Patricia Wentworth - Lonesome Road

Neusel sprang in, bit savagely and sprang back-and in and back again, teeth clicking, every movement swift and deadly as a snake’s own. It was all over in the time it would take to draw half a dozen breaths, but Rachel did not breathe at all. At least she thought she had not breathed until Neusel jumped down and ran to her, eyes sparkling with pride. Then she went down on her knees to look him over-because if he had been bitten-her dear little Noisy-

She looked up, to find Louisa standing over them ashy pale.

“He’s not hurt, Louie. Oh, Louie, are they dead?”

“The two of them,” said Louisa. “Dead as door-nails. I’ll say that for him, he was quick. In and out again before you could say Jack Robinson, and them teeth of his clicking!”

Rachel shuddered, and got to her feet again. The brown coils lay inert and lifeless. Louisa said in a sharp whisper,

“They’re dead. And it might have been you! Who put them there, Miss Rachel?”

Rachel stood looking.

“I don’t know.”

“Someone that wished you dead, Miss Rachel-you can’t get from it. Who is it that would like to see you dead, and have what’s yours?”

Rachel did not turn her head. In an odd stiff voice she repeated the words she had just used.

“I don’t know.”

Louisa Barnet went over to the hearth and picked up the tongs. She said just over her breath,

“I could name some-but you wouldn’t believe me.”

Rachel shuddered again.

“How can I believe a thing like that?”

The dark, grim face worked.

“You’d best, Miss Rachel.” She picked up one of the dead snakes with the tongs. “You can believe your own eyes, can’t you? Someone put these adders in your bed- and that’s no love-gift.”

She went over to the fire, dropped the limp coil into the heart of it, and went back to pick up and dispose of the second snake.

Rachel watched her with a dazed look.

“Are they adders?” she said rather faintly. “They were talking about adders downstairs tonight. Richard said Mr. Tollage was digging out his hedge. The men found a lot of adders in the bank.”

Louisa Barnet thrust at the fire with the tongs and dropped them back upon the hearth.

“Mr. Richard?” she said. “Oh, yes-he’d know, no doubt.”

Strength came back to Rachel Treherne-strength, and anger.

“Louie!”

“Oh, no-you won’t hear a word! Him and Miss Caroline can do no wrong by you-not if you was to see them with your own eyes.” She came suddenly near and caught a fold of Rachel’s maize-colored dressing-gown between her hands. “Oh, my dear-you don’t believe, and you won’t believe, and I mustn’t say a word. But what would you feel like if it was the one you loved best in all the world-if there was them that was creeping and crawling and going all ways to gain their own end, and you only a servant that nobody wouldn’t listen to? Oh, my dear, wouldn’t it wring your heart same as mine’s been wrung? Oh, the Lord, he knows how it’s been wrung, and he’ll forgive me if you won’t!”

Rachel put her hand on the woman’s shoulder and spoke gently.

“Louie, we’re both upset. There are things I can’t listen to-there are things you mustn’t say. But that doesn’t mean I won’t do something about this. And now I’d like clean sheets, so there’s something you can do whilst I’m undressing.”

When she was alone, Rachel Treherne sat a long time by the fire. The noise of water and the noise of wind came to her ears with their accustomed sound. Here, on the edge of the cliff, there were very few days or nights so still that this wind and water music was wholly absent. Tonight it had sombre undertones. The wind was a desolate voice. The sea dragged on the shingle under the cliff.

She got up at last and looked at the clock. The hands stood at midnight. She felt a momentary startled wonder that so little time should really have passed. It was only an hour since she had left the drawing-room-half an hour since she had sent Louie away.

She sat on the edge of her bed and lifted the receiver from the telephone beside it.

She got through very quickly. Miss Maud Silver’s voice sounded most reassuringly awake and clear.

“Yes? What is it?… Oh, Miss Treherne?… Yes… You would like me to come down tomorrow instead of Saturday?… Yes, I-I quite understand. I will wire my train in the morning. Good-night.”

Rachel hung up the receiver. She felt as if the burden were off her shoulders.

She got into bed, put out the light, and stopped thinking. She slept until Louisa came in with the tea at half past seven.

Richard Treherne came through the hall on the way to breakfast. As he passed the study door, he heard voices. The door was ajar. He pushed it a little way, and then stopped because he heard Cherry say in a taunting voice,

“You should have done what you were told, Car-o-line. I said I’d tell on you if you didn’t give me a rake-off.”

Richard waited to hear what Caroline would say.

She said nothing.

He pushed the door a little wider, and saw her standing at the window with her back to him. Cherry, a little nearer, half turned from him, half turned to Caroline, showed him a malicious profile. Her pale hair caught the light.

“You’d much better pay up,” she said. “I expect you got at least fifty pounds for that ring. You can easily spare me a tenner.”

Caroline did not turn her head. She said, “Why should I?” in a tone of gentle scorn.

Cherry Wadlow laughed.

“Because you’d better. I warned you I’d tell about the ring, and I told. But there’s something else I can tell about too if I don’t get my little rake-off.”

Richard came in, shut the door behind him, and crossed the floor.

“And that’s about enough of that!” he said. “Cherry, in case you don’t know it, blackmail is an indictable offence, and you can get quite a nice long stretch of penal servitude for it.”

She put out her tongue at him like a child.

“And a nice time your darling Caroline would have in the witness-box. ‘You pawned a diamond ring, Miss Ponsonby. I believe it belonged to your mother. You must surely have had a very strong motive for parting with it. Oh, you wanted the money? Now you wouldn’t like to tell the Court what you wanted the money for, would you? No, I thought not-a most natural reluctance.’ There, Dicky- that’s how it would be. Do run me in. I think it would be simply wizard-don’t you, Carrie? Shall I tell him what you wanted the money for?… No? All right, I’ll let you off this time, because though revenge is sweet, I’d really rather have that tenner, so I’m giving you time to think it over.” She slipped her arm through Richard’s. “Wouldn’t you like to kiss me good-morning, darling?”

Richard would have liked to strangle her, but he curbed himself and said in a bored tone,

“Not amusing, Cherry. You’re out of the schoolroom now, though it’s a bit difficult to realize it.”

He had the satisfaction of seeing her change color. She ran out of the room. The door banged.

Caroline said, “It’s wicked to hate people, but I think I hate Cherry.”

“What she wants is a daily dozen,” said Richard- “laid on with a good stiff hair-brush. Maurice the same. Now-what’s all this about? Are you going to tell me?”

The color came into Caroline’s face. She said,

“No.”

Richard took her hands in his own. He said,

“Better tell me, Caroline.”

She said “No” again, but rather faintly.

“Silly to make mysteries, my dear-really silly, when it’s you and me. Don’t you know that you can tell me anything?”

She said “Yes,” and caught her breath and said, “Anything about me. But this isn’t anything about me, Richard.”