The Painted Cage (39 page)

‘Great words, great thoughts,’ mocked Mabel from her black-wood chair. ‘Maybe you’ll take up philosophy.’

‘A bit of that wouldn’t do
you
any harm,’ Amy responded.

‘Now don’t forget,’ said Mabel as Amy reached the summerhouse steps. ‘If he’s immune to arsenic, rat poison will do.’

‘You know,’ said Amy stopping to look back at Mabel. ‘I’ve never liked Reggie – in fact I dislike him – but it’s hard to hate him enough for
that.
Sometimes now I find myself feeling sorry for him. He’s trapped within himself. He can’t find the way to be a bigger, better man. He maddens me unbearably, but at the same time he’s rather sad. He hides behind his hedonism; he’s afraid to face himself. He even believes he’s enjoying life. Just look at the wreck he is, the waste of each year of his life. Poor man. I’ve lost all that anger I used to feel towards him.’

‘Oh, go home,’ yawned Mabel. ‘You’re a bore.’

‘I may leave him soon,’ said Amy. ‘I can live no longer with him. I’ve seen a way at last, if I decide to take it.’

‘Tell Auntie Mabel. I’m all ears now.’ Mabel sat up at once. Amy laughed and walked on down the steps.

‘Arsenic or rat poison will do the job quicker,’ Mabel shouted after her.

He slept, then woke feeling better, and struggled to a chair. The sun was mellow,’ it was afternoon. As he reached the chair he was suddenly in an agony worse than before.

‘Amy!’ He rang the bell but she did not come. Pain doubled him up. Through the open door he saw Jessie Flack walk across the landing to the nursery.

‘Jessie!’ he called. He had some idea she had accused him once of assaulting her. He remembered nothing, and Jessie Flack with her bony mind and body was not his type of woman. But he knew her strait-laced sort. Their own dreams in the end destroyed them.

She stood prudent upon the threshold. ‘Help me, girl,’ he gasped, staggering back to bed. The spasm convulsed him, his eyes bulged, he writhed about. She stood
immobile
in the doorway, staring.

‘Get me my medicine, help me,’ he panted.

She hesitated, as if making a decision. ‘The mistress is out. She said you’d sleep through. Dr Charles gave you a draught.’ She spoke accusingly.

‘Well, I’m awake and in need of medicine. If I could get it myself I would.’ He wheeled over with pain again.

She came into the room, her hands clasped together, white at the knuckles.

‘In that top drawer of the dressing table, at the back in a small paper packet. Yes, that one. Give me half in a glass of water, but only half, mind you. Stir it up well.’ He watched her face in the mirror. She raised her eyes to his and looked hurriedly away. He doubled up again, sweat poured off him. He-heard the clink of the spoon as she stirred the medicine, the closing of the little drawer as she replaced the remainder of the powder. When he opened his eyes she stood before him with the glass. He drank it down, swirling it about to get up all the grains of arsenic; then he lay back, exhausted.

‘That’s better. I’ll be all right now.’ He belched as he spoke and saw the disgust in her face. She turned and left the room.

He did not know how long he slept; a mist surrounded him. It was night, it was day. Faces passed before him,
pain squeezed him like a nutcracker, his juices oozed away. Something was strangling him, drawing tighter about his throat. And the insects had come again, crawling under the sheets and upon his bare flesh until he screamed.

It was afternoon when he opened his eyes. The sun was setting through the window, Amy slept on the camp bed. He whispered her name but she did not stir. He felt slightly better, he pulled himself up upon an elbow. It gave a feeling of normality to look things in the eye. He felt flattened by his constant view of picture rails, cupboard tops stacked with dusty hat boxes, plaster mouldings and hanging lamps. He was suddenly sure the crisis was over. The dose of white arsenic had done the trick, he should have taken it before. He had come to no harm too with the sugar of lead the other day, and its effect had been as he hoped. The liniment was on the table beside the bed. He poured some into his brandy and soda left from earlier in the day. He drank it down, Amy did not wake. Soon he would be better now. Old Charles would of course take the credit himself. The pain seemed to ease dramatically and soon he fell asleep.

That Monday night Jessie Flack prayed hard upon her knees, her hands a tight ball before her. It had upset her more than she could tell to have stood before Mr Redmore again, to have ministered to him. She was sure he did not even remember that terrible night; he had been too drunk. The hate stored up more and more in her with the passing of each day. That hate and his illness seemed in some way connected. His face came back to her as she prayed, tortured and entreating her to help him as he had that afternoon. She should have left him; she should have done nothing for him.

