Джорджетт Хейер - Behold, Here's Poison

Mrs Matthews laid a hand on hers and pressed it. “Dearest, not that flippant tone, please! Try to remember that the Shadow of Death is over this house. And Guy is far, far more highly-strung than you are, dear.”

“Oh mother, do stop!” implored Stella. “Honestly, I don't want to have hysterics, but I shall in a minute. What ought we to do first?”

Mrs Matthews removed her hand. “My practical little daughter! Where should we poor Marys of this world be, I wonder, without our Marthas? And yet one does somehow yearn for just a little time to be quiet, to face our loss, before we plunge into the sordid side of what ought not to be sordid at all, but very, very beautiful.”

Stella gave a gasp, and went off into a fit of strangled laughter. In the middle of this her brother walked into the room, looking tousled and a little dazed still with sleep. “I s—say!” he stammered. “Uncle's dead! Did you know? Beecher's locked the room, and gone to ring up Fielding. He says there's absolutely no doubt.”

“Hush, dear!” said Mrs Matthews. “Stella, try to control yourself! A doctor should of course be sent for, but one shrinks, somehow, from the thought of Dr Fielding, whom your uncle disliked, coming at such a moment. Perhaps I am over-sensitive, and I suppose there is no help for it, but—”

“I can't see that it matters in the least,” said Guy. He grasped the rail at the foot of his mother's bed, and stood looking down at her with bright, uncomprehending eyes. “I can't grasp it!” he announced. “I mean, uncle's dying like that. Of course, everybody expected it in a way, I suppose. I mean, his blood-pressure. What do you think he died of? Do you suppose it was apoplexy? I always thought he'd have apoplexy sooner or later, didn't you, Stella? Will there have to be an inquest? I don't see why there should be, do you? I mean, everyone knows he had a weak heart. It's obvious he died of it.”

“Yes, dear, but we won't talk of it now,” Mrs Matthews said repressively. “You are upset, and you let your tongue run away with you. You must try and realise what it all means to me. I sometimes think poor Gregory was fonder of me than of his own sisters. I do try always to see only the good in everybody, and Gregory responded to me in a way that makes me very happy to look back upon.”

“Oh Gawd!” said Guy rudely.

Mrs Matthews compressed her lips for a moment, but replied almost at once in an extremely gentle voice: “Go and dress, Guy dear. A dark suit, of course, and not that orange pull-over. You too, Stella.”

“Actually, I hadn't thought of the orange pull-over,” said Guy loftily. “But I utterly agree with Nigel about mourning. It's a survival of barbarism, and, as he says—”

“Darling, I know you don't mean to hurt me,” said Mrs Matthews sadly, “but when you treat sacred things in that spirit of—”

“You've simply got to realise that I'm a Pure Agnostic,” replied Guy. “When you talk about things like death being sacred it means absolutely nothing to me.”

“Oh, shut up!” interrupted Stella, giving him a push towards the door. “Nobody wants to listen to your views on religion.”

“They're not particularly my views,” said Guy, “but the views of practically all thinking people today.”

“Oh yeah?” said Stella inelegantly, and walked off to her own room.

Mary's surmise that Dr Fielding had been called out before breakfast was proved to be correct. He had not returned to his house when Beecher rang up, and it was not until both Stella and Guy had bathed and dressed that he arrived at the Poplars. By that time Miss Matthews, recovering from her fit of crying, had also dressed, and had not only telephoned to her elder sister, Gertrude Lupton, but had found time to give a great many orders to Mrs Beecher for the subsequent using-up of the fish and the eggs already cooked for a breakfast she felt sure no one could think of eating. These orders were immediately cancelled by Stella and Guy, who were feeling hungry, and an altercation was in full force when Dr Fielding walked into the house.

He was a tall man in the middle-thirties, with very wide-set grey eyes, and a humorous mouth. As he stepped into the hall he exchanged a glance with Stella, who at once went forward to greet him. “Oh Deryk, thank God you've come!” she said, taking his hand.

“Stella, not with your uncle lying dead upstairs!” begged Miss Matthews distractedly. “Not that I disapprove, because I'm sure dear Dr Fielding—But after all Gregory said—though I daresay he feels quite differently now that he's passed on: I believe they do, though I've never been able to understand why. Oh dear, how very confusing it all is! If I'd ever dreamed it would all be so difficult and unpleasant I should have been the last person in the world to have wanted Gregory to die. It was the duck, doctor. I implored him not to eat it, but he would go his own way, and now he's dead, and there are two beautiful lamb cutlets gone to waste. Eaten in the kitchen! English lamb!”

Dr Fielding, returning the pressure of Stella's fingers, broke in on this monologue to request that he might be taken at once to Gregory Matthews' room.

“Oh yes!” said Miss Matthews, looking round in a flustered way. “Of course! I should take you up myself, only that I feel I never want to enter the room again. Guy, you are the man of the house now!”

“No one need take me up,” replied Dr Fielding. “I know my way.”

Beecher coughed, and stepped forward to the foot of the stairs. “If you please, sir, I will escort you to the Master's room.”

The doctor looked at him. “You were the one who found Mr Matthews, I think? By all means come up.”

At the head of the stairs he was met by Mrs Matthews. She was dressed in a becoming black frock, and greeted him in a voice rather more fading than usual. She was not a patient of his, because she mistrusted all General Practitioners, but as a man (as she frequently observed) she liked him very well. Now that Gregory Matthews' opposition had been cut short in this summary fashion she was even prepared to accept the doctor as a son-in-law. So there was just a suggestion of sympathetic understanding in the smile she bestowed on him, and she said: “I expect Stella has told you. We can't realise it yet—perhaps mercifully. And yet, when I woke this morning, I had a sort of presentiment. I can hardly describe it, but I think that people who are rather highly-strung, which I'm afraid I am, are more sensitive than others to—what shall I call it?—atmosphere.”

“Undoubtedly,” replied the doctor, who knew her of old.

“It was of course a heart-attack, following on acute indigestion,” stated Mrs Matthews. “My poor brother-in-law was sometimes very headstrong, as I expect you know.”

“Yes,” agreed the doctor, edging his way past her. “Very headstrong, I'm afraid.”

She let him go, and proceeded on her way downstairs while Beecher unlocked the door of Gregory Matthews' room, and ushered the doctor in.

He did not say anything when he saw the body lying on the bed, but bent over it with his brows drawn close. Beecher stood watching him while he made his examination, and presently said: “I suppose it was a natural death, sir?”

Dr Fielding looked up quickly. “Have you any reason to think that it was not?”

“Oh no, sir, only that he does look awful, and his eyes being open like that don't look right, somehow.”

“Is that all! If you take my advice you won't spread that kind of rumour about. It might get you into trouble.” Dr Fielding transferred his attention to the bed again, finished his examination, and straightened himself.

Beecher, opening the door for him, volunteered the information, in a rather offended tone, that the body had been cold when he had found it at eight o'clock. The doctor nodded, and passed out of the room to the head of the stairs.