Appointment With Death Read online

  ‘That should amuse her,’ said Sarah.

  ‘I should imagine it does!’

  Sarah said impatiently:

  ‘But why don’t they break away? They could.’

  Gerard shook his head.

  ‘No, there you are wrong. They cannot. Have you ever seen the old experiment with a cock? You chalk a line on the floor and put the cock’s beak on it. The cock believes he is tied there. He cannot raise his head. So with these unfortunates. She has worked on them, remember, since they were children. And her dominance has been mental. She has hypnotized them to believe that they cannot disobey her. Oh, I know most people would say that was nonsense—but you and I know better. She has made them believe that utter dependence on her is inevitable. They have been in prison so long that if the prison door stands open they would no longer notice! One of them, at least, no longer even wants to be free! And they would all be afraid of freedom.’

  Sarah asked practically: ‘What will happen when she dies?’

  Gerard shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘It depends. On how soon that happens. If it happened now—well, I think it might not be too late. The boy and girl—they are still young—impressionable. They would become, I believe, normal human beings. With Lennox, possibly, it has gone too far. He looks to me like a man who has parted company with hope—he lives and endures like a brute beast.’

  Sarah said impatiently: ‘His wife ought to have done something! She ought to have yanked him out of it.’

  ‘I wonder. She may have tried—and failed.’

  ‘Do you think she’s under the spell, too?’

  Gerard shook his head.

  ‘No. I don’t think the old lady has any power over her, and for that reason she hates her with a bitter hatred. Watch her eyes.’

  Sarah frowned. ‘I can’t make her out—the young one, I mean. Does she know what is going on?’

  ‘I think she must have a pretty shrewd idea.’

  ‘H’m,’ said Sarah. ‘That old woman ought to be murdered! Arsenic in her early morning tea would be my prescription.’

  Then she said abruptly:

  ‘What about the youngest girl—the red-haired one with the rather fascinating vacant smile?’

  Gerard frowned. ‘I don’t know. There is something queer there. Ginevra Boynton is the old woman’s own daughter, of course.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose that would be different—or wouldn’t it?’

  Gerard said slowly: ‘I do not believe that when once the mania for power (and the lust for cruelty) has taken possession of a human being it can spare anybody—not even its nearest and dearest.’

  He was silent for a moment, then he said: ‘Are you a Christian, mademoiselle?’

  Sarah said slowly: ‘I don’t know. I used to think that I wasn’t anything. But now—I’m not sure. I feel—oh, I feel that if I could sweep all this away’—she made a violent gesture—‘all the buildings and the sects and the fierce squabbling churches—that—that I might see Christ’s quiet figure riding into Jerusalem on a donkey—and believe in Him.’

  Dr Gerard said gravely: ‘I believe at least in one of the chief tenets of the Christian faith—contentment with a lowly place. I am a doctor and I know that ambition—the desire to succeed—to have power—leads to most ills of the human soul. If the desire is realized it leads to arrogance, violence and final satiety—and if it is denied—ah! if it is denied—let all the asylums for the insane rise up and give their testimony! They are filled with human beings who were unable to face being mediocre, insignificant, ineffective and who therefore created for themselves ways of escape from reality so as to be shut off from life itself for ever.’

  Sarah said abruptly: ‘It’s a pity the old Boynton woman isn’t in an asylum.’

  Gerard shook his head.

  ‘No—her place is not there among the failures. It is worse than that. She has succeeded, you see! She has accomplished her dream.’

  Sarah shuddered.

  She cried passionately: ‘Such things ought not to be!’

  Chapter 7

  Sarah wondered very much whether Carol Boynton would keep her appointment that night.

  On the whole she rather doubted it. She was afraid that Carol would have a sharp reaction after her semi-confidences of the morning.

  Nevertheless she made her preparations, slipping on a blue satin dressing-gown and getting out her little spirit lamp and boiling up water.

  She was just on the point of giving Carol up (it was after one o’clock) and going to bed, when there was a tap on her door. She opened it and drew quickly back to let Carol come in.