In her mind she went over the occasion again. Mrs Redmore had gone to the post office with Cathy; Jessie was to join her there with Tom. She had been crossing the landing from the linen cupboard when Mr Redmore called her in. She had hovered before the open door. He was sitting in a chair doubled up in agony. He staggered
to the bed, collapsing in a spasm, his face sweating and ugly. She watched, satisfaction at his labour filling her. She had concentrated on his pain so that it should use him pitilessly, leaving no corner. She wished no end to it for him.

‘Help me, girl,’ he had gasped, squinting up at her.

She closed her eyes, turning her hate like a knife within him. Her hands, clasped before her, were white at the knuckles, a ring pressed into her flesh. Yet she did as he told her when he regained himself, taking the packet from the drawer, saying not a word.

‘Half in some water. Stir it up well. But no more than half, mind you,’ he ordered, leaning back upon the pillows exhausted, mopping his brow.

She took the glass and filled it with water. The packet was small and tightly folded, inside lay a heap of greyish powder, flattened by constriction. She sensed him staring at her and raised her eyes to meet his in the mirror. As if her look had touched him, his pain flared up again. He wheeled over and her hands began to tremble. It was as if she had the power to manipulate his agony. It was his punishment; it was God at work. She was certain of it suddenly, shivering in excitement. She looked down and saw in her agitation that all the powder had slipped into the glass. He would never know. She stirred it up quickly, threw away the empty paper and shut the dressing table drawer. He drank the stuff down with difficulty. He sat back and belched loudly.

‘That’s better. I’ll be all right now,’ he murmured. She turned in disgust at the repulsive sound and left the room without a word. It was obviously something to relieve his gas. She was satisfied she had administered nothing to alleviate his pain.

Now, seeing clearly God’s wrath on her behalf, she prayed hard upon her knees. ‘Punish him, Lord, in the name of all men like him.’ The memory of that night welled up again. Punish him. As the words rolled through her she heard again her own strange cry, released that night to echo unendingly in her. She put her hands to
her ears but it would not stop. She picked up the words again and they swayed like comfort through her.

‘Punish him. Punish him. Punish him, Lord.’

From that Monday Reggie appeared worse each day, haggard and rasping, spewing forth from every orifice without alleviation. It frightened Amy. Dr Charles did nothing but fumble about in his worn black bag and pull out innocuous things.

‘Tomorrow is Thursday and will make a full week. How can he go on like this?’ she asked Dr Charles when he came. ‘Once for a time, while I was away in ’93, he saw Dr Baeltz in Tokyo. Perhaps we could have his opinion too,’ Amy reasoned.

Dr Charles was not averse and said he would cable. But during the day Reggie rallied; he seemed to have turned a corner. He sat up in bed and then in a chair, asking for brandy and soda, he kept down a few teaspoons of cornflour.

‘Dr Baeltz has replied that he cannot come until tomorrow, but I doubt we’ll want him now,’ Dr Charles announced when he returned. ‘It’ll be a needless expense; we can see how Reggie is tomorrow. He has retained his food, it is a decided improvement. My treatment is working.’

‘You see,’ croaked Reggie after the doctor had gone. ‘I’ told you I’d be better. But I’ve not a dose of Fowler’s left. You’ll have to send for more.’ Amy bent over him and rubbed his stomach with sugar of lead. The odour of the liniment clung to her hands.

After tiffin she wrote out the chits for Fowler’s Solution and gave them to Jessie Flack. There was also a book to take back to Kelly & Walsh and a note for the furniture dealer about the need to restain the bureau. It would be an outing for Cathy and Tom. If not so tired, she would have gone herself.

She was writing to her mother in the dining room when they all returned. The children ran to her, Cathy with some wild flowers, Tom with a beetle secreted in his pocket. Jessie Flack placed three small bottles on the desk.
Her mouth was tight, and she looked at Amy sullenly with unusual accusation. Amy took no notice. She went to the sideboard and prepared some cocaine for Reggie in a glass of brandy and soda, as Dr Charles had prescribed.

