He nicked the girl over with a sharp, professional eye. ‘Morphia? How long ago?’
‘Before I left the hospital,’ said Ann Kelly, defiantly.
‘She’s been here fifteen minutes or so,’ said Stella. ‘In such a state of coma when she arrived that I had to half carry her in. So I suppose that would tally.’ She added with triumphant sarcasm that under the circumstances her present state of liveliness was interesting, wasn’t it?
‘Liveliness is a symptom in the initial stages,’ said the girl, temporarily coming-to to defend herself.
‘Not by the hour, my dear: even I know that. And you’ve forgotten to be dry and thirsty.’
‘And to have pin-point pupils,’ said Frederick, bending over her and lifting an eyelid before she could prevent him. He straightened himself. ‘Now then—what’s all this nonsense about?’
The girl slowly opened her coat again and again folded it about her. ‘Richard Harrison’s the father,’ she said. She rolled her head towards Stella. ‘Naturally, she won’t believe it.’
‘Neither will anyone else,’ said Frederick; but the threat about the morphia allayed, he had time to consider the situation more closely. Stella saw the quick frown, the tiny shock, the immediate acceptance of all that this might yet mean to them—to herself and Richard, to himself, to the practice.
‘I shall have to try to convince them, shan’t I?’ said the soft little voice.
And Ricky was there: standing in the doorway with his doubtful look, his self-deprecating air, that air of quietness and simplicity….‘What on earth—? Good Lord! What’s she doing here?’
‘Oh, Richard,’ sighed Ann Kelly, and toppled forward out of the chair and lay huddled at his feet.
Stella lost her temper. ‘Oh, my God!—the play-acting little bitch!’ As the two men stooped to raise the girl, she thrust them aside. ‘Leave her alone! There’s nothing on earth wrong with her, last time she did this I could see her surreptitiously hoicking up her stocking; she’s no more fainted than I have.’ And she said, viciously, shrilly that if only the silly bitch knew how awful she looked, with her skirt all rucked up and her legs at silly angles, she’d get up now of her own accord and not continue to present to her dear Richard so unlovely a display of not very clean under clothes. As the girl, sure enough, began to try to struggle back to the chair, she explained: ‘She’s come here with some drama about having taken a lethal dose of morphia; and you are the father of her chee-ild.’
‘Oh, my God!’ said Ricky as if he could stand not one moment more of it.
‘Never mind, my dear, it’s all a damn bore but it’s no worse than that. She’s got herself into a jam and the only way out is to make herself into an interesting little martyr. Just take no notice and nobody else will.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ said the girl.
Ricky stood looking down at her miserably. ‘Surely you don’t want to ruin me?’
‘If I’m to be dragged through the mud,’ said the girl, ‘I want to know you’re there with me.’
‘There’ll be no mud, if only you won’t be foolish.’
‘But I want mud,’ said the girl. ‘I revel in mud. I want to see you wallowing in it, because you’ve been cold and unkind, and thrown aside my love as though it meant nothing. And her too—she’s been very clever and managing this evening, seeing through all my poor little defences, so sure of herself, sneering at me, mocking me—but I have the whip hand, and I’ll use it, I’ll pay her back for every sneer and every taunt, you see if I don’t!’ Exhausted with spite she leaned back in the chair again and closed her eyes; and on her lips was that sly little, evil, sweet smile.
Ricky disregarded this outburst. He stood looking down at her dispassionately: or, thought Stella, irritated, almost with pity. He said: ‘You haven’t really taken morphia. Have you?’
‘I have—enough to kill me.’
‘How long ago, then?’
‘Just before I left the hospital. I took it from the poison cupboard on B. ward. You can ring up and ask them, if you like, I left a note saying I’d stolen it.’
‘And telling them why?’ said Frederick: all casual.
‘Of course not. I wouldn’t let you down,’ she said to Ricky, fluttering her eyelids. ‘No one knows.’ But she added with an evil look at Stella: ‘Not yet.’
Ricky leaned forward, as Frederick had done, put a hand to her wrist, lifted her lip with a thumb to observe the moist gums and tongue, pulled down an eyelid. She wriggled and smirked beneath his touch but he might have been a veterinary surgeon examining a doubtful sheep or cow. ‘Well—you definitely have not taken anything.’ To Stella, he said: ‘I must go. I only dropped in for ten minutes smoke and a cup of tea between my patient’s labour pains. She’d better just be got back to the hospital; but give her something first—a cup of something hot, coffee would be best, strong and black and plenty of sugar.’ He hesitated. ‘Freddie—would you mind seeing her back?’