“Had Ulrica given you any directions about eating the sweets, I wonder?”
“Yes. She said not to guzzle them all at once. I thought she was just being nasty. I know I’m greedy. I always confess to the sin of greed, but I don’t seem to get any better. I’m always hungry, that’s all. I don’t really mean to be greedy.”
“Neither does a cormorant,” said Mrs. Bradley, laughing. “Well, what happened next?”
“Well, my inside went funny,” said Mary, delicately, “so I told the girls I was sick, which doesn’t sound quite so awful. And then I suddenly thought—”
“What?”
“How easy it would be for Ulrica if I was out of the way. There’d be nobody then to go to New York and get grandfather’s money instead of her having it all.”
“So you suspect that your cousin tried to murder you?”
“Well, I didn’t exactly suspect it, but it all seemed rather queer, so I thought the best thing I could do was to make myself sick with the soap and get rid of the poison, if any.”
“Very sensible and commendable,” said Mrs. Bradley, nodding. Mary looked very uncomfortable. “I don’t want to get Ulrica into trouble,” she said.
“You won’t,” Mrs. Bradley promised her. “I will be the soul of discretion. I think we shall find that the sweets were merely brimstone and treacle tablets. Mother Saint Gregory provided them, you say?”
She was more immediately concerned with clothing than with sweets, and, upon leaving Mary, went to find Sister Geneviève. The lay-sister matron brought out the garments which had been found in the bathroom and brought the tape-measure which Mrs. Bradley also demanded. The clothes were as Mother Jude had described—torn and damaged. The rather long grey drill-tunic was black with soot from the roof. All the garments were marked with the owner’s name-tab, U. DOYLE, sewn on with tiny stitches.
chapter 20
george
“What behaved well in the past or behaves well
to-day is not such a wonder…”
walt whitman: Stray Thoughts.
« ^ »
George came back at half-past ten with the car, and Mrs. Bradley was notified of his arrival whilst she was still examining the clothing. George had brought a note from Ferdinand. Mrs. Bradley, standing at the door of the guest-house in the thin spring sunshine, read it, then read it again.
“Arrived safely in Wandles. Célestine all ready to receive us. Ulrica asks whether there is any objection to her going to New York to visit her grandfather, since she has been taken away from school. Says she thinks her relatives would give permission, if you think she would be safe. Let me know what you feel.”
“So you arrived safely, George?” said Mrs. Bradley, looking at him with grandmotherly affection.
“Yes, madam.”
It sounded noncommittal, and Mrs. Bradley was intrigued. She pressed the point.
“Quite safely, and in good time?”
“We were delayed a half-hour or so, madam, on account of the young lady’s injury.”
“Good heavens, George! My son has not mentioned her injury. What was its nature and location?”
“I am at a loss how to answer you, madam.”
“Very well. Tell the whole tale. Come inside. There’s nobody here. We can talk in guilty secrecy.”
She led the way into the dining-room where the cloth was spread but the table not set, and motioned him into a chair. George waited until she was seated, and then, with his peaked cap held between his knees, and his feet set as though they were clamped in iron boots to the floor, he began his tale.
“We had proceeded through the village of Blacklock Tor and were about twenty-three miles upon our way when the young lady said she felt faint and would like some water. There being no water apparent, except what was in the radiator, madam, I drove on a couple of miles to the nearest village. There, while Sir Ferdinand ministered to the young lady, I purchased a packet of cigarettes for myself and a couple of cigars to give to Henri, me owing him these on account of a small wager which I had had with him some time previous, and conversed with the woman behind the counter. It was she who had supplied the young lady with a glass of water, and she mentioned to me that she thought the young lady had a sweet face, but looked exceedingly poorly. I concurred in this expression of opinion—”
“You don’t really think the girl has a sweet face, George?”
“I had taken very little account of the young lady up to then, madam, for the reason of her being a passenger and hardly my business, but since you ask me, I thought she looked somewhat ethereal.”
“Do you mean it, George?”
“Well, madam, I thought I did, but since you question the term, perhaps I don’t.”
“Now, be independent, George, and out with it like a man. What made you use the word ethereal?”
“She seemed to me not of this world, madam. She reminds me of what I used to think nuns were like before we knew those here.”
‘’You don’t call the nuns here ethereal?‘’
“They seem to me too practical, madam, to be warrantably called ethereal.”
“Wasn’t the girl practical, then?”
“I don’t know how to answer, madam, for here’s what happened. After we got on our way again, Sir Ferdinand, I fancy, had fallen into a doze, and all of a sudden the left side back window cracked as though someone had struck it smartly with a halfpenny, and at the same minute I heard the young lady cry out. I stopped the car at once, got down and opened the door. She was whimpering and holding her arm—her left arm, madam—and was moaning out.
“ ‘They’ve got me! Oh! They’ve got me!’
“Sir Ferdinand had awakened, and was staring at her and saying:
“ ‘Pull yourself together, my dear child! Whatever is the matter! ’
“He seemed a little testy, because, I think, he was startled, but I’d seen the blood running down, for our inside lights were on, and I said: ‘Hold hard, sir, a minute, I believe the young lady’s hurt!’
“We staunched the blood—a rather nasty cut, madam, that had slashed the sleeve of her coat and dress, and penetrated fairly deeply into the upper arm, about three inches, I should judge, above the elbow—and I drove on pretty fast to find a doctor. He dressed the arm—he thought she had cut it on broken glass from a car-smash, I believe, and none of us, not the young lady, either, said anything different to him.”
“She did it herself, I presume?”
“Very hysterical subject, I should fancy, madam. Rather like some of Herr Hekel’s young ladies, I imagine. Full of imagination, and out for sympathy and notice.”
“And you still looked upon her as ethereal?”
“With all the colour gone from her face, madam, and her eyes all dark underneath, and a general limpness of demeanour consequent upon loss of blood, I must persist, madam, in the description. She wanted to tell us some long rigmarole about having seen a man on the running board of the car. Sir Ferdinand, who has not exactly taken a fancy to the young lady, madam, told her, somewhat abruptly, that this was nonsense, and she made matters not exactly better by referring him to the fact that he had been asleep at the time.
“ ‘Yes, but I wasn’t,’ I said. She told me I couldn’t see behind me. I didn’t argue, madam, but I know no man was there.”
“But did you find the weapon that she used?”
“It was difficult without searching the young lady, madam. Sir Ferdinand remonstrated with her a bit, and told her she must calm down, and then Célestine gave her some milk when we got her home—she wouldn’t have anything to eat, so Célestine told me later—and put her to bed. Then Sir Ferdinand had his dinner, and I sat down to supper with Henri and Célestine.”