Patricia Wentworth - Lonesome Road

“To herself. There wasn’t no one else-only Miss Caroline. And I wouldn’t have told anyone, but she was crying and carrying on like you do when something’s upset you, and seeing I heard her as plain as what I hear you-well, it was Miss Caroline all right. But it wouldn’t be her playing any practical jokes, because for one thing she was too upset, and for another everyone knows what a lot she thinks of Miss Treherne.”

“Yes, yes,” said Miss Silver. “And now will you tell me what Miss Caroline was saying?”

Gladys stared.

“It wasn’t anything to make sense. She was all upset.”

“Well, I would like you to tell me exactly what you heard. ”

Gladys sniffed.

“When anyone’s upset like that they don’t think what they’re saying-it don’t mean anything. You could tell she didn’t hardly know what she was saying.”

“Miss Caroline may have had a fright as well as Miss Treherne. You see, Gladys, we want to get to the bottom of this. Will you tell me just what Miss Caroline said.”

Gladys sniffed again.

“She was crying something shocking. Just the other side of the garden gate she was, and she come through it a little way and stood there crying and talking to herself. And I stood still where I was because of not letting her know I was there, and the first thing I heard her say was, ‘I can’t-I can’t!’ and she was crying fit to break her heart. So then she said, ‘I can’t do it!’ and she stood a bit and went back to the gate, and she said, ‘She’s always been so good to us.’ And she said, ‘I can’t!’ and she went out through the gate again, and I come in by the garage.”

Miss Silver had a puzzled look on her face.

“And it was six o’clock when you came in?”

“No-it wasn’t any more than ten minutes to, or maybe a quarter.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“But you said the garage clock was striking six as you came in.”

“Oh, yes, it was. But it strikes fast that clock does. Barlow, he likes it that way. He says it’s as good as an alarm.”

“So you had only been out a quarter of an hour?”

“Yes, miss. And I went up to my room and did some mending till I heard the car come back.”

“Thank you, Gladys,” said Miss Silver. She crossed to the door and opened it. “I think Miss Treherne would rather you did not speak about this.”

Gladys gave a final sniff.

“I’m not one to talk,” she said.

I don’t know what girls are coming to,” said Mabel Wadlow in her complaining voice. “You may think yourself very lucky not to have any. What with feeling they’re a failure if they don’t marry, and not knowing who they’ll take it into their heads to marry if they do marry, and out all night at dances, and off for the week-end without so much as telling you where they’re going-well, it isn’t any wonder that my health is such a constant anxiety to Ernest.”

Mrs. Wadlow was reclining upon a couch in the drawing-room. Miss Maud Silver sat in a small armless chair at a convenient angle for conversation and knitted. The expression upon her face was one of almost reverential attention. Seldom if ever had Mabel encountered a more congenial companion. She felt that, for once, here was someone who was really interested in the state of her digestion, the number of hours that she had slept or had not slept the night before, the condition of her heart and pulse, her anxieties about Maurice, and, last but not least, the very troublesome and inconsiderate way that Cherry was behaving.

“I’m sure when I was a girl I would never have dreamt of making myself conspicuous with a man who was engaged to another girl, but Cherry doesn’t seem to care. And she is supposed to be going to be a bridesmaid. Mildred Ross asked her, but of course that was before she had made herself so conspicuous. And now I wonder if the marriage will ever really take place, because of course he can’t be in love with Mildred, and the worst of it is that Cherry isn’t a bit in love with him-she says so herself. Girls are so frank now, aren’t they? They will say anything, even to a total stranger. And Cherry says quite openly that she doesn’t care for Bob-it’s just the money. He is so fearfully rich, and Cherry says she must have money and she doesn’t care how she gets it. Now what would you have said if you had heard a girl talk like that when you were a girl, Miss Silver?”

A reply rose readily to Miss Silver’s lips, but she did not allow it to pass them. She permitted a faintly shocked expression to appear on her face, and remarked in a vaguely sympathetic tone,

“Ah-what indeed?”

Mabel Wadlow thought this a most suitable reply. There was an unwonted color in her cheeks and an unwonted animation in her manner as she said,

“Of course it isn’t all her fault. It is very hard indeed to be brought up with money all round you and not to have any of your own.” She dropped her voice to a confidential tone. “My father made the most extraordinary will. I wouldn’t speak of it to everyone, but I know that you are safe. You will hardly believe it, but except for a very, very moderate settlement made at the time of my marriage I did not receive a single penny from his estate. You may well look astonished. He left everything to my sister Rachel- my younger sister. Not by very much of course, and people often express surprise at hearing that she is younger than I am. But then an unmarried woman tends to age more quickly-don’t you agree? You would think, wouldn’t you, that she would have been glad not to have the responsibility of managing so much money. I think everyone was surprised that she did not hand my proper share over to me immediately. It would have saved us all a great deal of trouble and anxiety, and, as Ernest has always said, what is the good of piling up an immense fortune which is bound to go to somebody else when you die? You see, it isn’t as if she had children of her own, or was likely to have them now even if she were to marry, which is extremely improbable. Rachel is thirty-eight.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“I knew a woman of forty-eight who married and had twins,” she observed in an artless, gossiping voice.

“Well, I can’t think how she did it,” said Mabel Wadlow. “And it would be most unusual. No one in our family has ever had twins. And why anyone should want to have children? I’m sure they wouldn’t if they knew. Night after night I lie awake worrying about Maurice, because when you have only one boy it’s no use anyone saying ‘Don’t worry.’ I’m sure the last book Ernest got out of the library about Russia was too, too dreadful. The sanitary arrangements! I don’t know how they printed some of the things. But of course they don’t mind now, do they? I mean they don’t mind what they print. But naturally after that I couldn’t sleep a wink, and Ernest insisted, positively insisted on my taking a sleeping draught. As a rule I would endure anything, but my pulse was so rapid that he insisted. It is marvellous stuff, you know, and I am very careful, because when it is finished I shan’t be able to get any more. It was that very clever Dr. Levitas whom we met when we were travelling in Eastern Europe who gave me the powders. I had the most alarming attack, and he treated me, and he told Ernest it was one of the most interesting cases he had ever known. He said he had never had a patient who was so highly strung, and he told Ernest that I must never be worried, or thwarted, or allowed to excite myself in any way. But we have only three or four of the powders left now, and we never had the prescription, so we have to be very careful of them. They last a long time of course, because they are very strong and I only take a quarter of a powder at a time.”