IW hen I got home I found Mrs. Dane Calthrop sitting talking to Joanna. She looked, I thought, grey and ill.
“This has been a terrible shock to me, Mr. Burton,” she said. “Poor thing, poor thing.”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s awful to think of someone being driven to the stage of taking their own life.”
“Oh, you mean Mrs. Symmington?”
“Didn’t you?”
Mrs. Dane Calthrop shook her head.
“Of course one is sorry for her, but it would have been bound to happen anyway, wouldn’t it?”
“Would it?” said Joanna dryly.
Mrs. Dane Calthrop turned to her.
“Oh, I think so, dear. If suicide is your idea of escape from trouble then it doesn’t very much matter what thetrouble is. Whenever some very unpleasant shock had to be faced, she’d have done the same thing. What it reallycomes down to is that she was that kind of woman. Not that one would have guessed it. She always seemed to me aselfish rather stupid woman, with a good firm hold on life. Not the kind to panic, you would think—but I’m beginningto realize how little I really know anyone.”
“I’m still curious as to whom you meant when you said ‘Poor thing,’” I remarked.
She stared at me.
“The woman who wrote the letters, of course.”
“I don’t think,” I said dryly, “I shall waste sympathy on her.”
Mrs. Dane Calthrop leaned forward. She laid a hand on my knee.
“But don’t you realize—can’t you feel? Use your imagination. Think how desperately1, violently unhappy anyonemust be to sit down and write these things. How lonely, how cut off from human kind. Poisoned through and through,with a dark stream of poison that finds its outlet2 in this way. That’s why I feel so self-reproachful. Somebody in thistown has been racked with that terrible unhappiness, and I’ve had no idea of it. I should have had. You can’t interferewith actions— I never do. But that black inward unhappiness—like a septic arm physically4, all black and swollen5. Ifyou could cut it and let the poison out it would flow away harmlessly. Yes, poor soul, poor soul.”
She got up to go.
I did not feel like agreeing with her. I had no sympathy for our anonymous6 letter writer whatsoever7. But I did askcuriously:
“Have you any idea at all, Mrs. Calthrop, who this woman is?”
She turned her fine perplexed9 eyes on me.
“Well, I can guess,” she said. “But then I might be wrong, mightn’t I?”
She went swiftly out through the door, popping her head back to ask:
“Do tell me, why have you never married, Mr. Burton?”
In anyone else it would have been an impertinence, but with Mrs. Dane Calthrop you felt that the idea hadsuddenly come into her head and she had really wanted to know.
“Shall we say,” I said, rallying, “that I have never met the right woman?”
“We can say so,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop, “but it wouldn’t be a very good answer, because so many men haveobviously married the wrong woman.”
This time she really departed.
Joanna said:
“You know I really do think she’s mad. But I like her. The people in the village here are afraid of her.”
“So am I, a little.”
“Because you never know what’s coming next?”
“Yes. And there’s a careless brilliancy about her guesses.”
Joanna said slowly: “Do you really think whoever wrote these letters is very unhappy?”
“I don’t know what the damned hag is thinking or feeling! And I don’t care. It’s her victims I’m sorry for.”
It seems odd to me now that in our speculations10 about Poison Pen’s frame of mind, we missed the most obviousone. Griffith had pictured her as possibly exultant11. I had envisaged12 her as remorseful—appalled by the result of herhandiwork. Mrs. Dane Calthrop had seen her as suffering.
Yet the obvious, the inevitable13 reaction we did not consider—or perhaps I should say, I did not consider. Thatreaction was Fear.
For with the death of Mrs. Symmington, the letters had passed out of one category into another. I don’t know whatthe legal position was—Symmington knew, I suppose, but it was clear that with a death resulting, the position of thewriter of the letters was much more serious. There could now be no question of passing it off as a joke if the identityof the writer was discovered. The police were active, a Scotland Yard expert called in. It was vital now for theanonymous author to remain anonymous.
And granted that Fear was the principal reaction, other things followed. Those possibilities also I was blind to. Yetsurely they should have been obvious.
