THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ETHEL LINA WHITE. Ethel Lina White
Читать онлайн книгу.
vestry," she told him "Will you ask him, from me, not to carry out his threat to leave us."
"A conditional threat," Ignatius reminded her.
"Yes. I cannot imagine how anyone could listen to such an appeal and not respond. Will you implore him not to punish the many for the sin of one?"
"But don't you think you could tell him what is in your mind much better than I can? Miss Mack and I will wait for you here."
Miss Asprey shook her head and gave him her rare smile.
"I can trust my message to your memory. And tell him also, not to punish himself for the sin of us all. I know what it would mean to him to leave the village. For I, too, love it. Come, Miss Mack."
Ignatius watched the grotesque contrast of the two figures—one, tall and thin, the other short and broad, as they walked under the lime avenue to the churchyard gate. Then he pulled, a grimace as though in mockery, at their retreating backs, before he followed a path overgrown with ivy and grass, which led round to the vestry.
The Rector was still inside—waiting. He looked up eagerly as the door opened to admit Ignatius. His face grew heavy with disappointment and his shoulders sagged again.
"Oh—you?"
"Yes, I." Ignatius spoke briskly. "You've taken too much out of yourself. Still—a fine sermon. Let me congratulate you."
"Why?" asked the Rector. "It has met with no response."
"Give it time. Besides, it has. Miss Asprey was coming to see you, but was frightened away."
"Miss Asprey. But I don't want the sheep that is already saved. I want the sinner that repenteth...What was she coming for?"
The Rector was slightly affected when Ignatius delivered Miss Asprey's message with the fidelity of a dictaphone.
"By the way," remarked Ignatius, "you rather sprung your decision upon all of us. Is it a sudden one?"
"So sudden that I did not know it myself when I mounted the steps of the pulpit. But—the words came...I must stand by them."
"It might be a good forcing move," decided Ignatius.
"No, no. You don't understand. A Power outside my own will compelled me to speak."
The Rector was exalted still by his recent inspiration. But he was soon overtaken by reaction, and sunken in a trough of depression. The shadow of his renunciation hung heavy over him.
He had been pained by the sequel to the Scudamore tragedy. A strange Coroner had held the inquest on them, and he had conducted it without that tact and discretion which had been a feature of the dead Coroner's enquiries at Miss Corner's inquest. Every fact regarding their private lives had been dragged into the daylight, and duly recorded in cold print.
The Rector was also vaguely worried because the Scudamores' cat, Jeremy, refused to stay with him. Although it was absurd, he felt that he had broken faith with the dead lawyer.
But the cat was troubled with no inhibitions, and knew exactly what it wanted. It had never settled in the Rectory, although the housekeeper had made valiant efforts to 'feed it in'. It spent the first few days in canvassing the district, always returning punctually for its meals. Then, having ascertained that the Clock House was permanently shut up, it took up its abode with a wealthy spinster.
The Rectory had not proved to Jeremy's taste. He had another objection, besides the dog, and the irregularity of the time-table. He had come from a respectable house, and could not be sure that the Rector was married to the housekeeper.
When the bell had ceased to clang for Children's Service, Ignatius, who was alone in the Rectory, pulled himself out of his old 'Varsity chair, and strolled on the green.
The peace of the Day of Rest hung over the village. The children were inside the church—the parents rested after their heavy midday meal. Ignatius exchanged the blazing sunshine for the green shadows of a lane, dark and fragrant with lime-trees, and wandered past secluded gardens, until he reached a small gate, set in a clipped laurel-hedge.
It was the side-entrance to 'The Spout'. He stood there, admiring the picturesque medley of vegetables, fruit-bushes and flowers when he heard the slide of high heels. Ada—the apple-bloom tints of her face deepened to damask-roses—was running down the path, perilously greened with moss. She wore the long flounced frock which showed that she was off-duty, and her best crinoline straw hat.
When she saw Ignatius she forgot to dip in the regulation curtsy, which was her mark of respect to one of the Rector's household. Instead, she spoke to him in the independent manner which had marked their walk, when he was only a casual visitor, who was, presumably, interested in her beauty.
"Have you seen her?"
"Who?" asked Ignatius.
"Miss Mack."
"No, I've met nobody."
"Then she didn't come in this way. Blessed if I can make it out."
"What's the mystery?" asked Ignatius.
"Well," explained Ada, "everyone's out. I seen them all go, with my own eyes, the mistress and all. The mistress said no one need come back until time to get tea. But I forgot my gloves, and I came back...And I'm sure I heard footsteps moving about overhead."
"Well, why didn't you go upstairs to investigate, instead of coming out into the garden?"
Ada blushed.
"I was scared, because they were such funny footsteps. They were creaky ones—not like anyone walking about...They say the house is haunted...So I just ran. Then, it came over me, all of a sudden, that perhaps Miss Mack had crept in, the back way. But if she had, you'd have seen her."
"Why should it be Miss Mack?" asked Ignatius.
"Because the steps seemed to come from her room."
"But why should she creep?"
Ada suddenly awoke from her trance of bewilderment, and her blue eyes became positively fierce.
"Now you're asking," she cried. "I've got my suspicions. And I'm going to find out. I'll only say this. Things disappear, and they don't walk off alone."
"May I come too?" asked Ignatius eagerly. "Just in case, it should be the ghost."
Ada remembered her fear of the empty house, and nodded. She blazed out a discreet track through overgrown raspberry-canes and filbert-clumps, in order to keep out of sight of the windows. When they reached the cobbled pathway before the house, she opened a small door, which led to a lobby.
"We'll listen at the top of the back-stairs," she said.
Ignatius followed her up the narrow, twisty steps to a baize-covered door, which Ada cautiously pushed ajar. Before them stretched the length of a passage, lit by one small window at its end. Its bare, waxed oaken boards were uneven with age, and it was broken into different levels by an occasional step.
"Hush," said Ada, holding up a warning finger.
A dead, heavy silence invaded the whole house. But, as they strained their ears, faint sounds carne from one of the rooms, as of a creaking floor. Someone was inside, stealing about on a furtive quest.
"It's old Mack," whispered Ada. "I've waked up at night, and thought I've heard someone snooping all round the house. Then I said 'Mice'. But I've lost my new pearls...You see? She's crept back, when everyone was out, to see what she could find lying about. But we'll cop her...Look."
Ada pointed to an old oaken door, where the iron latch was being slowly raised, as though by an invisible hand.
"Whose room?" asked Ignatius, as the latch remained stationary, at half-cock.
"Mack's. She's hiding what she's took. But I'll tax her and make her turn out her drawers, before me...Oh."
She gasped as the door silently opened and Miss Asprey appeared in the entrance. There was something so furtive