THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ETHEL LINA WHITE. Ethel Lina White
Читать онлайн книгу.
if you know what I mean. Just friends. That's what makes it so unjust—so scandalous, that he thought the worst."
"How do you know he did?" asked Ignatius.
"Because he changed completely. He's never been the same to me since."
As the Rector appeared confused, Ignatius enlightened him tactfully.
"You're talking of the man who rang the bell and then looked through the window of the bungalow, aren't you?" he asked. "Do you suspect him of writing these letters?"
"Who else can it be? He's the only one who knows about me. And he must know a lot of secrets about his patients." The Rector raised his heavy brows significantly. "Are you accusing Dr. Perry?" he asked sternly. Vivian did not answer the question.
"I have told you all I know," she said. "I must go now. Good-bye."
The Rector's face was shadowed with gloom, but he forced a smile.
"All this has been very painful for you," he said. "Thank you sincerely. You've been very brave."
"I've only done my duty."
Vivian glanced at Ignatius, but he had no compliments to offer her, as he thought of the burned evidence.
"Please don't come with me to the gate," she said. "One can slip out so much easier alone. I don't want the doctor to know I've been here. He may suspect."
She fluttered a few paces down the drive, like a white butterfly, and then flitted back, holding something which she offered to the Rector.
"I nearly forgot. Here's your envelope you asked for...And please remember. I never did."
The Rector was not aware that his face expressed doubt, until Ignatius spoke, as though in answer to some question.
"No, Tigger, she didn't. She hasn't the guts. But if Miss Brook ever spins you that yarn, you'd better investigate." With a sudden change of mood, he kissed his hand to the white figure just slipping through the gate.
"Our thanks are due to that delicate and protesting lady," he said. "May I trouble you for that envelope? And now I must ring up the garage for my car. I'm going up to London immediately. Back tonight."
"What are you going to do?" asked the Rector.
"In London? I'll tell you later. At present, I'm going into the study, to write a note to Dr. Perry. It's a bit premature, but it may be important. Will you see that it is sent to him, by hand, and without delay?"
The Rector gazed at his remorseless face with troubled eyes. "Must you?" he muttered. "In spite of everything, I always like the fellow."
Ignatius merely smiled. Without meaning to do so, Vivian had placed him on the rack of suspense, by withholding the important envelope until the last moment. In unconscious imitation, he remained silent, until just as his car was moving.
"That was a lucky lunch at the Towers," he remarked. "It was then that Miss Martin told me that our anonymous friend had made the inevitable false step."
CHAPTER XXXI — THE WAY OUT
In spite of the ferment of his mind, the Rector was faithful in the commission of his trust. His house-keeper delivered the note into the doctor's hands not more than ten minutes later than Ignatius' departure to London.
The doctor, who was in his surgery, looked at the word 'Urgent' on the envelope with dull eyes. Nothing was of importance to him that day, least of all the stringency of another person's business.
During the past week he had lost his curiosity—or rather, his curiosity was focused exclusively on one subject. As a matter of purely academic interest, he wondered which was the most effective method of committing suicide.
Of course he had not the least intention of taking his own life. He assured himself of that repeatedly. The present offered too many problems, the chief of which was the adjustment of expenditure with income.
This should have been easy, for, as Joan had once declared, the favoured families of the village all possessed pedigrees and private incomes. She had also stated that everyone was married—and therein lay the rub.
Had the doctor remained a bachelor, he could have lived in comfort at St. James' House, without the aid of any tributaries to swell the main stream of his dividends. But, since his marriage, he had converted Stock repeatedly, in order to meet Marianne's constant demands.
Even so, Life had been a pleasant jumble, in the days before the first anonymous letter. He thought wistfully of that vanished Past, which held the Scudamores and Julia Corner.
Perhaps the village had not been Life itself—but merely its reflection in the magic mirror of a crystal pool. There was no ugliness or turbulence to make it real—only the beauty and fantasy of a dream.
But a wind had blown over the water, and flawed the surface to a distorting-glass. Nothing remained the same.
The sun shone through the glass roof of the surgery striking through the rows of bottles and sprinkling the walls and ceiling with rainbow reflections. When the wind shook the trees outside, these luminous spots danced like fairies. The doctor watched them, half mesmerised by the quivering colours, as he sighed for that vanished tranquillity, when his leisurely days had been filled with professional visits, which differed from a social call, principally by the fact that he was paid to drink tea.
Gone were the wealthy spinsters and comfortable widows, with their prudent avoidance of illness and their punctual cheques. Even although they still resided in the village, in reality, they were living in a different planet.
But the doctor did not contemplate suicide. Nothing was further from his thoughts. On the whole, he found the situation rather amusing. For all these pleasant people were still his friends. Had anyone of them a hint as to the actual state of his finances there would have been a run on his professional services.
Only, a whisper had stolen abroad, which vaguely connected him with the poison-letters. No one believed the rumour, but each person waited on his neighbour. It was herd-instinct, which caused them to stampede in a huddle, and then, immediately afterwards, to fall apart, in distrustful clusters.
'They're not cruel,' reflected the doctor. 'They're afraid.'
His eyes fell on the note in his limp hand. Although he was incurious, he was on the point of opening it when he heard his wife's steps in the hall—now sharp on the parquet, now dull, over a rug.
At this minute he did not wish to see her. She had been in an especially perverse mood at breakfast, not leaving him in peace, and stinging his brain, like a mosquito, so that it still felt swollen and incapable of consecutive thought.
She burst into the surgery, electric with energy which shamed his own sluggishness.
"Who's that note from?" she asked instantly.
The doctor instinctively put it in his pocket.
"No one in particular. From the Rectory," he replied.
"How explicit." Marianne looked at him with a spice of mockery. "Horatio, did you wake up this morning?"
"I'm not sure. I feel rather stagnant."
"Then why on earth don't you do something?"
"Nothing to do."
"Then I'll tell you something I want done," said Marianne briskly. "Nurse says that if the babies are not to go to the sea, the best thing to do is to rig up a sun-shelter on the roof, where they'll be out of the way of mosquitoes."
"Brilliant woman. Her obvious deduction is that mosquitoes cannot walk upstairs."
Marianne flamed at the hint of satire in the doctor's quiet voice.
"At least she takes an