II
Joanna and I came down rather late to breakfast the next morning. That is to say, late by the standards of Lymstock. Itwas nine-thirty, an hour at which, in London, Joanna was just unclosing an eyelid14, and mine would probably be stilltight shut. However when Partridge had said “Breakfast at half past eight, or nine o’clock?” neither Joanna nor I hadhad the nerve to suggest a later hour.
To my annoyance15, Aimée Griffith was standing16 on the doorstep talking to Megan.
She gave tongue with her usual heartiness17 at the sight of us.
“Hallo, there, slackers! I’ve been up for hours.”
That, of course, was her own business. A doctor, no doubt, has to have early breakfast, and a dutiful sister is thereto pour out his tea, or coffee. But it is no excuse for coming and butting18 in on one’s more somnolent19 neighbours. Nine-thirty is not the time for a morning call.
Megan slipped back into the house and into the dining room, where I gathered she had been interrupted in herbreakfast.
“I said I wouldn’t come in,” said Aimée Griffith—though why it is more of a merit to force people to come andspeak to you on the doorstep, than to talk to them inside the house I do not know. “I just wanted to ask Miss Burton ifshe’d any vegetables to spare for our Red Cross stall on the main road. If so, I’d get Owen to call for them in the car.”
“You’re out and about very early,” I said.
“The early bird catches the worm,” said Aimée. “You have a better chance of finding people in this time of day.
I’m off to Mr. Pye’s next. Got to go over to Brenton this afternoon. Guides.”
“Your energy makes me quite tired,” I said, and at that moment the telephone rang and I retired20 to the back of thehall to answer it, leaving Joanna murmuring rather doubtfully something about rhubarb and French beans andexposing her ignorance of the vegetable garden.
“Yes?” I said into the telephone mouthpiece.
A confused noise of deep breathing came from the other end of the wire and a doubtful female voice said “Oh!”
“Yes?” I said again encouragingly.
“Oh,” said the voice again, and then it inquired adenoidally, “Is that—what I mean—is that Little Furze?”
“This is Little Furze.”
“Oh!” This was clearly a stock beginning to every sentence. The voice inquired cautiously: “Could I speak to MissPartridge just a minute?”
“Certainly,” I said. “Who shall I say?”
“Oh. Tell her it’s Agnes, would you? Agnes Waddle21.” “Agnes Waddle?”
“That’s right.”
Resisting the temptation to say, “Donald Duck to you,” I put down the telephone receiver and called up the stairs towhere I could hear the sound of Partridge’s activities overheard.
“Partridge. Partridge.”
Partridge appeared at the head of the stairs, a long mop in one hand, and a look of “What is it now?” clearlydiscernible behind her invariably respectful manner.
“Yes, sir?”
“Agnes Waddle wants to speak to you on the telephone.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
I raised my voice. “Agnes Waddle.”
I have spelt the name as it presented itself to my mind. But I will now spell it as it was actually written.
“Agnes Woddell—whatever can she want now?”
Very much put out of countenance22, Partridge relinquished23 her mop and rustled24 down the stairs, her print dresscrackling with agitation25.
I beat an unobtrusive retreat into the dining room where Megan was wolfing down kidneys and bacon. Megan,unlike Aimée Griffith, was displaying no “glorious morning face.” In fact she replied very gruffly to my morningsalutations and continued to eat in silence.
I opened the morning paper and a minute or two later Joanna entered looking somewhat shattered.
“Whew!” she said. “I’m so tired. And I think I’ve exposed my utter ignorance of what grows when. Aren’t thererunner beans this time of year?”
“August,” said Megan. “Well, one has them anytime in London,” said Joanna defensively.
“Tins, sweet fool,” I said. “And cold storage on ships from the far-flung limits of empire.”
“Like ivory, apes and peacocks?” asked Joanna.
“Exactly.”
“I’d rather have peacocks,” said Joanna thoughtfully.
“I’d like a monkey of my own as a pet,” said Megan.
Meditatively27 peeling an orange, Joanna said:
“I wonder what it would feel like to be Aimée Griffith, all bursting with health and vigour28 and enjoyment29 of life.
Do you think she’s ever tired, or depressed30, or—or wistful?”
I said I was quite certain Aimée Griffith was never wistful, and followed Megan out of the open French window onto the veranda31.
Standing there, filling my pipe, I heard Partridge enter the dining room from the hall and heard her voice saygrimly:
“Can I speak to you a minute, miss?”
“Dear me,” I thought. “I hope Partridge isn’t going to give notice. Emily Barton will be very annoyed with us ifso.”
Partridge went on: “I must apologize, miss, for being rung up on the telephone. That is to say, the young personwho did so should have known better. I have never been in the habit of using the telephone or of permitting my friendsto ring me up on it, and I’m very sorry indeed that it should have occurred, and the master taking the call andeverything.”
“Why, that’s quite all right, Partridge,” said Joanna soothingly32, “why shouldn’t your friends use the phone if theywant to speak to you?”
Partridge’s face, I could feel, though I could not see it, was more dour33 than ever as she replied coldly:
“It is not the kind of thing that has ever been done in this house. Miss Emily would never permit it. As I say, I amsorry it occurred, but Agnes Woddell, the girl who did it, was upset and she’s young too, and doesn’t know what’sfitting in a gentleman’s house.”
“That’s one for you, Joanna,” I thought gleefully.
“This Agnes who rung me up, miss,” went on Partridge, “she used to be in service here under me. Sixteen she was,then, and come straight from the orphanage34. And you see, not having a home, or a mother or any relations to adviseher, she’s been in the habit of coming to me. I can tell her what’s what, you see.”
“Yes?” said Joanna and waited. Clearly there was more to follow.
“So I am taking the liberty of asking you, miss, if you would allow Agnes to come here to tea this afternoon in thekitchen. It’s her day out, you see, and she’s got something on her mind she wants to consult me about. I wouldn’tdream of suggesting such a thing in the usual way.”
Joanna said bewildered:
“But why shouldn’t you have anyone to tea with you?”
Partridge drew herself up at this, so Joanna said afterwards, and really looked most formidable, as she replied:
“It has never been the custom of This House, miss. Old Mrs. Barton never allowed visitors in the kitchen,excepting as it should be our own day out, in which case we were allowed to entertain friends here instead of goingout, but otherwise, on ordinary days, no. And Miss Emily she keeps to the old ways.”
Joanna is very nice to servants and most of them like her but she has never cut any ice with Partridge.
“It’s no good, my girl,” I said when Partridge had gone and Joanna had joined me outside. “Your sympathy andleniency are not appreciated. The good old overbearing ways for Partridge and things done the way they should bedone in a gentleman’s house.”
“I never heard of such tyranny as not allowing them to have their friends to see them,” said Joanna. “It’s all verywell, Jerry, but they can’t like being treated like black slaves.”
“Evidently they do,” I said. “At least the Partridges of this world do.”
“I can’t imagine why she doesn’t like me. Most people do.”
“She probably despises you as an inadequate35 housekeeper36. You never draw your hand across a shelf and examine itfor traces of dust. You don’t look under the mats. You don’t ask what happened to the remains37 of the chocolatesoufflé, and you never order a nice bread pudding.”
“Ugh!” said Joanna.
She went on sadly. “I’m a failure all round today. Despised by our Aimée for ignorance of the vegetable kingdom.
Snubbed by Partridge for being a human being. I shall now go out into the garden and eat worms.”
“Megan’s there already,” I said.
For Megan had wandered away a few minutes previously38 and was now standing aimlessly in the middle of a patchof lawn looking not unlike a meditative26 bird waiting for nourishment39.
She came back, however, towards us and said abruptly40:
“I say, I must go home today.”
“What?” I was dismayed.
She went on, flushing, but speaking with nervous determination.
“It’s been awfully42 good of you having me and I expect I’ve been a fearful nuisance, but I have enjoyed it awfully,only now I must go back, because after all, well, it’s my home and one can’t stay away for ever, so I think I’ll go thismorning.”
Both Joanna and I tried to make her change her mind, but she was quite adamant43, and finally Joanna got out the carand Megan went upstairs and came down a few minutes later with her belongings44 packed up again.
The only person pleased seemed to be Partridge, who had almost a smile on her grim face. She had never likedMegan much.
I was standing in the middle of the lawn when Joanna returned.
She asked me if I thought I was a sundial.
“Why?”
“Standing there like a garden ornament45. Only one couldn’t put on you the motto of only marking the sunny hours.
You looked like thunder!”
“I’m out of humour. First Aimée Griffith—(“Gracious!” murmured Joanna in parenthesis46, “I must speak aboutthose vegetables!”) and then Megan beetling47 off. I’d thought of taking her for a walk up to Legge Tor.”
“With a collar and lead, I suppose?” said Joanna.
“What?”
Joanna repeated loudly and clearly as she moved off round the corner of the house to the kitchen garden:
“I said, ‘With a collar and lead, I suppose?’ Master’s lost his dog, that’s what’s the matter with you!”
III
I was annoyed, I must confess, at the abrupt41 way in which Megan had left us. Perhaps she had suddenly got bored withus.
After all, it wasn’t a very amusing life for a girl. At home she’d got the kids and Elsie Holland.
I heard Joanna returning and hastily moved in case she should make more rude remarks about sundials.
Owen Griffith called in his car just before lunchtime, and the gardener was waiting for him with the necessarygarden produce.
Whilst old Adams was stowing it in the car I brought Owen indoors for a drink. He wouldn’t stay to lunch.
When I came in with the sherry I found Joanna had begun doing her stuff.
No signs of animosity now. She was curled up in the corner of the sofa and was positively48 purring, asking Owenquestions about his work, if he liked being a G.P., if he wouldn’t rather have specialized49? She thought, doctoring wasone of the most fascinating things in the world.
Say what you will of her, Joanna is a lovely, a heaven-born listener. And after listening to so many would-begeniuses telling her how they had been unappreciated, listening to Owen Griffith was easy money. By the time we hadgot to the third glass of sherry, Griffith was telling her about some obscure reaction or lesion in such scientific termsthat nobody could have understood a word of it except a fellow medico.
Joanna was looking intelligent and deeply interested.
I felt a moment’s qualm. It was really too bad of Joanna. Griffith was too good a chap to be played fast and loosewith. Women really were devils.
Then I caught a sideways view of Griffith, his long purposeful chin and the grim set of his lips, and I was not sosure that Joanna was going to have it her own way after all. And anyway, a man has no business to let himself be madea fool of by a woman. It’s his own look out if he does.
Then Joanna said:
“Do change your mind and stay to lunch with us, Dr. Griffith,” and Griffith flushed a little and said he would, onlyhis sister would be expecting him back—
“We’ll ring her up and explain,” said Joanna quickly and went out into the hall and did so.
I thought Griffith looked a little uneasy, and it crossed my mind that he was probably a little afraid of his sister.
Joanna came back smiling and said that that was all right.
And Owen Griffith stayed to lunch and seemed to enjoy himself. We talked about books and plays and worldpolitics, and about music and painting and modern architecture.
We didn’t talk about Lymstock at all, or about anonymous letters, or Mrs. Symmington’s suicide.
We got right away from everything, and I think Owen Griffith was happy. His dark sad face lighted up, and herevealed an interesting mind.
When he had gone I said to Joanna:
“That fellow’s too good for your tricks.”
Joanna said:
“That’s what you say! You men all stick together!”
“Why were you out after his hide, Joanna? Wounded vanity?”
“Perhaps,” said my sister.
IV
That afternoon we were to go to tea with Miss Emily Barton at her rooms in the village.
We strolled down there on foot, for I felt strong enough now to manage the hill back again.
We must actually have allowed too much time and got there early, for the door was opened to us by a tall rawbonedfierce-looking woman who told us that Miss Barton wasn’t in yet.
“But she’s expecting you, I know, so if you’ll come up and wait, please.”
This was evidently Faithful Florence.
We followed her up the stairs and she threw open a door and showed us into what was quite a comfortable sittingroom, though perhaps a little over-furnished. Some of the things, I suspected, had come from Little Furze.
The woman was clearly proud of her room.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” she demanded.
“Very nice,” said Joanna warmly.
“I make her as comfortable as I can. Not that I can do for her as I’d like to and in the way she ought to have. Sheought to be in her own house, properly, not turned out into rooms.”
Florence, who was clearly a dragon, looked from one to the other of us reproachfully. It was not, I felt, our luckyday. Joanna had been ticked off by Aimée Griffith and Partridge and now we were both being ticked off by the dragonFlorence.
“Parlourmaid I was for fifteen years there,” she added.
Joanna, goaded50 by injustice51, said:
“Well, Miss Barton wanted to let the house. She put it down at the house agents.”
“Forced to it,” said Florence. “And she living so frugal52 and careful. But even then, the government can’t leave heralone! Has to have its pound of flesh just the same.”
I shook my head sadly.
“Plenty of money there was in the old lady’s time,” said Florence. “And then they all died off one by one, poordears. Miss Emily nursing of them one after the other. Wore herself out she did, and always so patient anduncomplaining. But it told on her, and then to have worry about money on top of it all! Shares not bringing in whatthey used to, so she says, and why not, I should like to know? They ought to be ashamed of themselves. Doing down alady like her who’s got no head for figures and can’t be up to their tricks.”
“Practically everyone has been hit that way,” I said, but Florence remained unsoftened.
“It’s all right for some as can look after themselves, but not for her. She needs looking after, and as long as she’swith me I’m going to see no one imposes on her or upsets her in anyway. I’d do anything for Miss Emily.”
And glaring at us for some moments in order to drive that point thoroughly53 home, the indomitable Florence left theroom, carefully shutting the door behind her.
“Do you feel like a bloodsucker, Jerry?” inquired Joanna. “Because I do. What’s the matter with us?”
“We don’t seem to be going down very well,” I said. “Megan gets tired of us, Partridge disapproves54 of you, faithfulFlorence disapproves of both of us.”
Joanna murmured, “I wonder why Megan did leave?”
“She got bored.”
“I don’t think she did at all. I wonder—do you think, Jerry, it could have been something that Aimée Griffith said?”
“You mean this morning, when they were talking on the doorstep.”
“Yes. There’s wasn’t much time, of course, but—” I finished the sentence.
“But that woman’s got the tread of a cow elephant! She might have—”
The door opened and Miss Emily came in. She was pink and a little out of breath and seemed excited. Her eyeswere very blue and shining.
She chirruped at us in quite a distracted manner.
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry I’m late. Just doing a little shopping in the town, and the cakes at the Blue Rose didn’t seemto me quite fresh, so I went on to Mrs. Lygon’s. I always like to get my cakes the last thing, then one gets the newestbatch just out of the oven, and one isn’t put off with the day before’s. But I am so distressed55 to have kept you waiting—really unpardonable—”
Joanna cut in.
“It’s our fault, Miss Barton. We’re early. We walked down and Jerry strides along so fast now that we arriveeverywhere too soon.”
“Never too soon, dear. Don’t say that. One cannot have too much of a good thing, you know.”
And the old lady patted Joanna affectionately on the shoulder.
Joanna brightened up. At last, so it seemed, she was being a success. Emily Barton extended her smile to includeme, but with a slight timidity in it, rather as one might approach a man-eating tiger guaranteed for the momentharmless.
“It’s very good of you to come to such a feminine meal as tea, Mr. Burton.”
Emily Barton, I think, has a mental picture of men as interminably consuming whiskies and sodas56 and smokingcigars, and in the intervals57 dropping out to do a few seductions of village maidens58, or to conduct a liaison59 with amarried woman.
When I said this to Joanna later, she replied that it was probably wishful thinking, that Emily Barton would haveliked to come across such a man, but alas60 had never done so.
In the meantime Miss Emily was fussing round the room, arranging Joanna and myself with little tables, andcarefully providing ashtrays61, and a minute later the door opened and Florence came in bearing a tray of tea with somefine Crown Derby cups on it which I gathered Miss Emily had brought with her. The tea was china and delicious andthere were plates of sandwiches and thin bread and butter, and a quantity of little cakes.
Florence was beaming now, and looked at Miss Emily with a kind of maternal62 pleasure, as at a favourite childenjoying a doll’s tea party.
Joanna and I ate far more than we wanted to, our hostess pressed us so earnestly. The little lady was clearlyenjoying her tea party and I perceived that, to Emily Barton, Joanna and I were a big adventure, two people from themysterious world of London and sophistication.
Naturally, our talk soon dropped into local channels. Miss Barton spoke63 warmly of Dr. Griffith, his kindness andhis cleverness as a doctor. Mr. Symmington, too, was a very clever lawyer, and had helped Miss Barton to get somemoney back from the income tax which she would never have known about. He was so nice to his children, too,devoted64 to them and to his wife—she caught herself up. “Poor Mrs. Symmington, it’s so dreadfully sad, with thoseyoung children left motherless. Never, perhaps, a very strong woman—and her health had been bad of late. A brainstorm65, that is what it must have been. I read about such a thing in the paper. People really do not know what they aredoing under those circumstances. And she can’t have known what she was doing or else she would have rememberedMr. Symmington and the children.”
“That anonymous letter must have shaken her up very badly,” said Joanna.
Miss Barton flushed. She said, with a tinge66 of reproof67 in her voice:
“Not a very nice thing to discuss, do you think, dear? I know there have been—er—letters, but we won’t talk aboutthem. Nasty things. I think they are better just ignored.”
Well, Miss Barton might be able to ignore them, but for some people it wasn’t so easy. However I obedientlychanged the subject and we discussed Aimée Griffith.
“Wonderful, quite wonderful,” said Emily Barton. “Her energy and her organizing powers are really splendid.
She’s so good with girls too. And she’s so practical and up-to-date in every way. She really runs this place. Andabsolutely devoted to her brother. It’s very nice to see such devotion between brother and sister.”
“Doesn’t he ever find her a little overwhelming?” asked Joanna.
Emily Barton stared at her in a startled fashion.
“She has sacrificed a great deal for his sake,” she said with a touch of reproachful dignity.
I saw a touch of Oh Yeay! in Joanna’s eye and hastened to divert the conversation to Mr. Pye.
Emily Barton was a little dubious68 about Mr. Pye.
All she could say was, repeated rather doubtfully, that he was very kind—yes, very kind. Very well off, too, andmost generous. He had very strange visitors sometimes, but then, of course, he had travelled a lot.
We agreed that travel not only broadened the mind, but occasionally resulted in the forming of strangeacquaintances.
“I have often wished, myself, to go on a cruise,” said Emily Barton wistfully. “One reads about them in the papersand they sound so attractive.”
“Why don’t you go?” asked Joanna.
This turning of a dream into a reality seemed to alarm Miss Emily. “Oh, no, no, that would be quite impossible.”
“But why? They’re fairly cheap.”
“Oh, it’s not only the expense. But I shouldn’t like to go alone. Travelling alone would look very peculiar69, don’tyou think?”
“No,” said Joanna.
Miss Emily looked at her doubtfully.
“And I don’t know how I would manage about my luggage—and going ashore70 at foreign ports—and all thedifferent currencies—”
Innumerable pitfalls71 seemed to rise up before the little lady’s affrighted gaze, and Joanna hastened to calm her by aquestion about an approaching garden fête and sale of work. This led us quite naturally to Mrs. Dane Calthrop.
A faint spasm72 showed for a minute on Miss Barton’s face.
“You know, dear,” she said, “she is really a very odd woman. The things she says sometimes.”
I asked what things.
“Oh, I don’t know. Such very unexpected things. And the way she looks at you, as though you weren’t there butsomebody else was—I’m expressing it badly but it is so hard to convey the impression I mean. And then she won’t—well, interfere3 at all. There are so many cases where a vicar’s wife could advise and—perhaps admonish73. Pull peopleup, you know, and make them mend their ways. Because people would listen to her, I’m sure of that, they’re all quitein awe74 of her. But she insists on being aloof75 and faraway, and has such a curious habit of feeling sorry for the mostunworthy people.”
“That’s interesting,” I said, exchanging a quick glance with Joanna.
“Still, she is a very well-bred woman. She was a Miss Farroway of Bellpath, very good family, but these oldfamilies sometimes are a little peculiar, I believe. But she is devoted to her husband who is a man of very fine intellect—wasted, I am sometimes afraid, in this country circle. A good man, and most sincere, but I always find his habit ofquoting Latin a little confusing.”
“Hear, hear,” I said fervently76.
“Jerry had an expensive public school education, so he doesn’t recognize Latin when he hears it,” said Joanna.
This led Miss Barton to a new topic.
“The schoolmistress here is a most unpleasant young woman,” she said. “Quite Red, I’m afraid.” She lowered hervoice over the word “Red.”
Later, as we walked home up the hill, Joanna said to me:
“She’s rather sweet.”
VAt77 dinner that night, Joanna said to Partridge that she hoped her tea party had been a success.
Partridge got rather red in the face and held herself even more stiffly.
“Thank you, miss, but Agnes never turned up after all.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It didn’t matter to me,” said Partridge.
She was so swelling78 with grievance79 that she condescended80 to pour it out to us.
“It wasn’t me who thought of asking her! She rang up herself, said she’d something on her mind and could shecome here, it being her day off. And I said, yes, subject to your permission which I obtained. And after that, not asound or sign of her! And no word of apology either, though I should hope I’ll get a postcard tomorrow morning.
These girls nowadays—don’t know their place—no idea of how to behave.”
Joanna attempted to soothe81 Partridge’s wounded feelings.
“She mayn’t have felt well. You didn’t ring up to find out?”
Partridge drew herself up again.
“No, I did not, Miss. No, indeed. If Agnes likes to behave rudely that’s her lookout82, but I shall give her a piece ofmy mind when we meet.”
Partridge went out of the room still stiff with indignation and Joanna and I laughed.
“Probably a case of ‘Advice from Aunt Nancy’s Column,’” I said. “‘My boy is very cold in his manner to me, whatshall I do about it?’ Failing Aunt Nancy, Partridge was to be applied83 to for advice, but instead there has been areconciliation and I expect at this minute that Agnes and her boy are one of those speechless couples locked in eachother’s arms that you come upon suddenly standing by a dark hedge. They embarrass you horribly, but you don’tembarrass them.”
Joanna laughed and said she expected that was it.
We began talking of the anonymous letters and wondered how Nash and the melancholy84 Graves were getting on.
“It’s a week today exactly,” said Joanna, “since Mrs. Symmington’s suicide. I should think they must have got onto something by now. Fingerprints85, or handwriting, or something.”
I answered her absently. Somewhere behind my conscious mind, a queer uneasiness was growing. It was connectedin some way with the phrase that Joanna had used, “a week exactly.”
I ought, I dare say, to have put two and two together earlier. Perhaps, unconsciously, my mind was alreadysuspicious.
Anyway the leaven86 was working now. The uneasiness was growing—coming to a head.
Joanna noticed suddenly that I wasn’t listening to her spirited account of a village encounter.
“What’s the matter, Jerry?”
I did not answer because my mind was busy piecing things together.
Mrs. Symmington’s suicide… She was alone in the house that afternoon… Alone in the house because the maidswere having their day out… A week ago exactly….
“Jerry, what—”
I interrupted.
“Joanna, maids have days out once a week, don’t they?”
“And alternate Sundays,” said Joanna. “What on—”
“Never mind Sundays. They go out the same day every week?”
“Yes. That’s the usual thing.”
Joanna was staring at me curiously8. Her mind had not taken the track mine had done.
I crossed the room and rang the bell. Partridge came.
“Tell me,” I said, “this Agnes Woddell. She’s in service?”
“Yes, sir. At Mrs. Symmington’s. At Mr. Symmington’s, I should say now.”
I drew a deep breath. I glanced at the clock. It was halfpast ten.
“Would she be back now, do you think?”
Partridge was looking disapproving87.
“Yes, sir. The maids have to be in by ten there. They’re old-fashioned.”
I said: “I’m going to ring up.”
I went out to the hall. Joanna and Partridge followed me. Partridge was clearly furious. Joanna was puzzled. Shesaid, as I was trying to get the number:
“What are you going to do, Jerry?”
“I’d like to be sure that the girl has come in all right.”
Partridge sniffed88. Just sniffed, nothing more. But I did not care twopence about Partridge’s sniffs89.
Elsie Holland answered the telephone the other end.
“Sorry to ring you up,” I said. “This is Jerry Burton speaking. Is—has—your maid Agnes come in?”
It was not until after I had said it that I suddenly felt a bit of a fool. For if the girl had come in and it was all right,how on earth was I going to explain my ringing up and asking. It would have been better if I had let Joanna ask thequestion, though even that would need a bit of explaining. I foresaw a new trail of gossip started in Lymstock, withmyself and the unknown Agnes Woddell at its centre.
Elsie Holland sounded, not unnaturally90, very much surprised.
“Agnes? Oh, she’s sure to be in by now.”
I felt a fool, but I went on with it.
“Do you mind just seeing if she has come in, Miss Holland?”
There is one thing to be said for a nursery governess; she is used to doing things when told. Hers not to reasonwhy! Elsie Holland put down the receiver and went off obediently.
Two minutes later I heard her voice.
“Are you there, Mr. Burton?”
“Yes.”
“Agnes isn’t in yet, as a matter of fact.”
I knew then that my hunch91 had been right.
I heard a noise of voices vaguely92 from the other end, then Symmington himself spoke.
“Hallo, Burton, what’s the matter?”
“Your maid Agnes isn’t back yet?”
“No. Miss Holland has just been to see. What’s the matter? There’s not been an accident, has there?”
“Not an accident,” I said.
“Do you mean you have reason to believe something has happened to the girl?”
I said grimly: “I shouldn’t be surprised.”
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1
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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5
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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6
anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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7
whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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8
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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9
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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10
speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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11
exultant
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| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
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12
envisaged
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| 想像，设想( envisage的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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14
eyelid
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| n.眼睑，眼皮 | |
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15
annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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16
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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17
heartiness
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| 诚实，热心 | |
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18
butting
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| 用头撞人（犯规动作） | |
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19
somnolent
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| adj.想睡的，催眠的；adv.瞌睡地；昏昏欲睡地；使人瞌睡地 | |
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20
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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21
waddle
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| vi.摇摆地走；n.摇摆的走路(样子) | |
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22
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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23
relinquished
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
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24
rustled
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| v.发出沙沙的声音( rustle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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25
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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26
meditative
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| adj.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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27
meditatively
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| adv.冥想地 | |
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28
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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29
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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30
depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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31
veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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32
soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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33
dour
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| adj.冷酷的，严厉的；（岩石）嶙峋的；顽强不屈 | |
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34
orphanage
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| n.孤儿院 | |
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35
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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36
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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37
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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38
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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39
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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40
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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41
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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42
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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43
adamant
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| adj.坚硬的，固执的 | |
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44
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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45
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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46
parenthesis
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| n.圆括号，插入语，插曲，间歇，停歇 | |
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47
beetling
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| adj.突出的，悬垂的v.快速移动( beetle的现在分词 ) | |
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48
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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49
specialized
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| adj.专门的，专业化的 | |
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50
goaded
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| v.刺激( goad的过去式和过去分词 )；激励；（用尖棒）驱赶；驱使（或怂恿、刺激）某人 | |
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51
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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52
frugal
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| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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53
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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54
disapproves
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| v.不赞成( disapprove的第三人称单数 ) | |
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55
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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56
sodas
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| n.苏打( soda的名词复数 )；碱；苏打水；汽水 | |
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57
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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58
maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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59
liaison
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| n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通 | |
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60
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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61
ashtrays
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| 烟灰缸( ashtray的名词复数 ) | |
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62
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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63
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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64
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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65
brainstorm
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| vi.动脑筋，出主意，想办法，献计，献策 | |
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66
tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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67
reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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68
dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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69
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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70
ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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71
pitfalls
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| （捕猎野兽用的）陷阱( pitfall的名词复数 )； 意想不到的困难，易犯的错误 | |
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72
spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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73
admonish
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| v.训戒；警告；劝告 | |
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74
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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75
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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76
fervently
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| adv.热烈地，热情地，强烈地 | |
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77
vat
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| n.(=value added tax)增值税，大桶 | |
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78
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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79
grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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80
condescended
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| 屈尊，俯就( condescend的过去式和过去分词 )； 故意表示和蔼可亲 | |
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81
soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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82
lookout
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| n.注意，前途，瞭望台 | |
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83
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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84
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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85
fingerprints
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| n.指纹( fingerprint的名词复数 )v.指纹( fingerprint的第三人称单数 ) | |
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86
leaven
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| v.使发酵；n.酵母；影响 | |
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87
disapproving
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| adj.不满的，反对的v.不赞成( disapprove的现在分词 ) | |
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88
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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89
sniffs
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的第三人称单数 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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90
unnaturally
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| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
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91
hunch
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| n.预感，直觉 | |
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92
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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