E. Bentley – Trent Intervenes (страница 11)
‘Drugs, you mean?’ He nodded. ‘Of course everybody must think so. George does, I know. It’s horrible!’ declared Mrs Lancey, with a thump on the arm of the seat. ‘Agatha Stone began hinting at it after the first few days. I told her it was a sort of nervous attack Isabel had been subject to from a child, which was a lie, and of course she didn’t believe it. Gossiping cat! She loathes Isabel, and she’ll spread it round everywhere that my sister is a drug fiend. How I hate her!’
‘But you do believe it isn’t that?’
‘Philip, I don’t know what to believe. Listen, now! The morning after the second time it happened, I asked her what was the matter with her. She said she didn’t know; she began to feel stupid and strange soon after dinner began. It had never happened to her before until she came to us here. It wasn’t either a pleasant or an unpleasant feeling, she said; she just felt indifferent to everything, and completely lazy. Then I asked her point blank if she was taking anything that could account for it. She was much offended at that; told me I had known her long enough to know she never had done and never would do such a thing. And it is certain that it would be utterly against all I ever knew of her. Besides, she denied it; and, though Isabel has her faults, she’s absolutely truthful.’
Trent looked on the ground. ‘Yes, but you may have heard—’
‘Oh, I know! They say that kind of habit makes people lie and deceive who never did before. But you see, she is so completely herself, except just at this time. I simply couldn’t make up my mind to disbelieve her. And besides, why should she ever start such a practice? I don’t see how she would have been drawn into it. If Bella is peculiar about anything, it’s clean, wholesome, hygienic living. She was always that way as a girl, but she was studying to be a doctor, you know, when she met her husband, and that made her ever so much worse. She has every sort of carbolicky idea. She never uses scent or powder or any kind of before-and-after stuff, never puts anything on her hair; she is washing herself from morning till night, but she always uses ordinary yellow soap. She never touches anything alcoholic, or tea, or coffee. You wouldn’t think she had that kind of fad to look at her and her clothes, but she has; and I can’t think of anything in the world she would despise more than dosing herself with things.’
‘Not any kind of cosmetic whatever? That is surprising. Well, it seems to suit her,’ Trent remarked. ‘When she isn’t like this, she is one of the most radiant creatures I ever saw.’
‘I know, and that’s what makes it so irritating for women like myself, who look absolute hags if they don’t assist nature a little. She’s always been as strong as a horse and bursting with vitality, and her looks have never shown the slightest sign of going off. And now this thing has come to her, absolutely suddenly and without warning.’
‘How long has it been going on?’
‘This is the seventh evening. I entreated her to see a doctor, but she hates the idea of being doctored. She says it’s sure to pass off and that it doesn’t make any difference to her general health. It’s true that she is quite well and lively all the rest of the time; but even if that is so, of course you can see how serious it is for a woman. It means that people shun her. She hasn’t realized it yet, but I can see our friends are revolted by the sight of these fits of hers, which they naturally account for in the obvious way. And Bella hasn’t any pleasure in life without society—especially men’s. But it’s come to this, that George, who has always been devoted to her, only talks to her now with an effort. Randolph Stone is just the same; and two days before you arrived the Illingworths and Captain Burrows both went earlier than they had intended—I’m certain, because this change in Isabel was spoiling their visit for them.’
‘She seems to get on remarkably well with Scheffer,’ remarked Trent.
‘I know—it’s extraordinary, but he seems more struck with her than ever.’
‘Well, he is, but in a lizard-hearted way of his own. He and I were talking just now after you left the dining-room. I had said something about the art of primitive peoples, and he took me aside soon afterwards and gave me more ideas on the subject in ten minutes than I’d ever heard in all my life. Then he began suddenly to speak of Lady Bosworth in a queer, semi-scientific sort of way, saying she was the nearest approach to a perfect female physiology he had ever seen among civilized and educated woman; and he went on to ask if I had noticed her strangeness during dinner. I said: “Yes,” of course; and he said it was very interesting to a medical man like himself. You didn’t tell me he was one.’
‘I didn’t know. George calls him an anthropologist, and disagrees with him about the races of Farther India. George says it’s the one thing he does know something about, having lived there twelve years governing the poor things. They took to each other at once when they met last year, and when I asked him to stay here he was quite delighted. He only begged to be allowed to bring his cockatoo, as it could not live without him.’
‘Strange pet for a man,’ Trent observed. ‘He was showing off its paces to me this afternoon. It’s a mischievous fowl, and as clever as a monkey. Well, it seems he’s greatly interested in these attacks of hers. He has seen nothing quite like them. But he is convinced the thing is due to what he calls a toxic agent of some sort. As to what, or how, or why, he is absolutely at a loss.’
‘Then you must find out what, and how, and why, Philip. I’m glad Scheffer isn’t so easily upset as the other men; it’s so much better for Isabel. She finds him very interesting, of course; not only because he’s the only man here who pays her a lot of attention but because he really is a wonderful person. He’s lived for years among the most appalling savages in Dutch New Guinea, doing scientific work for his government, and according to George they treat him like a sort of god; he’s somehow got the reputation among them that he can kill a man by pointing his finger at him, and he can manage the natives as nobody else can. He’s most attractive and quite kind really, I think, but there’s something about him that makes me afraid of him.’
‘What is it?’
‘I think it is the frosty look in his eyes,’ replied Mrs Lancey, drawing her shoulders together in a shiver.
‘You share the public opinion of Dutch New Guinea, in fact,’ said Trent. ‘Did you tell me, Edith, that your sister began to be like this the very first evening she came here?’
‘Yes. And it had never happened before, she declares.’
‘She came out from England with the Stones, didn’t she?’
‘Only the last part of the journey. They got on the train at Lucerne.’
Trent looked back into the drawing-room at the wistful face of Mrs Stone, who was playing piquet with her host. She was slight and pretty, with large, appealing eyes that never lost their melancholy, though she was always smiling.
‘You say she loathes Lady Bosworth,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Well, I suppose it’s mainly Bella’s own fault,’ confessed Mrs Lancey, with a grimace. ‘You may as well know, Philip—you’ll soon find out, anyhow—the truth is she
‘She seems quite friendly with her,’ Trent observed.
Mrs Lancey produced through her delicate nostrils a sound that expressed a scorn for which there were no words. There was a short silence.
‘Well, what do you make of it, Philip?’ his hostess asked at length. ‘Myself, I simply don’t know what to think. These queer fits of hers frighten me horribly. There’s one dreadful idea, you see, that keeps occurring to me. Could it, perhaps, be’—Mrs Lancey lowered her already low tone—‘the beginning of insanity?’
He spoke reassuringly. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t cherish that fancy. There are other things much more likely and much less terrible. And there are some things we can do, too, and do at once. Look here, Edith, you know I hate explaining my own ideas until I’m sure there’s something in them. Will you try to arrange certain things for tomorrow, without asking me why? And don’t let anybody know I asked you to do it—not even George. Until later on, at least. Will you?’
‘How exciting!’ Mrs Lancey breathed. ‘Yes, of course, mystery-man. What do you want me to do?’
‘Do you think you could manage things tomorrow so that you and I and Lady Bosworth could go out in the motorboat on the lake for an hour or two in the evening, getting back in time to change for dinner—just the three of us and the engineer? Could that be worked quite naturally?’