"Just after dinner."
"Oh, then you're really just starting. Well, Sara's here, and it'll be a good trip. What're you on?"
"Berkeley Brown."
"Jesus," said Rafe in an undertone. "That's a composite. Why didn't Lou just take cyanide and forget it?"
"He took my last tab. He'd no right to do that. Not even asking, the old fart." Bobby threw off Sara's hand and staggered to his feet. Sara waved Skerrit away when he moved to cut Bobby off from the door.
"C'mon, Pres, you can help me with him. He'll trust us," she said, sweeping the room with a scathing glance. "We know what he's up against."
"The nerve of her!" Iona Farnham exclaimed.
"You'd better be grateful for her nerve, Mother," Faith replied in a voice of quiet condemnation. "Otherwise we'd never have found out what Bobby gave him. I'm terribly sorry for my part in this, Wendy. I knew he'd taken something, because he was more impossible than ever. But I never dreamed that Mr. Marchmount had any of it."
"I don't understand you at all, Faith," Iona said, her smooth face too composed in contrast to the outrage in her eyes, in her voice, in every line of her body. "Condoning the use of drugs."
"I don't, but is that any worse than what you're using, Mother?" Faith demanded, pointing to the brandy snifter in her mother's hand. "Liquor or drugs, they're both poison."
"What is this Berkeley Brown that Lou has taken? You know how bad his heart is!" Wendy Madison interrupted curtly. "Oh, how long does it take for Bauman to get here?"
However long it took was far too long for those of us forced to sit around. The McCormacks and the Farnham party left, with Faith repeating her anxious apology for the occurrence. She wasn't to blame, which was what Rafe told her, though Wendy's eyes followed her departure in a baleful gaze. Maybe, I thought, Wendy Madison would now leave Faith and Bobby Wellesley alone.
Dr. Bauman was furious when he saw Marchmount's condition. He went livid, however, when Rafe told him what had happened. And which drug was involved.
"A compound? Of what? Some damn fool chem major whomping up some damn fool ingredients? How in hell can I treat an overdose until I know what I'm counteracting?"
Rafe sent John in search of Sara and Bobby. She came back by herself and with a kind of suppressed satisfaction (I wouldn't have suppressed it) told the doctor what he needed to know.
"Bobby said he took it just shortly after we finished dinner."
"And when was that?" Bauman seemed to know the habits of the house. "Well, then we might be able to get enough of it out of his stomach to save his damn fool life." Bauman glared at everyone in the room, but he patted Sara on the back. "You know too much. Hope you don't mess with the stuff, young lady," he added sternly.
"Anyone can mess with drugs, doctor; it's when you let them mess you that you're in trouble."
She turned on her sandaled heel and marched out of the living room with such dignity I almost seconded Rafe's low "Bravo!"
The doctor wasted no further time, but ordered an ambulance, called the hospital, and gave them swift instructions.
"Oh, no, not the hospital." Wendy Madison roused herself enough to protest.
"Yes, the hospital," the doctor snapped. "I warned you after his last excess that his constitution could stand no further abuses. Part of his physical condition is psychosomatic."
"But we just had a few friends in," Wendy said.
"A few friends?" Bauman rolled his eyes up in his head and threw up his hands.
"You could hardly expect me not to give a reception for my son's bride."
•Bauman caught sight of us and merely closed his eyes.
"She ought to be resting, too. Ah, I give up on the lot of you!" He flung out his hands impatiently and then turned back to Louis Marchmount, moving his stethoscope across the thin tanned chest. I looked away.
The ambulance arrived, siren going and lights flashing; its appearance set Wendy Madison to wailing again. I think John might have soothed her, but as luck would have it, Bobby Wellesley came roaring back through the living room, mouthing obscenities. Sara and Pres were right behind him, both showing signs of having struggled to keep him under control.
The sight of the raving young man being restrained by two husky volunteer ambulance men until Bauman could administer a sedative sent Wendy Madison into hysterics. She was also sedated and taken upstairs by Rafe and John.
Urscoll had mumbled something about staying with Louis Marchmount, so when the ambulance roared off, followed by Dr. Bauman's Lincoln (he drove more erratically than the ambulance), I was left with the notion that a barn fire was really a minor evil.
In a sort of stunned bemusement I looked around the huge empty living room, its beauty vapid and dangerous. The whole house was quiet suddenly, though I'd heard Mrs. Madison's imprecations-mainly aimed at me-clearly enough until cut off by a door.
Outside, tree frogs and night creatures chorused with the occasional muted noise of a fast car on the main road as counterpoint. I was very, very tired.
The soft thud of footsteps on the stair carpeting roused me, and glad of any company, I hurried to the hall. Rafe was swinging down the steps.
"Sorry, Nialla. Let's split this scene." He glanced over his shoulder as if he hoped nothing would interfere with our leaving. He hauled open the heavy door, and we went out into the clean cool night.
The moment the electric eye began to open the big gate, the dogs came charging out of the underbrush. Rafe called to them, and their forbidding advance turned into a lolloping welcome. Their eyes winked red and Vaseline yellow in the headlights as we passed. When the gate had clanged shut, I saw them sniffling in the driveway, tails wagging. Then they were off again, into the shadows, at a businesslike trot.
Night lights in the stable yard illuminated a tall figure in the arch as we drove by.
"That you, boss?" I heard Jerry's voice.
"Night, Jerry."
I saw him stand there until we swung past the bushes. The porch lights and a small one in the living room showed us the path in.
"Hungry?" Rafe asked in a conversational tone.
I shook my head violently. The thought of food was nauseating.
"Nightcap?"
I just shook my head and made for the stairs.
"I'll be right up, honey," he said, and gave me a proprietary slap on the rear as he turned back to fasten the door.
I had an overwhelming urge to be alone. Completely alone. I ran up the stairs and closed the bedroom door behind me. I wanted to take a shower and get clean. I closed the bathroom door behind me, too. The room was all steam when I finally felt clean. I wrapped the thick wide bath towel around me. Abruptly the atmosphere was no longer steamy; it was suffocating. I ran out into the cool quiet dark of the bedroom.
I knew Rafe wasn't there before my eyes got used to the night, and I wavered between relief and disappointment. The ghastly evening assailed me in flashback as I lay in bed, tired and not as relaxed by the shower as I'd hoped. My blood seemed to pound through my veins, and certainly memories pounded through my brain. The only really nice people had been Faith, the Eldicotts, and Sam. Ted McCormack, possibly.
Had that sort of thing been going on in Agnes du Maurier's huge house when I was growing up, and I was just too naive to know it? I shook my head. No. That lady had been brusque and candid, but not vicious. She'd loyally stuck by her adulterous husband (and he'd never abused an employee's daughter) until his death, and it hadn't made her like Iona Farnham or as possessive as Wendy Madison. I mopped the perspiration from my face as my body temperature gradually lowered in the cooling night air.