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.”
Mabel Wadlow went on talking about her powders, and her pulse, and what she felt like when she woke up in the night, and what Dr. Levitas had said about her constitution, and how terribly bad it was for her to be worried, and wasn’t it quite inconceivable that one’s own sister should allow one to have financial embarrassments when she could so easily remove them by simply writing a cheque. She continued until Miss Silver rolled up her knitting and rose.
“Do you know, I have knitted up all my wool. How kind of you to spare me so much time. I must go up and wind another skein.”
But she did not go to her own room. She knocked instead on Miss Treherne’s door, and found her just putting the telephone receiver back upon its hook.
Rachel turned round with a lost look.
“Gale Brandon was coming over. I’ve told him not to.”
“Why did you do that?” said Miss Silver.
“He cares for me-I think he cares a lot. I’ve never had-that. I don’t want it spoilt. I don’t want it-mixed up with all this. I’ve told him not to come.”
“Have you told him why?”
Rachel said “No.” And then, as simply as a child, “He’s angry.”
Miss Silver said, “He will get over that, my dear.” Her voice was brisk and kind. “I think you are quite right. I do not really want Mr. Brandon here at present, though I think we may be very glad of him later on. In their own way men can be quite useful. But just now I wish to talk to you. There are some things which I think you ought to know. Let us sit down.”
Rachel took a chair.
“When anyone says that, it always means something unpleasant,” she said rather wearily,
“I am afraid so,” said Miss Silver.
She was wearing her snuff-colored dress, with thick brown stockings and rather shabby black glacé shoes trimmed with ribbon bows. Her high stuff collar was fastened by a mosaic brooch which represented a pink and yellow temple against a bright blue sky. The eyes with which she contemplated Rachel were full of a keen intelligence tempered by kindness. She said,
“I have been talking to Gladys. I thought it most improbable that she would have stayed in her room mending stockings while the rest of the staff were listening to the wireless. As soon as I heard that Mr. Frith had given her a letter in case anyone should be going to the post I was convinced that Gladys herself had gone out with it, which proved to be the case.”
“It was really very clever of you.”
Miss Silver coughed in a deprecating manner.
“Oh dear, no, not at all. But I am afraid I have to tell you something which may distress you. On her way back she heard Miss Caroline weeping and talking to herself in the dark. The time-which she fixes by the striking of the garage clock-was a quarter to six. Miss Caroline came in through the gate from the cliff path in a state of considerable distress. Gladys heard her say, ‘I can’t do it-I can’t!’
And then she said, ‘She has always been so kind to us,’ and she ran out on to the path again, and Gladys came into the house.”
Rachel smiled with stiff lips. She hoped with all her shrinking heart that Miss Silver did not know how stiff they were.
“And do you ask me to believe that Caroline-Caroline pushed me over the cliff?”
“I don’t ask you to believe anything. I have told you what Gladys told me, because it is one of the things I think you ought to know.”
“One of them?”
“Yes, there are others.”
“Go on.”
“I have also been having a conversation with Mrs. Wadlow. She talked a good deal about her daughter. She said that Cherry would do anything for money. She conveyed to me the picture of a completely ruthless young woman who would take what she wanted whether it belonged to someone else or not. I would be glad to have your opinion as to whether this picture is a true one.”
Rachel’s hand lifted for a moment and then fell again.
“Yes-Cherry is like that.”
“Mrs. Wadlow also spoke about her son. She seems to resent the fact that you are not inclined to provide a sum of money which would keep him in England. May I ask whether Mr. Maurice shares this resentment?”