THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ETHEL LINA WHITE. Ethel Lina White
Читать онлайн книгу.
said Joan. "I'm just fascinated by the idea of the underground stream which must be flowing somewhere under the garden. You see, it disappears through this grating and it doesn't come up again until it reaches the pool. Hidden things are so thrilling. I do wonder just exactly where it is."
"The doctor could tell you. He claims to be a water diviner."
"That would appeal to him," said Joan.
"It doesn't to me," snorted the Rector. "I hate all underground things."
Joan noticed that since his face had grown thin, his nose appeared beakier and his nostrils more arrogant. With the first signs of ill health, the Roman Emperor was more in evidence, while the anonymous plebeian lady was retiring into the background.
"I've seen you looking fitter," she remarked, with typical British understatement. "Been dreaming again?"
"Surely I've never bored you with my dreams? What a rotten cad to victimise a poor helpless girl."
"Well, have you been fighting again with your unknown man?" persisted Joan.
"I have," admitted the Rector. "Several times, in fact. Only—I'm not quite certain that it is a man."
He was led on, by the interest in Joan's eyes, to further confidence.
"Of course, there's a simple explanation of every dream. When I woke up last night I was wound up in the sheets, like a cocoon. So, naturally, when I dreamed I was struggling with this unseen lady—or gentleman—I felt a sensation of ghastly pressure, as though I were being slowly coiled to death."
Joan burst out laughing.
"Well, don't let it get you down," she said. "You only want your dream explained in a scientific way. Why don't you ask the saintly Miss Asprey to tackle the job?"
To her surprise and annoyance, the Rector turned away.
"If you don't mind, I will go and talk to her," he said.
Joan bit her lip as she watched his tall figure bent in homage over Miss Asprey's seat. It seemed incredible—but she thought she detected that glint in the mystic's eyes which is always present when one woman takes another woman's man.
Like the most successful diplomatists of history, the Rector had discovered that a queen likes to be treated as a woman; his voice was deferential, but his eyes were more independent, as he sank by her side.
"At last," he said. "I've been waiting for a chance to find you alone."
Miss Asprey's smile accepted his tribute; and, as she talked to him of her water-irises, Helen Wills-Moody, the Gold Standard, the souls of animals, and how to steam peas in lettuce leaves, he insensibly lost his gloom. Presently Miss Asprey commented on his looks with the sympathy which Joan had denied him.
"You're worried," she said. "Why?"
"I'm in a funk." The big man spoke like a schoolboy. "A man of my weight, with nerves. I'm terribly ashamed. But—the truth is—I'm positively dreading another anonymous letter."
Miss Asprey was looking at the place where the stream reappeared after looking through the darkness of its underground channel. Although actually the same dark-brown current that had stolen through the grating, it now spouted out, in silver spray, into a shallow flower-ringed pool.
Unlike Joan, who found mystery in its unknown course, she welcomed it back to the light. To the Rector there was something symbolic about the different mental attitudes.
"You need not fear another letter," said Miss Asprey. "I am certain there will never be one."
"What makes you think that?" asked the Rector eagerly.
"Because—the writer is dead."
Her reply gave the Rector a shock of surprise.
"You mean," he asked, "that Miss Corner wrote that letter to herself?"
"That is my conviction."
"But why? Why?"
"Because it was obvious to her that she was suspected of writing the first letter. My wretched letter...It was most regrettable that the secret ever leaked out. Of course, I don't suspect you of breach of faith—but someone overheard us...The effects were fatal to her. But it was all sheer bad luck. For, if she had not poured out that overdose, it would have all blown over, with time."
The Rector was impatient at being side-tracked.
"Do you believe," he asked, "that she thought it would draw suspicion off herself, if she, in turn, was a supposed victim of this anonymous pest?"
"I am certain of it. She did not have a high opinion of the local intellects."
"But have you grounds for your belief?"
"Naturally. I was at school with Julia Corner. An intelligent child, in eternal gym tunic, with fat, black-stockinged legs. Even then, she was proud of using words not in general circulation. 'Decrescent' was one of her favourites, then, and it has remained so ever since."
"I see." The Rector lowered his voice, as he instinctively raised his arm to prevent a money-spider, which was running over his sleeve, from deserting him. "But whatever induced her to mention the—whisky?"
"Ah, poor Julia." Miss Asprey's voice was compassionate. "That was her fatal sense of humour. We both know she never drank spirits. She bought that bottle, secretly, purely as a medicine for insomnia. But I can imagine how it appealed to her sense of the ridiculous when she hid it in her wardrobe. Of course, she never counted on its being discovered after her death. Because—she never expected to die."
"I'm sure of that," declared the Rector. "Miss Corner loved life too well to commit suicide."
Both became silent, lest one thought should seem to suggest another; for, although Dr. Perry's legacy—of unknown value—was the chief topic of conversation in the village, neither would mention it, from some remote fear that it might appear too apposite.
For this was not the usual sleepy-pear conversation of social convention, but the friction of two keen minds, when the unspoken word is more significant than speech. The money-spider ran on to Miss Asprey's dress, and the Rector let it go, unnoticed, as he frowned in the garden.
"Unconvinced?" asked Miss Asprey.
"I'm weighing it up," replied the Rector. "You see, I want to accept your theory. That puts me on my guard."
"I understand. And something else." Miss Asprey gave a wintry smile. "Naturally, you think of me as an old woman, who has grown mentally lazy, in retreat. But, like yourself, I've stood in the thick of the fight, when I was up against every kind of character—weak, warped, or vicious. I had to be prepared for emergencies, and make lightning decisions. So my mind was always just one leap ahead of the person I was dealing with. You may not believe it, my friend, but I retain that mental habit."
The Rector shed the scepticism with which he had first listened to her gentle boasting as he realised that during their conversation, she had really anticipated his own thoughts. Had she greeted him with sympathy, he would have assured her of his complete fitness, and changed the subject. But her trivial gossip had paved the way for his confidence.
However, he would not give in to her, altogether.
"There is one flaw in your argument," he said. "If Miss Corner was known to be fond of the word 'decrescent', others, besides yourself, must have noticed the fact."
He was startled by Miss Asprey's reaction to his theory. The calm of her face was shattered by unfamiliar distorting lines, and a dusky red stained the ivory of her skin.
"No." Her voice rang with suppressed passion. "That would be too horrible. It would mean that one of our friends is a—a maggot in our minds, eating our thoughts—boring into our intimate secrets, just to betray them out of sheer mental cruelty."
"Please, please," urged the Rector. "Of course, I meant nothing of the kind."
He