Before the Fact (34 page)

She wrote on the envelope, “To be opened in the event of my death.”

“Getting quite morbid, aren’t you?” said Miss Sedbusk.

But Lina did not feel that she was getting morbid.

On the contrary, she felt an odd exaltation. The question of her death had now taken on so much larger a front. It was now no longer whether weak-kneed Lina Aysgarth would let her husband kill her or not. She was going to die, in a way, for the benefit of society in general. She did not feel a martyr, but she did definitely think she was being rather noble. She tried not to remember that if she had not been going to have a baby she would probably have let Johnnie kill her just the same. She would have acted the rabbit to his snake.

But it was difficult to think of Johnnie as a snake. Johnnie was the person she was sorry for now. Poor Johnnie was having a wretched time. He could hardly bear to part with her, Lina knew, and yet he could see no alternative. Well, that was Johnnie’s punishment after all. Johnnie should not have taken up betting again. Lina really felt thankful that Johnnie was going to rid her at last of the hated responsibility that had been weighing her down so long.

Poor Johnnie! Lina was very tender with Johnnie these last days. She was so very sorry for him.

She knew so well what difficulty he must be having in maintaining the quibble which his strange mind had evolved. Isobel had shown her what that quibble was. Johnnie was not going to poison his wife. Good heavens, no! But Isobel Sedbusk had told him a quite incredible thing, which he simply knew could not be true. That stuff poisonous? What nonsense! Why, he would actually feed some of it to his own so-much loved wife, just to
prove
that Isobel was wrong. Of course Isobel was wrong!

But it was a difficult fiction to sustain. Far more difficult than in the case of her father or Beaky. There must be times when even Johnnie’s twisted soul had to recognize the fact that he was contemplating pure, unvarnished murder at last.

It did distress Lina still that Johnnie’s first real murder should be her own. But it also gave her a certain sardonic amusement to reflect in the calm, detached attitude which she now felt towards the affair, that she herself was an accessory to it.

“Accessory Before the Fact.”

Lina wondered whether anyone else had ever been an accessory before the fact to her own murder.

In the middle of November Lina caught influenza. It was a fairly mild variety that prevailed that year, but temperatures were running high and Lina looked forward to at least a week in bed.

The last two months had been rather harassing. Calm though she had remained in general, there had been moments of agony when she did not want to die at all; and other moments of despair when she was within a step of asking Johnnie for heaven’s sake to give her the stuff and get it over, since she could bear the suspense no longer.

On the whole, however, she had kept her head. Poor Johnnie at least, she was sure, had suspected nothing.

She had even given him a cheque for the insurance, and the double insurance at that, in the most completely casual way.

But all her preparations had been made so long ago, and the exaltation was beginning to wear thin. For three months she had been ready to die: and Johnnie would not kill her.

On the third day of her illness Johnnie came into her bedroom to see her, in the middle of the morning. He was carrying a glass of milk-and-soda on a little tray. Lina turned her head on the pillows and smiled at him.

Johnnie stood just inside the door, looking at her. His face worked.

The smile faded from Lina’s lips. A single stab, like an electric shock, ran through her whole body. She knew, beyond a doubt, that the moment had come.

“Monkeyface, I – I’ve brought you this.”

In an instant Lina’s mind had mechanically reviewed the situation, and found it safe. Johnnie had not been silly. People did die of influenza.

She jerked herself up on one elbow in bed. She must be quick: quick to act, before she could think, and be afraid. The thin silk nightgown slipped down over her shoulder.

“Give it me.”

But Johnnie hesitated. There were tears in his eyes, just as Lina had foreseen.

She stretched out her hand. “Give it me, Johnnie.”

Johnnie sidled up towards the bed.

Lina snatched the glass and drained it. It tasted quite ordinary. Could she have made a mistake, after all?

But Johnnie was looking down at her in a way which showed that she had made no mistake.

She wiped her lips carefully on her handkerchief and lifted her face to Johnnie.

“Kiss me, Johnnie.”

Johnnie was staring at her now with an expression of absolute horror. It was as if he had not realized at all what he was doing until he had done it.

“Kiss me!”

She locked her arms round his neck and held him, for a few seconds, strained against her.

“Now go, darling.”

“Monkeyface, I—I—”

“
Go,
darling.” She did not want Johnnie to see her die.

Johnnie went.

Lina listened to his slow, shambling footsteps going down the stairs, so unlike Johnnie’s usual brisk tread.

The tears came into her own eyes. Johnnie would miss her terribly.

He had gone into the morning room. He would stay there, waiting.

Lina could hardly believe she was going to die. After she had lived so vividly. After she had liked life, in spite of what it had brought her, so much.

What would death be like? She was not exactly frightened of it. But ...

But it did seem a pity that she had to die.

A tear trickled slowly down her cheek onto the pillow.

It did seem a pity that she had to die, when she would have liked so much to live.

THE END