  The latter said breathlessly: ‘I was afraid you might have gone to bed…’

  Sarah’s manner was carefully matter-of-fact.

  ‘Oh, no, I was waiting for you. Have some tea, will you? It’s real Lapsang Souchong.’

  She brought over a cup. Carol had been nervous and uncertain of herself. Now she accepted the cup and a biscuit and her manner became calmer.

  ‘This is rather fun,’ said Sarah, smiling.

  Carol looked a little startled.

  ‘Yes,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

  ‘Rather like the midnight feasts we used to have at school,’ went on Sarah. ‘I suppose you didn’t go to school?’

  Carol shook her head.

  ‘No, we never left home. We had a governess—different governesses. They never stayed long.’

  ‘Did you never go away at all?’

  ‘No. We’ve lived always in the same house. This coming abroad is the first time I’ve ever been away.’

  Sarah said casually: ‘It must have been a great adventure.’

  ‘Oh, it was. It—it’s all been like a dream.’

  ‘What made your—your stepmother decide to come abroad?’

  At the mention of Mrs Boynton’s name, Carol had flinched. Sarah said quickly:

  ‘You know, I’m by way of being a doctor. I’ve just taken my M.B. Your mother—or stepmother rather—is very interesting to me—as a case, you know. I should say she was quite definitely a pathological case.’

  Carol stared. It was clearly a very unexpected point of view to her. Sarah had spoken as she had with deliberate intent. She realized that to her family Mrs Boynton loomed as a kind of powerful obscene idol. It was Sarah’s object to rob her of her more terrifying aspect.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘There’s a kind of disease of—of grandeur—that gets hold of people. They get very autocratic and insist on everything being done exactly as they say and are altogether very difficult to deal with.’

  Carol put down her cup.

  ‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘I’m so glad to be talking to you. Really, you know, I believe Ray and I have been getting quite—well, quite queer. We’d get terribly worked up about things.’

  ‘Talking with an outsider is always a good thing,’ said Sarah. ‘Inside a family one is apt to get too intense.’ Then she asked casually: ‘If you are unhappy, haven’t you ever thought of leaving home?’

  Carol looked startled. ‘Oh, no! How could we? I—I mean Mother would never allow it.’

  ‘But she couldn’t stop you,’ said Sarah gently. ‘You’re over age.’

  ‘I’m twenty-three.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But still, I don’t see how—I mean, I wouldn’t know where to go and what to do.’

  Her tone seemed bewildered.

  ‘You see,’ she said, ‘we haven’t got any money.’

  ‘Haven’t you any friends you could go to?’

  ‘Friends?’ Carol shook her head. ‘Oh, no, we don’t know anyone!’

  ‘Did none of you ever think of leaving home?’

  ‘No—I don’t think so. Oh—oh—we couldn’t.’

  Sarah changed the subject. She found the girl’s bewilderment pitiful.

  She said: ‘Are you fond of your stepmother?’

  Slowly Carol shook her head. She whispered in a low scared voice: ‘I hate her
. So does Ray…We’ve—we’ve often wished she would die.’

  Again Sarah changed the subject.

  ‘Tell me about your elder brother.’

  ‘Lennox? I don’t know what’s the matter with Lennox. He hardly ever speaks now. He goes about in a kind of daydream. Nadine’s terribly worried about him.’

  ‘You are fond of your sister-in-law?’

  ‘Yes, Nadine is different. She’s always kind. But she’s very unhappy.’

  ‘About your brother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have they been married long?’

  ‘Four years.’

  ‘And they’ve always lived at home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sarah asked: ‘Does your sister-in-law like that?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a pause. Then Carol said:

  ‘There was an awful fuss just over four years ago. You see, as I told you, none of us ever go outside the house at home. I mean we go into the grounds, but nowhere else. But Lennox did. He got out at night. He went into Fountain Springs—there was a sort of dance going on. Mother was frightfully angry when she found out. It was terrible. And then, after that, she asked Nadine to come and stay. Nadine was a very distant cousin of Father’s. She was very poor and was training to be a hospital nurse. She came and stayed with us for a month. I can’t tell you how exciting it was to have someone to stay! And she and Lennox fell in love with each other. And Mother said they’d better be married quickly and live on with us.’

  ‘And was Nadine willing to do that?’

  Carol hesitated.

  ‘I don’t think she wanted to do that very much, but she didn’t really mind. Then, later, she wanted to go away—with Lennox, of course—’

  ‘But they didn’t go?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘No, Mother wouldn’t hear of it.’

  Carol paused, and then said:

  ‘I don’t think—she likes Nadine any longer. Nadine is—funny. You never know what she’s thinking. She tries to help Jinny and Mother doesn’t like it.’

  ‘Jinny is your youngest sister?’

  ‘Yes. Ginevra is her real name.’

  ‘Is she—unhappy, too?’

  Carol shook her head doubtfully.

  ‘Jinny’s been very queer lately. I don’t understand her. You see, she’s always been rather delicate—and—and Mother fusses about her and—and it makes her worse. And lately Jinny has been very queer indeed. She—she frightens me sometimes. She—she doesn’t always know what she’s doing.’

  ‘Has she seen a doctor?’

  ‘No, Nadine wanted her to, but Mother said no—and Jinny got very hysterical and screamed, and said she wouldn’t see a doctor. But I’m worried about her.’

  Suddenly Carol rose.

  ‘I mustn’t keep you up. It’s—it’s very good of you letting me come and talk to you. You must think us very odd as a family.’

  ‘Oh, everybody’s odd, really,’ said Sarah lightly. ‘Come again, will you? And bring your brother, if you like.’

  ‘May I really?’

  ‘Yes; we’ll do some secret plotting. I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, too, a Dr Gerard, an awfully nice Frenchman.’

  The colour came into Carol’s cheeks.

  ‘Oh, what fun it sounds. If only Mother doesn’t find out!’

  Sarah suppressed her original retort and said instead, ‘Why should she? Good night. Shall we say tomorrow night at the same time?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The day after, you see, we may be going away.’

  ‘Then let’s have a definite date for tomorrow. Good night.’

  ‘Good night—and thank you.’

  Carol went out of the room and slipped noiselessly along the corridor. Her own room was on the floor above. She reached it, opened the door—and stood appalled on the threshold. Mrs Boynton was sitting in an armchair by the fireplace in a crimson wool dressing-gown.

  A little cry escaped from Carol’s lips. ‘Oh!’

  A pair of black eyes bored into hers.

  ‘Where have you been, Carol?’

  ‘I—I—’

  ‘Where have you been?’

  A soft, husky voice with that queer menacing under-tone in it that always made Carol’s heart beat with unreasoning terror.

  ‘To see a Miss King—Sarah King.’

  ‘The girl who spoke to Raymond the other evening?’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘Have you made any plans to see her again?’

  Carol’s lips moved soundlessly. She nodded assent. Fright—great sickening waves of fright…

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow night.’

  ‘You are not to go. You understand?’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘Yes—yes.’

  Mrs Boynton struggled to get up. Mechanically Carol came forward and helped her. Mrs Boynton walked slowly across the room, supporting herself on her stick. She paused in the doorway and looked back at the cowering girl.

  ‘You are to have nothing more to do with this Miss King. You understand?’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘Repeat it.’

  ‘I am to have nothing more to do with her.’

  ‘Good.’

  Mrs Boynton went out and shut the door.

  Stiffly, Carol moved across the bedroom. She felt sick, her whole body felt wooden and unreal. She dropped on to the bed and suddenly she was shaken by a storm of weeping.

  It was as though a vista had opened before her—a vista of sunlight and trees and flowers…

  Now the black walls had closed round her once more.

  Chapter 8

  ‘Can I speak to you a minute?’

  Nadine Boynton turned in surprise, staring into the dark eager face of an entirely unknown young woman.

