“Is this what you wanted me to look for?”
“Let me see… Yes, I think it is. Where was it?”
The real answer was, “Where you put it,” but of course she couldn’t say that. But her colour rose.
“On the top shelf behind some sermons by the Reverend Nathaniel Spragge.”
“The top shelf? What an extraordinary thing!”
He was holding the book. He hadn’t opened it. He came up to the writing-table and put it down. His hand shook. He stood there looking at it. She thought, “He can’t make up his mind. He wanted it found, but now he can’t make up his mind. He doesn’t know whether to go on or go back. He doesn’t know whether I’ve seen the will.” She said quickly,
“There’s a paper inside it, Mr. Random. I think you ought to see it.”
He drew a long breath. She wondered if it was a breath of relief. When you have carried a secret like this for a year, it might be a relief to let it go, no matter what would come of it.
He rested one hand on the table and opened the prayer-book. The leaves fell apart where the envelope divided them. Susan watched whilst he looked down at it and read the words which she knew were there:
“To my brother Arnold. My last Will and Testament. James Random.”
It was a minute before he opened his dry lips to say,
“It’s a will-”
“Yes.”
“My brother James’ will-”
“Hadn’t you better open it?”
He started.
“Yes, yes-of course-”
He took the enclosure out of the envelope and unfolded it. Just an ordinary sheet of paper written on in a shaky hand, signed at the foot by James Random and witnessed by William Jackson and William Stokes. When he had stared at it for quite a long time he said,
“My brother’s will. Dated a week before he died. It leaves everything to Edward.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Miss Silver had volunteered to do any shopping that might be required for the Vicarage.
“You will be having your work-party this evening, and that will mean more to do in the house, to say nothing of the cutting-out, at which you are, I am told, most proficient. Your dear mother was just the same. I remember that she won the sewing prize at school. So if there is any little thing I can do for you in the village, I should really enjoy having an object.”
Ruth remembered that they were short of custard powder, and cook had planned to make some of her celebrated cream-custard biscuits.
“She thinks they are wasted on the work-party, but she can’t resist showing them off. Everyone in Greenings has asked for the recipe and been refused. And if Mrs. Alexander has any of her home-made apple-ginger left, do find out if she can spare me a pot. John is so fond of it. And I can cut out a whole batch of children’s frocks and be sure that they will be some kind of a human shape.”
As Miss Silver took her way down the drive she had a thought to spare for her old friend’s daughter. Such a pity that she had no children-a pity and, she was afraid, an abiding grief. But instead of letting it embitter her she allowed it to flow out in service to the desolate children who needed it most. She thought that Mary had brought up her daughter well.
She found Miss Sims at the counter in Mrs. Alexander’s shop. She was commenting unfavourably and at great length upon an imported cauliflower, each word carefully separated from its neighbour and coming out with slow deliberation. “Sinful!” she was saying as Miss Silver came in. “Two shillings for a cauliflower! And Mr. Pomfret had to plough in I dunno how many hundreds in the spring! ‘Wilful waste makes woeful want,’ is what my father would have said!”
Mrs. Alexander opined that times had changed, and did she want the cauliflower?
Miss Sims gave a sigh that was almost a groan.
“Seems I’ll have to take it. The doctor’s so fond of them he’d eat them day in, day out all the year round if they was to be had, which thank goodness they’re not, for there’s nothing smells so strong when it’s cooking as a cauliflower.”
Miss Silver entered the conversation with a bright smile and the remark that a piece of bread in the saucepan would often do wonders in reducing the disagreeable odour.
Mrs. Alexander said her mother always put a bit of bread in with the greens, but Miss Sims merely shook her head and gave it as her opinion that what was all very well for a good English cauliflower grown in your own garden was neither here nor there when it came to this foreign stuff.
It was while Miss Sims was producing her purse and counting out five threepenny bits, three coppers, and a sixpence that Mrs. Alexander leaned over the counter and asked Miss Silver whether she could tell her how poor Annie Jackson was.
“If you’ll excuse me asking, but I saw her yesterday just for a minute going past, and I thought she looked dreadful, poor thing. We all know there’s nobody would be kinder to her than Mrs. Ball, but I did think she looked dreadful, and I couldn’t get it from my mind. They say she goes down to the splash and looks at the water, and she didn’t ought to do that.”
Miss Silver shook her head gravely.
“It is very difficult to stop her. She slips down there in the dark. I found her there myself last night. I am afraid the place has a morbid attraction for her, especially about the time her husband must have been drowned. Of course, it is exceedingly bad for her, as you say.”
“She didn’t ought to do it,” said Miss Sims in a tone almost as disapproving as if she had just found out that the fish was high.
Mrs. Alexander was disapproving too.
“She doesn’t go along to that cottage of hers, not by herself, does she? I did hear the Hodges hadn’t moved in yet. Seems her mother’s been ill and they’re bound to stay till she’s better.”
Miss Silver coughed in a hesitating manner.
“I am afraid I cannot say. Of course you are quite right. She ought not to do these things, but it is extremely difficult to prevent her. So easy to slip out, especially whilst a work-party is going on.”
Miss Sims began to stow away the cauliflower in her shopping-bag.
“I wouldn’t go down to the splash in the dark if you were to pay me.”
“Oh, well,” said Mrs. Alexander, “Annie is used to it. There’s a lot in being used to things.”
They had talked about Annie Jackson for a quarter of an hour before Miss Silver found an opportunity of mentioning either custard powder or apple-ginger.
The conversation might have gone on a good deal longer if it had not been for the sudden irruption of Cyril Croft in search of batteries for his bicycle lamp. It appeared that he had been away visiting an aunt, and had come back with two batteries that were completely dud.
“I had a frightful time there-there wasn’t a piano in the house! And I missed everything that was going on here. Clarice -and poor old William Jackson! It must have been a homicidal maniac-mustn’t it? And that’s a grim thought, because he’s probably still somewhere about!”
Miss Silver left him talking and proceeded on her way. Approaching the Miss Blakes’ house, she was waved and nodded to by Miss Ora, whose sofa had been pushed even farther into the bay than usual. Regardless of the colder day, a window was opened. Greetings were exchanged, and a pressing invitation extended to come up and have a cup of tea and a chat. Remembering the horrid fluid which had passed under that name, Miss Silver might have been forgiven for finding some excuse, yet she accepted with smiling alacrity and was invited to walk in.
Miss Ora’s best shawl had been put away for another tea-party, but she was wearing a very nice one with a pale blue border, and ribbons of the same shade in the lace trifle which passed as a cap. She received Miss Silver with great affability, designated a hand-bell, and asked if she would be so kind as to ring it just outside the door, explaining that it would bring Mrs. Deacon, which it presently did.
“Miss Silver is being kind enough to pay me a visit, and we will have tea, and the cake that was not cut yesterday.”