Daughter of Deceit (50 page)

I shall never forget that Friday. It was the beginning of the nightmare weekend.

They did not come back until the evening, and in the afternoon I went to sit with Lisa.

As soon as I saw her I noticed that there was something different about her. There was a spot of colour in her cheeks and her eyes were unnaturally bright. I wondered if she had a fever.

She said: “I’m glad you’ve come, Noelle. I want to tell you what I have been trying to for a long time. Even now, I am wavering. I don’t know whether it’s right to tell you. Sometimes I think I should … at others that I should be a fool to do so.”

“What is it, Lisa, you want to tell me? I know you have been on the point of doing so many times.”

“It’s your mother. I want to explain something. Take your mind back to that day we met.”

“I remember it well.”

“I contrived it. I arranged for your carriage to knock me down. I knew how to make it look like an accident. I knew how to fall. I was a dancer. I was agile … and I planned it carefully. I wanted to get your mother’s attention. You don’t seem very surprised.”

“Well, I must admit that at times … I wondered. I wasn’t sure. It could have been an accident … or arranged.”

“You don’t know what it is like … never getting a chance … seeing others shooting up ahead of you … not because they have more talent, but because they have the right friends. I had to get a chance. I knew your mother was generous. I knew she would be understanding. I knew she had a reputation for helping unlucky people. She was wonderful. All that I hoped for … and more.”

“So it worked,” I said. “You got your chance.”

“I knew I could do it … if only I had the opportunity.”

I looked at her steadily and said: “Caper spurge?”

“I … I knew something about herbs. You do, in the country … if you are interested in that sort of thing. Laburnum, Christmas rose, hellebore … there are lots of them. Caper spurge wouldn’t cause much harm. There is a milky juice in the fruit … well, in all parts. It irritates your skin if it touches you, and it is a drastic purge. People recover quickly from it.”

She must have seen the horror in my face, for she turned away and said quickly: “I was sitting in the garden one day … on that wicker seat, and I was thinking that I should never get a chance to lift myself out of the chorus. And I saw it there, near me. I remembered it. And I thought: I want my chance now … while I’m young and able to take advantage of it. I thought: It will be now or never.”

“You made her ill, so that you could go on in her place and have your chance!
She
had given you your chance … and you used her like that!”

“I know. I’m so worried. If only I had known what would happen. The opportunity was there. I thought I’d have it and there would be no harm done. It wouldn’t make any difference to her to be off for a night or two. I didn’t mean to harm her. I would never have touched it if I had known. It was so easy. I knew how to deal with the juice. When we came in after the show, either Martha or I would get her a drink. I got it that night. It was hot milk. She was always lively after a show. She wouldn’t stop talking. She did not notice what she was drinking. She wasn’t there. She was on the stage. She and Martha would go on and on about it. Noelle, it was only to make her indisposed … just for a night … so that I could go on in her place.”

“It killed her,” I said.

“I didn’t kill her. I wouldn’t have hurt her for anything. I loved her. I did, really. Nobody had ever been so good to me as she was. It was only just to give me a chance …”

“She died!”

“How did I know she was going to get out of bed and feel dizzy? It was the fall that killed her … not what I had given her.”

“It was because of what you had given her that she fell.”

“I thought you would help to comfort me. I’ve suffered terribly. I dream about her. I never meant to hurt her.”

“I heartily wish you had never come near us,” I said.

“You are blaming me for her death.”

“Of course I’m blaming you! If she had not brought you into the house, if she had not put you into the chorus, if she had not let you be her understudy … she would be alive today.”

“I’m sorry I told you. I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer. It’s a great weight on my mind. I hoped that you would understand and help me.”

“I
understand you and your wretched ambition.” “She was ambitious, too. She lied about Charlie.”

I wanted to get away from her. I stood up.

She said: “Wait. I have been through so much. You don’t know how I blame myself. She was good to me … no one had been so good before … no one ever did for me what she did. I didn’t kill her. It has been on my conscience. I dream about it. It’s horrible. I thought you’d help me. I thought you would understand.”

I could not speak. I could only think of Desiree, and my longing to be with her was so intense that I hated this woman whose action—if indirectly—had taken my mother from me.

I should have tried to understand. I should have realized how desperately she wanted to succeed, and she thought that by merely causing a little discomfort to my mother, she could do so. My mother might have done the same, she would reason with herself.
She
would understand, and perhaps think it rather a joke. I could see Lisa’s anguish, and I knew she was telling me the truth when she said how much she had suffered at the tragic turn of events.

Her face hardened. She was trying to suppress her feelings. She said: “I have been through a great deal, and I will no longer. I’ve paid for what I did to your mother. I was given my chance and I was unable to take advantage of it. It is dangerous to meddle with fate, to try to make life go the way you want it to to succeed. I meddled. It might seem that I had my chance … and now, look at me. Your mother did the same … and because of that, you lost Roderick. Life is laughing at us. You can understand that, Noelle. I have suffered too much, and I will no more. I shall not leave this house. I shall stay here. I will never, as long as I live,
step aside for you. Roderick married me. He chose to do so. He was not forced into it. I shall not give him up. I shall not go and live in some nursing home like poor Mrs. Carling … just because I am in the way. This is my home, and I shall stay here.”

I could bear no more.

I left her and went to my room.

