. “That seems as far as we can get for tonight, at any rate. I’ll let you know my results as soon as possible, you may feel quite sure.”

As he rose to his feet, he turned towards the windows of the room in mild surprise. The night stillness had suddenly been disturbed by the sound of a very gusty and very discordant chorus approaching the house spasmodically, feminine voices shrilling with abandon above a bass of masculine howling, equally disdainful of key and tune.

As Colonel Margesson had suggested, his visitor heard most of the gossip of the neighbourhood in the course of his wide-flung ministrations. He listened to the tempestuous revellers with attention for some moments and then turned to his companion again.

“Forgive my curiosity, Colonel–but do those very joyous sounds proceed from your next-door neighbours up the road? I’ve heard that they kick up rather a row at night up there at that bungalow–which is your property, I believe, by the way?”

“Yes. My wife put it up–experimentally. We lived in it, you know, for a year or so, before we definitely decided to settle in this part of the world and build a house. Yes–they’re rather a rowdy lot up there, I’m sorry to say.”

“Shouldn’t have thought you’d have been bothered here though, by their noise–at this distance. What a dreadful din–It sounds as if they were all extremely drunk–They must be in your grounds, surely?”

Colonel Margesson smiled uncomfortably.

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