MARIE BELLOC LOWNDES - British Murder Mysteries Collection: 17 Books in One Edition. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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written on the large plain sheet of paper that envelope contained.
But she no longer felt “like that” towards her daily correspondent, Roger Gretorex. Also she was going to see him this morning in the hope, nay, the certainty, that he would help to tide over this horrid moment of difficulty, by giving her whatever money he could put his hands on.
Gretorex was of a very different stamp from the men who had up to now fallen in love with her. He worshipped her with all his heart and soul, while yet conscious that he was now doing what, before he had been tempted, he would have unhesitatingly condemned in another man. As to that, and other matters of less moment, he was what Ivy Lexton felt to be ludicrously old-fashioned, and she had soon become weary of him, and satiated with the jealous devotion he lavished on her.
Also, Roger Gretorex was poor; not poor as Ivy’s husband had become, largely through his own fault and hers, but through that of his father, a great Sussex squire, who had gambled and muddled away his only son’s inheritance. That was why Gretorex was a doctor, and not what the woman he loved would have liked him to be, an idle young man of means.
The other envelope was addressed in a woman’s flowing hand, and it had been sent on from Ivy’s bridge club.
The writer of the many sheets this thick, cream-laid envelope contained was named Rose Arundell. She was a well-to-do, generous, rather foolish young widow, who had taken a great fancy to lovely Mrs. Jervis Lexton. Mrs. Arundell had been, nay, was, a most useful friend, and a look of dismay shadowed Ivy Lexton’s face as she read on and on, till she reached the end of the long letter.
Wednesday afternoon.
Ivy, darling, I have the most astounding news to tell you!
I’ll begin at the beginning. Besides, I can’t help thinking—for I know you’re rather worried just now, poor dear—that it may be of help to you. D’you remember my telling you last time we met at that tiresome fête where we couldn’t see each other for a moment alone, that I’d had a wonderful adventure? That I’d been to a fortune-teller? Her name is Mrs. Thrawn. She lives at No. 1 Ranelagh Reach on the Embankment. Her fee is a pound—and I feel inclined to send her a thousand pounds when I think of what she has done for me!
I don’t mind telling you now that I was on the point of taking that silly boy, Ronny. No one knows but myself how horribly lonely I’ve been. Well, I thought I’d go and see this Mrs. Thrawn and hear what she’d got to say; for, after all, I didn’t love Ronny, and I always had a dreadful suspicion it was my money he liked, rather than me.
Well, my dear, I went off trembling. But I can’t tell you how wonderful she was! She described Ronny and warned me against him. Then she said that an extraordinary change was coming over my life, and that if I would only be patient and wait, everything I had most longed for would come to pass. She was most awfully kind—really kind. She said that if I was sensible and did what she said—I mean refuse Ronny—I should take a long journey very soon to a place that she, Mrs. Thrawn, knew well and loved; and that I should be very, very happy there. That place was India, as I knew, for the woman who first told me about Mrs. Thrawn said she was the widow of a missionary!
And then, oh, Ivy, what do you think happened? I wonder if you remember all I told you about the soldier who was my first love? The man whom my mother would not let me marry and who did so splendidly in the war? He’s home on leave from India, where he has a splendid appointment. We ran across one another in the street, and I asked him to come and see me. You can guess the rest!
His leave is up by the end of next week. We shall be married very quietly on Thursday, and sail for India on Friday.
I’m in a whirl, as you can imagine. I’d love to have you at my wedding, darling, for you really are my dearest friend. But he doesn’t want anyone there who didn’t know us both in the old days, before the war. He hasn’t a bean, but, thank God, I’ve plenty for us both!
Your devoted Rose.
Ivy Lexton put the long letter she had just read down on the dressing-table. Then she took up the other, still unopened, envelope, and stuffed it into her bag. After all she could read the letter it contained in the omnibus, on her way to see Roger Gretorex. He had taken over for a friend a slum practice in Westminster, and he lived in what Ivy called a horrid little street named Ferry Place.
She turned again towards the looking-glass, and began once more making up her face at the point where she had been interrupted. She was so used to the process that she worked quickly, mechanically, though taking a great deal of intelligent care, far more care than did most of her young married women friends.
With regard to everything that concerned herself, Ivy Lexton was quick, uncannily shrewd, and instinctively clever. She knew how to exploit to the very best advantage her exceptional physical beauty, her natural charm of manner, and, above all, her extraordinary allure for men.
And yet, so unsuspicious is human nature in that stratum of the financially, easy, agreeably self-absorbed, and pleasure-loving world in which Ivy played a not unimportant part, that all the men, and many of the women, who came across her in that world, would have told you that Ivy Lexton was “a dear little thing,” “a regular sport,” “a good plucked one,” and “a splendid wife to that rotter Lexton.”
When she had finished what was always to her an interesting and pleasant task, she stood still, and did nothing, for a moment. She longed to get away from this hateful room and this horrible house, yet Roger Gretorex would not be free of his poorer patients for quite a long while. This was the more tiresome as she always went into his tiny mid-Victorian house by the back way, through the surgery, which gave into a blind alley.
Suddenly her eyes fell on “her little all.” Why shouldn’t she take that pound note, and call on Rose Arundell’s wonderful fortune-teller on her way to Ferry Place? After all, she, too, might have an unexpected bit of luck waiting for her round the corner.
She slipped on a cool pale-pink cotton frock given her by that same generous friend who was now, to her regret, going out of her life. Then she jammed a little brown straw hat on her fair, naturally wavy, shingled head, and, tiptoeing down the carpetless stairs, she hurried through the dirty hall into the sunshiny street.
Ranelagh Reach consisted of a row of six early nineteenth-century houses on that part of the Embankment which forms a link between Westminster and Chelsea. Two of the houses had evidently been taken over lately by well-to-do people, for they had been repainted, and their window-boxes were now filled with ivy-leaved geraniums. The four other houses were shabby-looking and dilapidated, and it was in one of these that there dwelt the woman who had taken as her professional name that of Janet Thrawn. The blinds of No. 1 were down, the brown paint on the front door had peeled, and the steps had evidently not been “done” for days. Everything looked so poverty-stricken that Ivy felt surprised when a very neat and capable-looking maid opened the door in answer to her pull at the old-fashioned bell. She had expected to see a slatternly little girl.
“I’ve come to see Mrs. Thrawn; Mrs. Arundell sent me.”
“I’m not sure that Mrs. Thrawn can see you, miss, unless you’ve made an appointment. But please come in, while I go and see.”
The inside of the little house was in its way as much of a surprise as the maid; it was very different from what the outside would have led the visitor to expect. There was a fine Persian rug on the floor of the narrow hall, and plenty of light came in from a window half-way up the staircase. Affixed to the red walls were plaster casts of hands, forming a curious, uncanny kind of decoration.
After the maid had gone upstairs Ivy Lexton felt a sudden impulse “to cut and run.” A pound note meant a great deal to her just now. But as she was turning towards the front door, the woman came down the steep stairs of the old house.
“Mrs. Thrawn will see you,” she said. Then she turned and preceded the visitor up the staircase.
As they reached the landing the maid murmured: