I caught a bad cold during November, and Fanny insisted that I spend a few days in bed. She made me her special brew of lemon and barley water, which stood by my bed in a glass jug over which she put a piece of muslin, weighted with beads at the four corners to keep out the dust.
I had to admit it was soothing.
Bevil had to go back to London, and I was sorry I couldn’t accompany him. So, he said, was he; but he thought he would not be away for more than a week or so.
The weather turned stormy and my cold had left me with a cough over which Fanny shook her head and scolded me.
“It’s wise to stay in, dear,” said Lady Menfrey, “until the gales die down. Going out in this weather’s no good for anybody.”
So I stayed hi my room, reading, going through letters which had come to the Lansella chambers and answering some of them. William told me that he was carrying on at the chambers in Lansella while Bevil was away, and it came out that Jessica was helping him.
I was astonished.
“But what of Benedict?”
“His grandmother takes charge of him while she’s away. She’s glad to, and I need help at the chambers. Miss Trelarken has an aptitude for the work, and the people seem to like her.”
Occasionally during those days a feeling of dread would come over me. I felt threatened, but I could not be sure from which direction.
Fanny was aware of it Sometimes I would see her sitting at the window staring broodingly across at the island as though she hoped to find the answer there. I wanted to talk to Fanny, but I dared not Already she hated Bevil; I could not tell her of my vague fears; but her attitude did not help me.
I woke up one night with sweat on my face, startled out of my sleep. I heard myself calling out, though I did not know to whom.
Something was wrong … terribly wrong. Then I knew. I was in pain and I felt sick.
“Bevil,” I called, and then I remembered that he was in London.
I got up and staggered through to Fanny’s room, which was just across the corridor.
“Fanny!” I cried. “Fanny!”
She started up from her bed. “Why, lord save us, what’s the matter?”
“I feel ill,” I told her.
“Here!” She was at my side. She was wrapping something round my shivering body. She got me into bed and sat by me.
After a while I felt better. I stayed in Fanny’s room, and although next morning I no longer felt ill, I was weak and exhausted.
Fanny wanted to send for the doctor, but I said no, I was all right now.
It was just weakness after the cold, Fanny said; but if I felt like that again she was going to have no more nonsense.
It was only a few days later when that incident, coupled with what happened to Fanny, took on an alarming significance.
It was Fanny’s custom to awaken me in the morning by drawing my curtains and bringing me my hot water. Therefore, I was surprised on waking and looking at the clock to see that it was half an hour later than my usual time for rising.
A terrible fear came to me then. There was only one thing which would stop Fanny coming, and that was that she was ill. Putting my feet into slippers and wrapping a dressing gown about me, I hurried across the corridor to her room.
The sight of her horrified me. She was lying in bed, her hair in two thin little plaits jutting out at the side of her head, her face a grayish color.
“Fanny!” I cried.
“I’m all right now,” she assured me. “I thought I was going to die.”
“What?”
She nodded. “The same,” she said. “I feel that weak I couldn’t get up to save my life.”
“You mustn’t, Fanny,” I said. “I’m going to send for the doctor.”
She gripped my wrist.
“Lovey,” she said earnestly, reverting to a pet name of my childhood, “I’m frightened.”
“Why, Fanny?”
“It was the lemon barley,” she said. “You haven’t been taking it lately.”
“No. I didn’t fancy it after that night I wasn’t well.”
“I saw it standing there. It had been there all day. I didn’t think I ought to waste it and I drank the lot”
“Fanny, what are you saying?”
“It was in the lemon barley. I was with your stepmother when she had a bad turn once. She said to me: ‘It’s all right, Fanny. I’ve taken an overdose of my medicine.’ You know what that medicine was? They told us at the inquest. It killed her hi the end.”
“Fanny!”
“It was meant for you. There’s something going on in this house.”
“You mean somebody’s trying to poison us?”
“They didn’t know I was going to drink it. It wasn’t meant for me.”
“Oh… Fanny!”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m frightened, I am.”
I was silent. Thoughts were crowding into my mind too jumbled … too horrifying to express. I kept seeing Jessica’s face with the unfathomable smile. And I thought: No. It’s impossible.
“Fanny,” I said, “what are we going to do?”
“We’ve got to catch them, that’s all. We’ve got to watch.”
“We must call in the doctor.”
Fanny shook her head. “No,” she advised. “Then they’d know we were on their track. They’d try something else, and we wouldn’t be prepared for it. They mustn’t. They’ll think you didn’t drink it and it was thrown away. Let them think that.”
Fanny’s eyes were wide and staring. I didn’t like the look of her at all and was in two minds about calling the doctor.
I told her so and she shook her head. “You must never take anything in your room. That’s the only way you’ll be safe.”
I said: “You could make more lemon barley. We could have it analyzed. That’s what we ought to do.”
“No,” she said. “They’re cunning. While we’re doing that they’ll try something else.”
“Fanny, this is madness.”
“Who came into the room today, do you remember?”
“Everybody. William, with some papers from the chambers. Lady Menfrey brought in the flowers. Sir Endelion came to see how I was. Miss Trelarken came in and brought Benny to see me. Then there are the maids.”
“You see, it’s awkward and we don’t know, and they might not try it again. I feel better now although I believed I was near death in the night. Oh my little Miss, I don’t know what this means, but I don’t like it I never have liked it I feel as though something’s calling me to get away … that’s how I feel.”
“I’m sure we should do something, Fanny.”
“We must give ourselves a little while though … a little while to think.”
She was so distraught that I promised her to do nothing …yet.
After the first shock I found myself disbelieving Fanny’s theory that the barley water had been poisoned. I had had a cold; perhaps it was a gastric chill. It had made me feel sick; Fanny had caught it; she certainly seemed ill after that bout in the night I said to myself: We’re hatching this between us. It’s suspicion and jealousy that haven’t any foundation in fact. Bevil said he wasn’t on the island; and even if he were unfaithful, he would never allow anyone to harm me.
Poison! It was impossible.
Fanny had changed; she had grown even thinner and her eyes seemed sunken; there was a wild expression in them which alarmed me; she was more possessive than ever and would scarcely let me out of her sight.
About a week after Fanny’s sickness I went down to the Lansella chambers and there received another shock when I realized how insidiously Jessica was undermining my position.
One of the callers, when received by me, said as she sat down: “Last time I saw Mrs. Menfrey. Such a lovely lady! So kind and gentle. Fm not surprised our Member is so proud of her—as I’ve heard he is.”
“I’m Mrs. Menfrey, the Member’s wife,” X said.