Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver Comes To Stay

“What did you say?” The words came quick and angry.

“I said your mother told me, ‘I’m letting Catherine have the Gate House. I’ve told her she can have the two ground-floor rooms knocked into one, and I suppose I shall have to let her have some furniture.’ ”

“There-you see! What did he say to that?”

“That it might mean anything,” said Rietta drily.

“ Oh !” It was a gasp of pure rage, followed by a sharp, “How perfectly outrageous!”

They were in the middle of the Green on the narrow footpath which cut across it. Rietta stopped.

“Catherine, don’t you see you can’t take James like that? You’ll only get his back up. He looks on the whole thing as a business transaction-”

Catherine broke in with an edge to her voice.

“Of course you would stand up for him-we all know that!”

Rietta’s temper rose. She restrained it.

“I’m not standing up for him-I’m telling you how he looks at the thing. Opposition always put his back up. Unless he has changed very much, the best thing you can do is to lay your cards on the table and tell him the exact truth.”

“What do you think I’ve been telling him-lies?”

“Something betwixt and between,” said Rietta in a blunt voice.

“How dare you!” She began to walk on quickly.

Rietta caught her up.

“Well, you asked me. Look here, Catherine, what’s the good of going on like this? You know, and I know, what Aunt Mildred was like, and what is more, James knows too. She had spasms of being businesslike, but most of the time she couldn’t be bothered. She was an autocrat to her fingertips, and she was as changeable as a weathercock. If she told you you could have something, she might have meant it for a present one day and not meant it the next, or she might never have meant it at all. And if you want to know what I really think, well, I don’t believe she did mean to give you the things outright-some of them are too valuable. But I didn’t say that to James.”

“But you will.”

“No. He didn’t ask me, and I shouldn’t have said it if he had. It’s just what I think.”

They walked along in silence for a minute or two. Then Catherine’s hand came out and caught at Rietta’s arm. She said in a trembling voice,

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Do what I said, put your cards on the table.”

“I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?”

“I can’t-he might turn nasty.”

A little contempt came into Rietta’s tone.

“What can he do? If you don’t make him angry, he’ll probably take back the half dozen things which are really valuable and let you keep the rest.”

Catherine’s grip became desperate.

“Rietta-I’d better tell you-it’s worse than that. I-well, I sold some of the things.”

“Oh!”

Catherine shook the arm she was holding.

“You needn’t say ‘Oh!’ at me like that. They were mine to do what I liked with. Aunt Mildred gave them to me-I tell you she gave them to me.”

“What did you sell?”

“There were some miniatures, and-and a snuffbox-and a silver tea-set. I got three hundred for one of the miniatures. It was a Cosway-really very pretty-I’d liked to have kept it. And the tea-set was Queen Anne. I got quite a lot for that.”

“Catherine!”

Catherine let go and pushed her away.

“Don’t be a prig-one must dress! If you’re going to blame anyone, what about Edward, never telling me he was head over ears in debt and leaving me practically without a penny! And now, I suppose, you’ll go and tell James!”

“You don’t suppose anything of the sort,” said Rietta coolly.

Catherine came close again.

“What do you think he’ll do?”

“I should think it would depend on what he finds out.”

“He knows the things have gone-the snuff-box, and the miniatures, and the tea-set. I mean, he knows they’re not at Melling House, and Mrs. Mayhew told him Aunt Mildred let me have the tea-set. He said last night that he hoped it wouldn’t inconvenience me, but of course it was an heirloom and he must have it back. As if it mattered whether it was an heirloom or not! He hasn’t any children.”

After a moment’s silence Rietta said,

“You’ve got yourself into a mess.”

“What’s the good of telling me that? What am I to do ?”

“I’ve told you.”

There was a pause. Then Catherine said under her breath,

“He says his mother made out a-a memorandum of everything she’d done-all the business things, you know-while he was away. It hasn’t turned up yet, but when it does-” Her voice petered out.

Rietta finished the sentence.

“When it does, you don’t think there will be anything about giving you the Cosway miniature and the Queen Anne tea-set.”

“She might have forgotten to put them down,” said Catherine in an extinguished tone.

They had reached the edge of the Green. As they stood, the Gate House lay to the left, and the White Cottage to the right. Catherine turned to where the tall pillars loomed up in the dusk. She said, “Goodnight,” and went across the road.

Rietta took her own way, but before she could reach the Cottage gate she heard quick footsteps on the path. Catherine came up with her and put out a hand.

“I want to ask you something-”

“Yes?”

“It would make a lot of difference if you could remember Aunt Mildred saying she had given me those things-”

“I don’t remember anything of the sort.”

“You could if you tried.”

Rietta Cray said, “Nonsense!” She made a movement to go, but Catherine held her.

“Rietta-listen a minute! After he came back last night James was-” she caught her breath-“rather frightening. Polite, you know, but in that sort of icy way. He talked about things missing-oh, it wasn’t so much what he said, it was a sort of undercurrent. I thought he wanted to frighten me, and I tried not to show it, but I think he saw I was frightened, and I think he enjoyed it. I haven’t ever done anything to make him feel like that, but I got the most horrid sort of impression that he would hurt me if he could, and that he would enjoy doing it.”

Rietta stood perfectly still. The shadow which she had shut away all those years ago came out and stood at her shoulder.

Catherine spoke in a whispering voice.

“Rietta-when you and James were engaged-was he like that? It would come out if you were engaged to someone. Did he like- hurting ?”

Rietta stepped back. She said, “Yes,” and then she walked quickly away, lifted the latch of her own gate, and went in.

James Lessiter drove back from Lenton. He liked driving at night in these country lanes, where the headlights made a bright path for the car and all you had to do was to take your way along it. It gave him a sense of effortless power. He did not make the conscious comparison, but he had a sense of life stretching before him just like that. He had made a great deal of money, and he expected to make a great deal more. When you had made a certain amount it went on making itself. Money was power. He thought of the boy who had left Melling more than twenty years ago, and his sense of well-being became something very like triumph. How right he had been. Instead of allowing himself to go down with a ship which had been foundering for three generations he had cut loose and made for the shore. He had no regrets. The house could go. If he wanted a place in the country, there were more amusing spots than Melling. Nowadays you didn’t want a great big barrack of a place built for the days when house-parties lasted for weeks and large staffs could be counted upon. Something modern and labour-saving-a big room where you could throw a party-half a dozen bedrooms. Meanwhile he rather thought he was going to enjoy himself. He had a score or two to pay off, and he was looking forward to the payment. Something very pleasing about being able to arrange one’s own private day of judgment.