Patricia Wentworth - Lonesome Road

“Well, I would like to have a talk with you, Rachel.”

Rachel Treherne said “Presently” in rather a weary voice.

“You’ve missed Cosmo,” said Mabel Wadlow. “He was seeing someone in Ledlington. He came out here for tea. Oh, and Ella rang up and wanted to know if she could bring a friend over to lunch-you know, that Mrs. Barber she stays with. They came over in Mrs. Barber’s car. I don’t know how all these people afford cars, I’m sure.” Mrs Wadlow’s tone suggested that this was a personal grievance.

Rachel felt a faint thankfulness at having missed Mrs. Barber-one of those people who are obsessed with the excellence of their own good works and are forever thrusting them down your throat. But it appeared that she had rejoiced too soon. Ella Comperton proposed transferring herself from Mrs. Barber’s cottage to Whincliff Edge in time for lunch next day, and Mrs. Barber would drive her over. She couldn’t stay to lunch, but she would drive her over. Mrs. Barber therefore had not been completely avoided. One might perhaps be out shopping, to taking Neusel for a walk. And by the way, where was Neusel?

She had reached the staircase, when with a scurry and a rush a black and tan dachshund precipitated himself down the stairs, giving tongue as he came. When he actually reached her his screams became frantic. He nuzzled an adored ankle, shrieked on a high top note, took a fond bite at a restraining hand, moaned, screamed again, and snatching a glove, raced off with it ahead of her.

“I can’t think how Rachel can bear that noisy dog,” said Mabel Wadlow, with her hand to her head. “Oh dear-just listen to him! Now, Maurice, it’s quite settled that you stay. No, Cherry, it is not the slightest use your making that sort of face. I know no one pays any attention to me, but perhaps you’ll listen to your father. Ernest, tell Cherry that it is all settled, and that they are to stay. And now I really do think we should all go and dress.”

Cherry Wadlow looked across to where Richard Treherne was reading a letter. She laughed and said,

“Richard isn’t staying. Like to drive me up to town, Dicky? You’re not one of the nervous ones.”

Richard Treherne looked up-a dark, strongly built young man with glasses. His best friend could not have called him handsome, and when he frowned as he was doing now he looked formidable, but his voice when he spoke was a remarkably pleasant one.

“Cherry darling, when you call me Dicky I am liable to an attack of homicidal mania. Just as well I am staying here, because if you did it when we were alone together in a car, there might be a nasty accident.”

“In fact I’m not Carrie.”

“And if you call Caroline Carrie, I shan’t wait till we’re alone-I shall just get on with it and murder you here and now.”

“Might be rather amusing,” said Cherry. “Car-o-line, what would you do if a murderer offered you his heart and his blood-stained hand?”

Caroline smiled. She was one of the people who do everything with a kind of slow grace. Richard Treherne once said that she always suggested music off. She was not very tall, or very small, or very dark, or very fair. She had lovely brown eyes and very beautiful hands and feet. People who loved her loved her very much indeed. She smiled now and said,

“I should tell him to wash it.” And went up the stairs without looking back.

At her own door Rachel Treherne was met by Louisa Barnet-and Louisa in not at all a good temper.

“You’ll be frozen, Miss Rachel. What you wanted to go up to town for on a day like this, the dear knows, for I don’t. And that Noisy’s got one of your new gloves.”

Miss Treherne called in a laughing, indulgent voice.

“Noisy! Darling! Not my new glove! Oh, Noisy-please!”

“A good smack is what he wants if you ask me!”

“But I don’t, Louie dear. Noisy-wicked one-give it up-there’s a darling!”

Neusel, thus wooed, advanced with prancing and tail-wagging to drop the glove. He leapt joyously and licked his mistress’s face as she bent down to pick it up.

Louisa frowned severely.

“ ’Orrid creature!” she said. “It passes me how you can let him. And I wouldn’t have him in your room if it was me, because he’ve just been sick.”

Rachel gazed at the sparkling eyes and healthful aspect of the sinner.

“He looks all right.”

“Oh, it didn’t trouble him,” said Louisa darkly.

“He’ll only scream if we shut him out.”

“Then he can scream where he won’t be heard!” said Louisa, picking him up by the scruff of the neck and carrying him off.

After dinner when they were all in the drawing-room, Ernest Wadlow piloted his sister-in-law to a sofa at some little distance from the group round the fire. The last thing on earth that Rachel desired was a tête-à-tête with Ernest, but in the twenty-five years of his marriage to Mabel she had learned the impossibility of deterring him from anything upon which he had set his mind. She therefore resigned herself, and hoped that he would say what he wanted to say and get it over. This, however, was hoping against hope. Ernest sat down, straightened his pince-nez, and inquired whether she had been shopping.

Rachel leaned back, said “No,” and awaited developments.

“A very cold day for shopping,” said Mr. Wadlow.

He was a small man and precise in his dress, but for some reason he always wore collars which appeared to be at least one size too large for him, and which afforded the public an uninterrupted view of an unusually large Adam’s apple. For the rest, he had the same near-set eyes as his son and daughter, but his hair and his small worried-looking moustache were quite dark.

Rachel said, “But I wasn’t shopping.”

Ernest Wadlow took off his pince-nez and began to polish the lenses.

“Ah-business,” he remarked. “You have a great deal on your hands. But you mustn’t overdo it.” He replaced the pince-nez. “You really do look very tired.”

Rachel smiled.

“Thank you, Ernest. When a man says that to a woman, what he really means is that she is looking plain.”

Mr. Wadlow appeared shocked.

“My dear Rachel-what an idea! The fact is, Mabel is worried about you.”

“She needn’t be.”

“Ah, but she is. And it’s not at all good for her to be worried, as you know. Only this afternoon she had a really alarming attack of palpitations. She said then ‘Rachel is overdoing it. If she doesn’t take care of herself she will have a breakdown.’ I replied, ‘My dear, you know perfectly well and your sister Rachel knows perfectly well, that if she finds the burden of her business affairs too much for her, I shall be only too glad to give her any assistance in my power.’ ”

“I am sure of it,” said Miss Treherne.

Mr. Wadlow straightened his pince-nez. The Adam’s apple quivered.

“ ‘But,’ I said, ‘I am not one to proffer assistance or-er-advice which might expose me to a rebuff.’ ”

Rachel made a sudden movement.

“And was Mabel having palpitations all the time you were saying this?”

Ernest Wadlow stared without offence but with some slight surprise.

“I was relating the conversation which led up to the palpitations.”

Rachel smiled. She disliked her brother-in-law, but it was seventeen years since she had admitted as much to anyone.

“My dear Ernest, all this is waste of time. I am tired tonight, but I am perfectly well. There is no need for Mabel to have palpitations on my account, and there is no need for you to offer me your very kind help with my business affairs. Now if that’s all you wanted to say to me-”

She knew already that it was not. The purpose for which she had been isolated was still unfulfilled. From behind the glimmering, ever crooked pince-nez it maintained a steady pressure.