Rachel coloured.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about the well,” she said in a low voice.
Miss Silver nodded.
“We were all thinking about the well-Mr. Frith-and myself-and you. A very dangerous contrivance, and lamentably out of date. Modern plumbing is not only a great deal more convenient, but it does not so readily lend itself to a criminal intent. Survivals from the dark ages may be romantic, but I must confess I prefer modern conveniences.”
Gale Brandon slid his hand over his mouth. Rachel turned rather hastily to Louisa.
“Now, Louie-you have heard everything. I should like to hear you beg Miss Caroline’s pardon.” Louisa lifted her eyes. They looked first fiercely and then imploringly, but Rachel met them with something implacable in her own level gaze. Louisa received an ultimatum, opposed it, hung irresolute, and suddenly gave way.
Her hands still gripping one another, she got up, stared over the top of Caroline’s head, and said in a hard, mechanical voice,
“I’m sure I beg your pardon, Miss Caroline, but none of it wouldn’t have happened if so be you’d spoken up.”
After which she retired in good order upon Rachel’s bedroom, where she could be heard relieving her feelings by a vigorous opening and shutting of drawers and cupboard doors.
Caroline cast a wavering look at Richard’s angry face, burst into tears, and ran out of the room. Richard, to all appearances angrier than before, jumped up and went after her, slamming the door behind him with so much violence as to wake Noisy, who, opening both eyes this time, uttered a protesting grunt, rolled over to face the fire, and once more sank deep into a dream.
Miss Silver said, “Dear me!” patted her neat front as if she feared that the draught of the slammed door might have disarranged it, murmured a polite unheeded excuse and withdrew.
Gale Brandon went over to the bedroom door and shut it firmly.
The sound of Louisa working off her temper receded. He turned and held out his arms to Rachel, and she came into them with a sob.
“I’ve been a terrible failure, Gale. I wonder you’re not afraid to try me for a wife.”
Mr. Brandon’s lips being muffled by her hair, his answer was not very plainly audible, but she inferred that he was quite willing to try. After an interval he elaborated the theme.
“You know, honey, I think you’re the finest woman on the earth, so if you couldn’t make a go of it, there isn’t anyone in the world who could. And that’s just where it got you. There isn’t anyone who could make a go of all that money, and this will business, and those relations of yours. I don’t know what they were like to start with, but this show was just naturally bound to bring out every single bad quality they’d got. That’s hard talking, but there’s got to be some hard talking between us. I don’t blame you, because you were nothing but a girl-you hadn’t any experience to go on, and your father landed you in for it. And I don’t blame him, because first he was a very sick man, and then he was so sick that he died, and it stands to reason that he wasn’t in a state to think clearly. It always beats me why people attach so much importance to a dying wish. If there’s one kind of wish that oughtn’t to be taken any notice of, it’s that, because it stands to reason that a man who’s so sick he’s going to die isn’t in a fit state to go binding wishes on other people. Anyhow, honey, it’s all got to stop now. You give your sister what you think she ought to have-tied up in trust if you like-and do the same by the others. Let them have their money and stand on their own feet, and if they ditch themselves, you just leave them there till they get enough horse sense to climb out again. Don’t you go feeding them pap any more. It doesn’t do them any good and it doesn’t do you any good, and anyhow I’m not going to have it.”
Rachel felt rather as if she were out in a high wind. The wind seemed to be blowing quite a lot of things away. And she didn’t care. She let them go down the wind. The rough tweed of Gale’s coat was pleasant and harsh under her cheek. Half her life was gone, but there was another half to come.
Gale tipped up her chin with a strong, gentle hand.
“What you really want is a family of your own,” he said.
Patricia Wentworth
Born in Mussoorie, India, in 1878, Patricia Wentworth was the daughter of an English general. Educated in England, she returned to India, where she began to write and was first published. She married, but in 1906 was left a widow with four children, and returned again to England where she resumed her writing, this time to earn a living for herself and her family. She married again in 1920 and lived in Surrey until her death in 1961.
Miss Wentworth’s early works were mainly historical fiction, and her first mystery, published in 1923, was The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith. In 1928 she wrote The Case Is Closed and gave birth to her most enduring creation, Miss Maud Silver.