  ‘Why, certainly.’

  But as she spoke, almost unconsciously she threw a quick nervous glance over her shoulder.

  ‘My name is Sarah King,’ went on the other.

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Mrs Boynton, I’m going to say something rather odd to you. I talked to your sister-in-law for quite a long time the other evening.’

  A faint shadow seemed to ruffle the serenity of Nadine Boynton’s face.

  ‘You talked to Ginevra?’

  ‘No, not to Ginevra—to Carol.’

  The shadow lifted.

  ‘Oh, I see—to Carol.’

  Nadine Boynton seemed pleased, but very much surprised. ‘How did you manage that?’

  Sarah said: ‘She came to my room—quite late.’

  She saw the faint raising of the pencilled brows on the white forehead. She said with some embarrassment: ‘I’m sure this must seem very odd to you.’

  ‘No,’ said Nadine Boynton. ‘I am very glad. Very glad indeed. It is very nice for Carol to have a friend to talk to.’

  ‘We—we got on very well together.’ Sarah tried to choose her words carefully. ‘In fact we arranged to—to meet again the following night.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Carol didn’t come.’

  ‘Didn’t she?’

  Nadine’s voice was cool—reflective. Her face, so quiet and gentle, told Sarah nothing.

  ‘No. Yesterday she was passing through the hall. I spoke to her and she didn’t answer. Just looked at me once, and then away again, and hurried on.’

  ‘I see.’

  There was a pause. Sarah found it difficult to go on. Nadine Boynton said presently: ‘I’m—very sorry. Carol is—rather a nervous girl.’

  Again that pause. Sarah took her courage in both hands. ‘You know, Mrs Boynton, I’m by way of being a doctor. I think—I think it would be good for your sister-in-law not to—not to shut herself away too much from people.’

  Nadine Boynton looked thoughtfully at Sarah.

  She said: ‘I see. You’re a doctor. That makes a difference.’

  ‘You see what I mean?’ Sarah urged.

  Nadine bent her hea
d. She was still thoughtful.

  ‘You are quite right, of course,’ she said after a minute or two. ‘But there are difficulties. My mother-in-law is in bad health and she has what I can only describe as a morbid dislike of any outsiders penetrating into her family circle.’

  Sarah said mutinously: ‘But Carol is a grown-up woman.’

  Nadine Boynton shook her head.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘In body, but not in mind. If you talked to her you must have noticed that. In an emergency she would always behave like a frightened child.’

  ‘Do you think that’s what happened? Do you think she became—afraid?’

  ‘I should imagine, Miss King, that my mother-in-law insisted on Carol having nothing more to do with you.’

  ‘And Carol gave in?’

  Nadine Boynton said quietly: ‘Can you really imagine her doing anything else?’

  The eyes of the two women met. Sarah felt that behind the mask of conventional words they understood each other. Nadine, she felt, understood the position. But she was clearly not prepared to discuss it in any way.

  Sarah felt discouraged. The other evening it had seemed to her as though half the battle were won. By means of secret meetings she would imbue Carol with the spirit of revolt—yes, and Raymond, too. (Be honest now, wasn’t it Raymond really she had had in mind all along?) And now, in the very first round of the battle she had been ignominiously defeated by that hulk of shapeless flesh with her evil, gloating eyes. Carol had capitulated without a struggle.

  ‘It’s all wrong!’ cried Sarah.

  Nadine did not answer. Something in her silence went home to Sarah like a cold hand laid on her heart. She thought: ‘This woman knows the hopelessness of it much better than I do. She’s lived with it!’

  The lift gates opened. The older Mrs Boynton emerged. She leaned on a stick and Raymond supported her on the other side.

  Sarah gave a slight start. She saw the old woman’s eyes sweep from her to Nadine and back again. She had been prepared for dislike in those eyes—for hatred even. She was not prepared for what she saw—a triumphant and malicious enjoyment. Sarah turned away. Nadine went forward and joined the other two.