Parker Pyne Investigates - Agatha Christie [32]
A feeling of languor crept over Mrs Rymer. The figures of the doctor and the nurse grew hazy. She felt blissfully happy and very sleepy. The doctor’s figure grew bigger. The whole world was growing bigger.
The doctor was looking into her eyes. ‘Sleep,’ he was saying. ‘Sleep. Your eyelids are closing. Soon you will sleep. You will sleep. You will sleep…’
Mrs Rymer’s eyelids closed. She floated with a wonderful great big world…
III
When her eyes opened it seemed to her that a long time had passed. She remembered several things vaguely–strange, impossible dreams; then a feeling of waking; then further dreams. She remembered something about a car and the dark, beautiful girl in a nurse’s uniform bending over her.
Anyway, she was properly awake now, and in her own bed.
At least, was it her own bed? It felt different. It lacked the delicious softness of her own bed. It was vaguely reminiscent of days almost forgotten. She moved, and it creaked. Mrs Rymer’s bed in Park Lane never creaked.
She looked round. Decidedly, this was not Park Lane. Was it a hospital? No, she decided, not a hospital. Nor was it a hotel. It was a bare room, the walls an uncertain shade of lilac. There was a deal wash-stand with a jug and basin upon it. There was a deal chest of drawers and a tin trunk. There were unfamiliar clothes hanging on pegs. There was the bed covered with a much-mended quilt and there was herself in it.
‘Where am I?’ said Mrs Rymer.
The door opened and a plump little woman bustled in. She had red cheeks and a good-humoured air. Her sleeves were rolled up and she wore an apron.
‘There!’ she exclaimed. ‘She’s awake. Come in, doctor.’
Mrs Rymer opened her mouth to say several things–but they remained unsaid, for the man who followed the plump woman into the room was not in the least like the elegant, swarthy Doctor Constantine. He was a bent old man who peered through thick glasses.
‘That’s better,’ he said, advancing to the bed and taking up Mrs Rymer’s wrist. ‘You’ll soon be better now, my dear.’
‘What’s been the matter with me?’ demanded Mrs Rymer.
‘You had a kind of seizure,’ said the doctor. ‘You’ve been unconscious for a day or two. Nothing to worry about.’
‘Gave us a fright you did, Hannah,’ said the plump woman. ‘You’ve been raving too, saying the oddest things.’
‘Yes, yes, Mrs Gardner,’ said the doctor repressively. ‘But we musn’t excite the patient. You’ll soon be up and about again, my dear.’
‘But don’t you worry about the work, Hannah.’ said Mrs Gardner. ‘Mrs Roberts has been in to give me a hand and we’ve got on fine. Just lie still and get well, my dear.’
‘Why do you call me Hannah?’ said Mrs Rymer.
‘Well, it’s your name,’ said Mrs Gardner, bewildered.
‘No, it isn’t. My name is Amelia. Amelia Rymer. Mrs Abner Rymer.’
The doctor and Mrs Gardner exchanged glances.
‘Well, just you lie still,’ said Mrs Gardner.
‘Yes, yes; no worry,’ said the doctor.
They withdrew. Mrs Rymer lay puzzling. Why did they call her Hannah, and why had they exchanged that glance of amused incredulity when she had given them her name? Where was she and what had happened?
She slipped out of bed. She felt a little uncertain on her legs, but she walked slowly to the small dormer window and looked out–on a farmyard! Completely mystified, she went back to bed. What was she doing in a farmhouse that she had never seen before?
Mrs Gardner re-entered the room with a bowl of soup on a tray.
Mrs Rymer began her questions. ‘What am I doing in this house?’ she demanded. ‘Who brought me here?’
‘Nobody brought you, my dear. It’s your home. Leastways, you’ve lived here for the last five years–and me not suspecting once that you were liable to fits.’
‘Lived here! Five years?’
‘That’s right. Why, Hannah, you don’t mean that you still don’t remember?’
‘I’ve never lived here! I’ve never seen you before.’
‘You see, you’ve had this illness and you’ve forgotten.’
‘I’ve never lived here.’
‘But you have, my dear.’ Suddenly Mrs Gardner darted across to the chest of drawers and brought to Mrs Rymer a faded photograph