Читать книгу Death of My Aunt - C. H. B. Kitchin - Страница 7

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When we reached the house, my uncle rushed upstairs, where, I suppose, he saw Buxey for a moment, and came down again. Before asking me any questions, he got me a whisky and soda, and one for himself. He was pale, but calm, though I was too occupied with my own hysteria to pay much attention to the way he received my news. Besides, the drink went to my head, and I had a feeling of detachment and irresponsibility. Beyond the fact of my aunt’s sudden seizure, and my instructions to Dace, I had little to tell him.

“Did Dace get through to you at the Carvels’?” I asked.

“He couldn’t have. I only stayed there about ten minutes, and went off for a little spin in the country. When exactly did this convulsion begin? What were you both doing at the time?”

I told him about the Secret of Venus, and said that I had been reading the pamphlet while my aunt digested the drink. I pointed to the fender where the pamphlet was lying. Then, for the first time, it occurred to me that there might have been a connection between the drink and my aunt’s death.

“I suppose,” I said, “it must have been a heart attack.”

“I suppose so,” he answered. “But that’s the doctor’s business.”

At that moment we heard the doctor’s car. My uncle went to the front door, while I remained in the drawing-room. Soon afterwards I heard them going upstairs. I took a book at random—I have no idea what it was—from the shelf containing light literature, and turned over the leaves. “After all,” I thought, “it’s over now. The main thing is to have as little fuss as possible.”

A few minutes later Buxey came in and told me that the doctor wished to see me. He was in the boudoir. I went up, and my uncle introduced me to him. He was a cross-looking little man, with big ears and a small grey moustache. If I had been his patient, I should have feared that he was not telling me the whole truth about myself.

“I’m sorry to trouble you,” he said, “but I must ask you a few questions.”

“Do you want me to stay?” my uncle asked.

“As you like.”

My uncle went out, and the doctor signed to me to sit down.

“When did you first see your aunt this morning?” he asked.

“A little after half-past ten.”

“Did you see her last night?”

“No. I arrived late.”

“How was she when you first saw her? Did she seem herself? In good spirits?”

“In remarkably good spirits.”

“What was the nature of your conversation with her? Was it exciting, or distressing?”

“Not at all distressing. A little exciting, perhaps, though I think I was the one to be excited. It was about finance, mostly.”

“H’m. You are in business?”

“I am in a stockbroker’s office.”

“There was nothing you said which could have agitated Mrs. Cartwright?”

“Nothing,” I answered, and I described the subsequent events with greater fullness than I had to my uncle. He listened to me without comment, and said “Thank you” when I had finished.

“I suppose,” I said, “it was a heart attack?”

“Mrs. Cartwright certainly died of heart-failure.”

“Could it have been brought on by the drink, do you think?”

“At present I am not prepared to say.”

At that he gave me a severe look and went into my aunt’s bedroom. I was a little annoyed at his mystery-making. “No doubt,” I thought on my way downstairs, “he is upset because she didn’t die according to the rules. Probably he never realised how seriously ill she was.”

I said something of the sort to my uncle, who was sitting by the drawing-room writing-table. He made no comment, and I began to wonder how far he was affected merely by shock, and how far by real grief. Of myself I had now no doubt. My own nervous agitation in no way resembled the hopeless misery which I had once felt on the death of a friend to whom I was devoted. My uncle seemed to be concerned as to whom he ought to tell of what had happened, and how. Here I felt I could be of use to him, and offered to draft some telegrams.

“Terence must be told,” he said, “and, I suppose, your mother and Fanny.”

“Do you know Terence’s address?”

“No.”

“Then I’d better tell Bob, and let him send word to his father.”

“Thanks awfully, old man.”

“He’ll be at the office still, will he? It’s not twelve yet.”

“I should think so.”

I went to the telephone, rang up the firm of Dennis and Carvel and asked for Mr. Robert Carvel. A voice, which I thought belonged to one of the brothers Dennis—I had not seen either of them for years—told me that Mr. Robert Carvel had left a few minutes earlier for the station, and that he was spending the week-end in Hertfordshire. I was then asked who I was, but pretended not to hear, and rang off. I had no wish just then to begin a conversation with my marriage-connections, and did not care even to give them my news, without instructions from my uncle.

There was nothing for it but to telephone to my Aunt Anne, ill though she might me; for I judged Muriel and Henrietta too irresponsible. It was Aunt Anne herself who answered me.

“Good morning, Malcolm,” she said. “Uncle Hannibal told me you had come.”

I delivered my message in awkward phrases. She gave a little gasp, and said, “Oh, I am sorry—I am so very sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

“Only to telegraph to Uncle Terence. He ought to know as soon as possible.”

“I will, at once. But if he’s out for the day, fishing ... Still, we shall have done what we can. How was it, Malcolm, that it happened?”

“It was heart-failure.”

“Was the doctor there?”

“No. He came too late to do anything. He’s in the house now.”

“I’ll come and see you, if I can, this afternoon. After tea. Unless—perhaps you’d come here?”

“I will, if I can.”

“I am so sorry—and for you. What a terrible shock it must have been.”

There was a pause, and she said good-bye and rang off.

I went into the drawing-room again and wrote out telegrams to my mother and Aunt Fanny. While I was doing so, I heard the doctor come downstairs and go to the telephone. When he had finished, my uncle joined him in the hall, and I heard their voices through the open door.

“I’ve telephoned for a nurse,” the doctor said, “and she ought to be here in half an hour.”

“Thank you. Meanwhile I’d better get the room put to rights?”

“No. I wish nothing to be touched or re-arranged in any way. In fact, I have taken the liberty of locking the doors.”

“How about the nurse getting in, then?”

“I shall call at the infirmary and give her the key. I shall be coming back myself as soon as I can. I have to make a further examination, and shall require some—er—extra apparatus.”

“Oh, then perhaps you’ll have lunch with us?”

“Thank you, but I think I shall be able to get home by two. In any case, I don’t want to trouble you.”

The front door shut, and I heard the sound of the doctor’s motor. When my uncle came into the drawing-room again he looked both embarrassed and puzzled.