I was terribly shaken by Lisa’s revelation, and scarcely slept that night.

The next morning Dr. Doughty paid his periodic visit to Lisa. Lady Constance asked me if I would go up with him, as he liked someone to be there.

Lisa was lying in bed, propped up with pillows. She averted her eyes from me when I entered.

I said: “Dr. Doughty is here.”

“Just the usual checkup, Mrs. Claverham,” said the doctor. “How are you this morning?”

“Not very good.”

“The same old pain in the same old place?”

She nodded, and he spent some time examining her back.

He grunted. “I have some good news,” he said, when she was lying back in her pillows, “and I am optimistic … very optimistic. There has been a breakthrough in spinal problems. It’s an operation, followed by special treatment. I reckon it will be perfected in a few months’ time. And then, my dear Mrs. Claverham, I think we could look forward to a change in your condition.”

“What would it mean?” asked Lisa eagerly.

“Well, I can’t promise you that you will be doing the high kick, or whatever you call it, but you would be able to walk with ease, and there would be a lessening of the accursed pain.”

“It sounds wonderful.”

“It could be. We’ll soldier on, eh? And perhaps in six months’ time …”

“I can’t take it in! I thought this was forever.”

“Nil desperandum,
dear lady. I think you have a very good chance.”

Lisa looked at me; her eyes were shining. “Isn’t that wonderful news, Noelle?”

“It is indeed.”

In that moment she reminded me of the girl I had seen in bed immediately after the carriage accident.

“Perhaps I should have a word with Lady Constance,” said Dr. Doughty.

He took Lisa’s hand. “Rest assured,” he said, “that I shall get more details of what this entails, and when I have them, I shall be along. I am sure this news will be as good as a tonic to you. By the way, have you plenty of painkillers?”

She looked towards the cupboard, and he opened the door and took out the bottle, opening it. “You’re all right for a few days. Remember, never more than two at a time. I’ll send some along next week. You’ll be all right till then. Effective, aren’t they? Well, let’s hope before long you won’t be needing them.”

He said goodbye and I took him to Lady Constance and left them together.

When he had gone, I went to Lady Constance.

“The doctor has told me,” she said. “He thinks she can be cured, if only partially.”

“Yes, he told us so.”

“I wonder what this will mean.”

“I think it will make her more determined not to give in. She told me yesterday that she would never do so.”

“We must persuade her.”

“I don’t think anyone can do that.”

“One person should not be allowed to ruin so many lives.”

“She clings to Roderick. She clings to this place. She cannot visualize a life without them.”

“So much is at stake.”

“For her, as well as for us.”

“My dear Noelle, think what this means.”

“I think of little else.”

“She
must
understand.”

“She has suffered a great deal,” I said. And from that moment, my hatred of her, for what she had done to my mother, began to
evaporate. It was swamped by my pity for this unloved, bewildered girl-

Later that day, when Roderick returned with Charlie, he immediately went to Lisa. It was clear when he emerged that he was plunged in melancholy. I guessed why. She had given him his answer.

I was with Lady Constance and Charlie when he joined us.

“She insists that she is going to get better,” he said. “The doctor has told her that he has every hope of this.”

“That is true,” said Lady Constance. “He told us that it may be possible in quite a short time … perhaps not a complete cure, but it could improve her condition considerably.”

“That is good news for Lisa,” said Roderick. “I only hope it is true. It would help her a lot. She is naturally elated by the prospect. But at the same time, she is determined not to release me— and I know her well enough to understand that she means what she says. I don’t know whether this has made a difference to her decision.”

I said: “She told me before the doctor came that she had made up her mind.”

“She must be persuaded to change it,” said Lady Constance.

“I am not sure that that is possible,” said Roderick.

“I think I should go back to London,” I put in.

“Oh no!” cried Roderick.

“I must. I can’t stay here. I should not have come.”

Yet I had come because she asked me. She had had a compulsion to confess. Poor Lisa! She was as unhappy as the rest of us. And now she was determined to cling to what she had. She was not going to stand aside. She had shown that. I knew in my heart that nothing I could say would deter her.

“What a disaster we have made of things,” murmured Charlie. “Is there no way out?”

“We have to see it from her point of view,” I said, surprising myself, when I remembered the waves of hatred which had come over me when she had confessed that she was responsible for my
mother’s death. I understood so well her obsession with her career. Had I not had an example with my mother? She had thought she could pick something out of the ruins and be happy. And then … this. I believed she would never relinquish what she had salvaged.

“I must go,” I said. “It will be best for everyone.”

“Where will you go, Noelle?” asked Charlie.

“Back to London … for a while. I shall see what I can do. I have Marie-Christine. We will try to do something together.”

“I can’t give up hope,” said Roderick.

“Nor I,” added Lady Constance.

That night Marie-Christine came to my room.

She said: “Why is there all this gloom?”

“We are going back to London.”

“When?”

“On Monday. We can’t go tomorrow because the trains don’t run on Sundays, otherwise …”

“Go back to London! In such a hurry and all! I can’t. Jack is going to show me how to clean some pottery.”

“Marie-Christine, we have to go.”

“Why?”

“Never mind why. We have to go.”

“When are we coming back?”

“I think we shall not come back.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know something is going on.”

“You mean about you and Roderick and Lisa?”