The improvement Reggie had shown that Wednesday morning disappeared in the night. He was consumed by pain, his body strained to expel its very juices. He could not swallow and his thirst was a torture. Amy melted ice upon his tongue. He shivered and was clammy, his pulse abnormally slow. In the middle of the night she called the servants to light a fire and apply hot water bottles to him. The pain took him in convulsions. At five o’clock on Thursday morning she sent a chit to Dr Charles. He came with more cocaine and a draught of hydrate of chlorine.

‘Reggie is worse than ever. I feel extremely anxious. Nothing seems to work,’ she told him.

Dr Charles was silent, looking at her sternly. He bent and snapped his bag together. His cigar fell out of his pocket and he wheezed as he stooped to pick it up. ‘I have confidence in my treatment,’ he told her. ‘There is not a disease without its crisis. I regard his progress as satisfactory. I have to attend Mr Boag’s funeral. I’ll return in the afternoon.’

When he was gone she sent a chit to Mr Cooper-Hewitt, who visited Reggie regularly. He came at once and she explained her disagreement with Dr Charles. ‘Please talk to him,’ she implored.

‘I’ll go and see him now and return before we all have to go off to old Boag’s funeral. A suicide – I expect you know. Blew his brains out on his bed,’ Mr Cooper-Hewitt said with relish.

He returned as soon as promised, walking complacently into the room. ‘Old Charles says you’re alarming yourself unnecessarily. It’s the female nature to magnify anxiety. You’re worrying too much. Wait until after this funeral. Then we’ll all be free to confer,’ suggested Mr
Cooper-Hewitt.

By nine-thirty the sun spread over the garden in a full and fleshy light. The children ran about, Amy heard their
voices there below as they waited for Jessie to take them to the Bluff Gardens. Cathy bounced a ball, Tom buried a dead fledgling in a tin box that had once contained mint humbugs. Amy turned from the window to Reggie; he drifted in and out of consciousness. She sat near him through the morning, too tired to think of diversions, dozing as she could. Tomorrow Dicky would return from Kobe where he had gone for a series of inter-port cricket matches the day before Reggie fell ill. It would be a relief to see him back.

Above the Bluff Gardens the sky was blue and cloudless. Below, the passive lawns and neat box hedges were distant from the bandstand throbbing with audacity. A troupe of performing monkeys had been allowed to occupy the bandstand for the amusement of the children. The monkeys, dressed in hats and skirts and braided pantaloons, swung about and sneered with indiscriminate insolence at both their audience and trainers. One ran out amongst the children and snatched away a doll. The Gardens echoed with the terror of the amahs and their charges.

Jessie Flack and Bertha Kaufmann observed the chaos from their bench beneath a tree. Tom and Cathy and the Phelps children sat apart from danger, delighted with the trickery. The monkey picked at the eyes of the doll from underneath a bush, a trainer scrambled after it.

‘I returned home by twelve o’clock, just in time for tiffin. She was in the dining room, I put the bottles on the table.’ Jessie shivered. ‘It’s weird, it is. There’s something funny going on. Why should she be buying stuff like that?’

‘Stuff like
what
?’
Bertha whispered.

‘She gave me papers for Maruya’s. She wrote them out herself – she had no doctor’s prescription. And then, when I passed Schedel’s on my way home, there was their assistant waiting on the steps with another bottle for me. She must have sent a chit after I left and told them to look out for me.’

‘Stuff like
what
?’
repeated Bertha.

‘Poison,’ Jessie said.

‘Poison
?’
Bertha drew back in amazement.

Jessie nodded in confirmation. ‘I’d never have known the seriousness of it, but for that clerk in Maruya’s. I’d never been in there alone before. He took the paper quietly, never asked for a real prescription, but he inquired of me outright why at our house we bought “so plenty deadly poison”. That’s the way he put it. I was taken aback, and that’s when I asked him what the stuff was and he told me it was arsenic,’ Jessie disclosed.

Bertha gave a gasp and hunched herself forward near Jessie again.

‘Well, I told him,’ Jessie continued, ‘I didn’t know a thing about it. I hadn’t hardly been to his shop before. He said some had been bought the day before, once a
rikisha
had come, and once a lady, Mrs Redmore. He even asked if I was her. He couldn’t tell the difference between one foreign lady and another – we all looked alike to him, he said, on account of our bigger noses. He told me then to warn Mrs Redmore how she used so much arsenic, to be careful. You can imagine how I felt.’