.
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу - страница 8
Lady Revell, dressed in pale blue, rose to receive the rector. She flung her cigarette into the fire and motioned him to a seat beside her. Her face wore its usual thick coating of white, on which level black eyebrows were beautifully drawn above her eyes, which were small and close-set.
She had strange eyes, had Lady Revell. Green as the sea, and of an infinite melancholy unless she were laughing, when they could glitter like cut glass.
"I was just thinking, as you came in, Mr. Avery," she said in her rich deep voice, a voice with an enormous amount of verve and 'go' in it, "that one doesn't trust Providence half enough."
The rector was surprised. Piety had not been a quality which he had ever found in Lady Revell.
"I've been a pig to Anthony," she continued in a remorseful tone, "because Gilbert was so obviously better fitted to have all that money that it made me wild. And, after all, in the end, its Gilbert, and not Anthony, who is to have it."
She had been a pig indeed. The rector knew how the elder boy had felt the frost that seemed to grow harder and more severe with each year after Gilbert was born. Lady Revell might well feel remorse now. She had acted as though she hated Anthony because his grandfather had left him his vast fortune. But for the genuine sweetness of Anthony's nature she might have ruined his temper. As it was, she had saddened the lad. Still, it was something to find that the mother had come again to the surface, the mother who used to be so fond of little Anthony, before Gilbert came to sweep all her affection up to himself.
They talked a while of the death. Lady Revell asked warmly about Olive, and, just as Anthony had thought, did not seem opposed to the match. "She might have steadied him," she said finally, "and he needed steadying. His looks were too much for most women. I know of two at least around here who would have gone any length."
"Mrs. Green for one," murmured Gilbert, who had just come in. "The silly woman was really off her chump about him."
"Mrs. Green for one," agreed Lady Revell. "But scandal bores the rector;" and they talked of the dreadful accident instead.
Gilbert was only eighteen years old, and though to the rector, as to his father and grandfather, he had none of the charm of Anthony, Anthony the sunny who never lost his temper, never complained, never blamed others, Gilbert was not without his friends. Spoiled he was, but he had unexpected grit in him which had refused to let his mother turn him into a pet. He had insisted on going to Rugby, and that breezy and robust school had liked him, while Anthony was a true son of Eton. The two brothers had been fond of each other, which spoke well for both. And now all that had been meant for the one would go to the other, with probably a good slice for Lady Revell. She was Irish, a sailor's daughter, and had no settlements, the rector knew, and from certain signs at The Flagstaff he was sure that she was hard pressed for money lately. The Admiral had had no idea of retrenchment, and there were hair-raising tales told of the extravagance that still went on in the servants' hall.
The rector drove away feeling that his dislike of Lady Revell had been mistaken, that in spite of her biting tongue to Anthony, she had really loved her first-born.
CHAPTER FOUR
LUNCH next day was a painful meal. Olive sent word that she was going for a long walk, and would not be back till late in the afternoon.
The rector seemed to see still before him that handsome young face which had turned to him at this very table so short a time ago.
Grace had returned and was very silent.
"When is the inquest on Anthony to be held?" Doris asked after a long interval of silence.
"This afternoon," Mr. Avery said. "It's a foregone conclusion—the verdict I mean. Poor Anthony, I should have thought, was the last man to be awkward in handling anything, let alone a gun!"
"I suppose it couldn't have been suicide?" Grace asked in a low voice. The sweet was on the table and the servants were gone.
"Suicide!" Doris stopped helping her sister-in-law to the tart. "What on earth?"
"What put that idea into your head, Grace?" the rector asked gravely, "or rather what made you say it." He wondered if Grace were developing a tendency to wild statements.
"Well, it's all so funny," Grace said irritably. "Olive was out last night; no one knows this of course, but it's a fact. I went to her room for some toothache drops I knew were in that wall cupboard in there, and she wasn't there. That was nearly midnight. Her bed hadn't been slept in. She says she was up on the roof watching the stars, as she does at times. But I'm wondering whether she met Anthony and told him that she didn't want to be engaged to him—that she didn't love him—"
"But she did!" broke in Doris imperiously.
"You chose to think she did," was the tart reply, "and so engineered that ridiculous engagement, but Olive didn't care for him. That was her charm for Anthony, I think. Such a contrast to most of the women he'd met. No, Doris, you spoilt a girl who was in most ways one of the best companions I shall ever have and all to no purpose. She was quite happy here with me."
Doris helped her brother-in-law to apple tart, and passed him the cream with an expression that said that she considered Grace's words not worth a reply.
"What do you say?" he now asked turning to her.
"Of course she was in love with Anthony!" she said with certainty. "Why, the two were all eyes and sighs for weeks past. Violet-May suspected Anthony of being in love with Grace," she said maliciously—Doris could say very cutting things in her light easy way—"you believed he wanted to flirt with me," she added as Grace's face flushed—"but it was Olive all the time—from first to last."
"Except when it was Mrs. Green!" Grace said.
"Mrs. Green!" scoffed Doris. "Mrs. Green is an artist, Grace. She adored Anthony's good looks and she liked him personally as well. But as to the garbage that people talk about her being in love with him—" Doris made a sweep of the sugar sifter do duty for her opinion of that.
Remembering Anthony's own words about how irksome he had himself found Mrs. Green when Olive came into his life, the rector felt uncomfortable, but the two young women were not looking at him.
"You're bound to take that view, as you engineered the whole affair," Grace said in a very unconvinced voice.
"No, Cupid did that," laughed Doris. "I simply arranged with you to let me get Olive to design and engineer those chair covers for me," and Doris, with an excuse to the two, rose from the table with her usual air of swift decision, which suggested the brisk alert mind which she turned to everything. Just as Grace's slow languid way of getting out of her chair suggested the uncertainty that was an integral part of her nature too.
The inquest was soon over. At no time was it interesting except to the local people who crowded the room. Lady Revell, looking almost indecently cheerful, was there with Gilbert who wore a very sober expression. Near them sat Mrs. Green. Some of those present refused at first to recognise the middle-aged, badly dressed woman with the deep pockets under her eyes.
"If that really is Mrs. Green and not her mother, she must have СКАЧАТЬ