The Red Staircase. Gwendoline Butler

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      ‘Not up yet. It’s still early. But I knew you’d be home betimes for your breakfast. Either the little lad would come through the night or he’d be gone. Either way the dawn would decide it.’

      ‘Yes, you’re quite right,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘It’s amazing how the turn of day takes people out or brings them back in. It’s like a tide. But I listened to the birds singing this morning and knew it would be all right. His mother knew, too. We both knew.’

      ‘It’s the same with life; there comes a turn.’

      ‘So people say.’ I accepted the truism cautiously.

      ‘It’ll be that way with you soon.’

      ‘Can’t be too soon, Tibby,’ I said with a sigh. ‘I’ve got to make my way in the world somehow. It won’t wait on me, you know.’

      ‘I do know,’ said Tibby.

      ‘So far I don’t seem to have done anything right. I have to ask myself: What’s the matter with me?’ I looked at her, wondering what she would say.

      ‘The answer to that’s easy: Nothing,’ she said stoutly.

      ‘I mean, I can’t retire from life before I’m three-and-twenty,’ I said, continuing with my own stream of thought.

      ‘Oh, you silly girl.’

      ‘I haven’t told you much of what was said between me and Patrick. Only the blunt, dead end of it. I’m not sure if I remember it all myself now. What we did and said in the heat of the moment.’ I paused. ‘No, but I am wrong, Patrick wasn’t hot, he was cold, with his mind made up. Wretched, yes, even unhappy, but he was determined to do what he did.’

      ‘It was an awful thing,’ said Tibby solemnly.

      ‘Yes, awful. I still don’t understand the rights of it. Or why. But I’m not sure if it hasn’t wrecked me, Tibby.’

      ‘No, child, no.’ And she got a grip on my hand and held it tight.

      ‘And you know, Tibby, I think it may be partly because of my interest in medicine. “This health business,” Patrick called it once. I think he didn’t like it. Do you think that, Tibby?’

      ‘People hereabouts are proud of you.’

      ‘Are they? I’m not so sure.’ It was true I had a local history of helping with the healing of both people and animals. ‘He may have heard about the child at Moriston Grange, and the dog. People do gossip and say the silliest things.’ Such as the fact that humans sometimes recovered unexpectedly well when I gave them help. ‘Patrick may not have liked it.’ If I had the gift of healing, it was a small gift but a dangerous one.

      ‘Oh, the wretch,’ said Tibby.

      ‘Now, that’s not up to your usual standard, Tibby. You should encourage me. Tell me that there is a great future somewhere for Rose Gowrie. But where? Where am I to go? For go somewhere I must and will, Tibby, I tell you that.’ I stood up. ‘A nice breakfast, Tibby. But where am I to go?’

      She stood up too, and walked over to the sink with that slow heavy tread she took on sometimes. ‘I’ll have a think.’

      ‘Make it a lively think then, Tibby.’

      We left the matter there for the time being, but from that moment we both knew I was only waiting for life to show me the opportunity.

      We glossed over the breaking-off of my engagement when it came to Alec; I don’t think he fully understood what had happened. In any case, he was still young enough for the adult world to be inexplicable to him and its motives something he need not bother to try and comprehend. Since he’d never liked Patrick he was quite glad to see him go.

      So that when he came home with the tale he’d heard, the impact was all the harder.

      In all innocence he came in from play, sat himself down at the tea table and announced, with satisfaction: ‘Well, he’s away then.’

      I was pouring the tea, Tibby was cutting bread. ‘Who?’ I asked, not really attending.

      ‘That Patrick.’ He took a slice of bread and butter and devoured it rapidly. ‘Him.’

      ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, Master Alec.’ He was only Master Alec to Tibby when she was cross. ‘Mind your manners, please. And where has he gone?’

      ‘I must talk with my mouth full if you ask questions,’ said Alec, continuing his eating. ‘I must answer, that is manners. He’s away to India.’ And his hand reached out for another slice. ‘You never told me that.’ He looked at me accusingly.

      I was silent.

      ‘It was none of your business,’ said Tibby.

      ‘And he’s not off before time, his sister Jeannie says, for there were bills falling around him like snow. We were playing marbles.’

      ‘And has he left the bills behind him, then?’ said Grizel in an acid tone.

      ‘Every penny cleared, Jeannie says.’ Alec turned his attention to the scones and honey. ‘Praise be to God.’

      ‘Money from Heaven, then, I suppose,’ observed Grizel. ‘For I never knew the Grahams had a rich uncle.’

      ‘Ach, no, he was paid.’ Alec was all man of the world.

      There was a moment of complete silence.

      ‘Paid?’ It was my voice I heard.

      ‘Yes, to go away,’ continued Alec through his tea.

      ‘Well, that’s an odd thing,’ observed Tibby in a temperate voice. ‘And how much did they pay him?’

      ‘Three thousand pounds, Jeannie says,’ went on Alec, quite oblivious of the effect he was having. ‘Or it might have been more, she’s not quite sure. She couldn’t hear very well.’

      ‘Why not? How was she hearing them?’

      ‘Through the crack in the door. You do not suppose they were telling her?’ asked Alec with fine scorn. He looked up, and for the first time he seemed to take in the audience he had. ‘What are you all staring at me like that for?’

      ‘You may be jumping to the wrong conclusion,’ said Tibby, giving me a straight look over Alec’s head. ‘It may not be at all what it seems.’

      ‘I’m sure of it. Don’t look at me like that, Tibby, I know I’m right; it was worth three thousand to Patrick to break his engagement to me. So now I know my price. Three thousand pounds, give or take a few more pounds that Jeannie could not precisely hear.’

      ‘But whoever was it that paid him? And why?’ asked Grizel wonderingly.

      Events then followed with a naturalness that made acceptance of them inevitable.

      I was wretched at Jordansjoy, an object of interest to all the neighbourhood as the СКАЧАТЬ