Читать книгу Mystery at the Rectory - A. Fielding - Страница 3

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THE rector got up from his writing table and laying his pipe down, stood a moment as though collecting his thoughts. A distinguished-looking man of around forty was John Avery, with his tall spare figure, his clever, scholarly face. He was frowning as he absent-mindedly straightened a yellow china jar on the corner of the mantelshelf. Then he returned to his knee-hole table, and, taking an apple from a plate which always stood on the corner, began slowly to eat it, still with a look of abstraction on his face, still with some inner discomfort marking a frown on his fine forehead.

The apple automatically disposed of, he drew out his watch and looked at it. Four o'clock. His sister-in-law would probably be in her own sitting-room.

Stepping out into the rectory's big hall-lounge, he went up the stairs, broad and curving, and with a gentle preliminary knock opened a door giving on a room of blue and white harmonies. The rector's sister-in-law—Doris Avery, whom most of her circle, including the rector, voted a very beautiful woman—sat writing at one of the windows the strong light struck flaming gleams from the burnished hair that grew in a lovely crescent around her smooth white forehead. Otherwise, however, her features were just averagely good; the hazel eyes of no particular size or shape, their shade dependent, like most eyes of that colour, on the mood of the moment, and the mouth similarly neutral in its general placidity, though the mobile lips looked ready to smile on the least occasion. Her seated figure, too, revealed a length of slender limbs that bespoke her tallness and fine proportions when up on her smartly-shod feet.

As she caught sight of him, she gave an exclamation of pleased surprise. "Why, John! I thought of you as still a captive in Damascus—or was it Ephesus? But since you're free—try this chair."

The cheery invitation, although he seated himself in accordance with it, failed to dissipate the troubled expression on John Avery's face as he said with evident reluctance: "My dear Doris, I'm afraid you'll think me unpardonably impertinent for what I've come up to say to you. But I feel it a friendly no less than a conscientious duty."

At her glance of inquiry he said in a low but firm voice: "It's about Anthony. Revell." Adding gravely, as her raised eyebrows and puzzled expression continued to silently question his meaning, "Are you being quite fair to him, Doris? I know your devotion to Dick, of course. But Revell may not realise it so fully. It's not the first time that something in his voice and look, when talking with you, has given me the same anxious fear that he may possibly misunderstand your quick sympathies. But it has nerved me to say frankly that I think it would be well for him to see less of you, my dear."

Doris Avery had a very charming laugh. It rang out now. Then she stifled it to exclaim: "My dear John! How deliciously flattering! But you should say it to Olive Hill. Not to me."

"Olive Hill?" he repeated blankly.

"She would be pleased at your tone!" Doris spoke with a spice of malice in her own. "Yes, Olive Hill. But don't say a word yet, or you'll choke him off. He has intervals of qualms. Olive may yet be sacrificed—but he is tempted."

The rector got up. His handsome face was all alight now. Gone was the touch of austerity which showed when he was grave.

"I confess I never thought of that simple explanation." He did not add that it had never occurred to him that any man would fall in love with Olive Hill when Doris Avery was before his eyes. Though Olive had an interesting face and really fine eyes. Olive was his sister Grace's companion. A slender brown-haired girl whose quietness had won her the nickname of "Mousie" as a child. She was an orphan. Her father had been a colonel in an Indian cavalry regiment and her mother a friend of Grace Avery's mother. Except for certain set duties, Olive was treated at the rectory exactly as a member of the family.

Grace came in now and sank into a chair with some compliment to Doris on how charming her room always looked.

"Wait till it gets its new covers," Doris said to that. "Olive's engineering them. Blue taffetas with black and white embroideries here and there. Awfully smart. By the way, Grace, I've just been confiding to John's well-known discretion—as now to your own—that Olive's the magnet responsible for Anthony Revell's increasingly frequent calls."

Grace looked perturbed. The news seemed unwelcome. "Surely you're mistaken, Doris," she said slowly, but was silenced by the smiling assurance: "I have it from Anthony himself, my dear. Only just now he was asking me whether I thought he had a chance with her. But this is in absolute confidence, remember, please. The secret's between us three until he musters up the courage to declare himself openly. But tell me how you like my new covers, John?"

The rector was, however, thinking only of Anthony Revell. Smart, well-groomed Anthony Revell, with a very large fortune and a beautiful old house.

"You really think he's in earnest," he queried doubtfully.

"Olive would be pleased to hear you," Doris answered dryly. "Oh, yes; he's very much in earnest, though I don't say I'm for nothing in the affair. He's a shocking flirt, of course. We all of us know his deserved reputation in that respect. But I've made it plain to him that he's gone too far, now, for further—"

The rector's attention was suddenly caught by a door slightly ajar. It led into a sort of nondescript room which used to be one of the schoolrooms. Avery clearly remembered that this door had been quite shut when he began speaking to Doris just now. He was a man of shrewd perceptions and the wind was blowing from the other side of the house. As the door had opened, therefore, it had been opened by a human hand. Stepping to it, he flung it suddenly wide.

At the other side of the farther room stood a young woman doing something to a jar of flowers. But the tassel ends of a cushion between her and the door were still swinging. Evidently set in motion by her swift movement backwards.

Olive Hill—for it was she, looked round in well-simulated surprise.

"Do you want me?" she asked with her faint surface smile, her eyes glittering as she turned them on the rector.

"There's a book on the hall table that's just come for you," he answered gravely.

"Really? Oh, thanks, I'll run down and get it." And with another artificial smile she left the room by its opposite door. On which the rector turned back to Doris, shutting its nearer door firmly behind him.

"I'm afraid Miss Hill overheard us," he warned her as he did so. But Doris only laughed carelessly. There was a hard streak in her, as the rector knew. It was a pity. But, in his eyes, her devotion to his brother Richard outweighed it.

"She ought to feel flattered to learn that I'm trying to nerve a wavering lover." Mrs. Richard Avery lit a fresh cigarette. "For it will be my good deed when it comes off. I love matchmaking!"

"Then why not make one between him and Mrs. Green?" Grace asked, with a world of meaning in her tones.

The rector's face stiffened. He detested scandal, and there was a lot of talk about Anthony Revell and the woman artist staying at The Causeway who was painting his portrait and decorating his study for him.

Doris laughed.

"If you heard Anthony talk about her, Grace, you would realise that he looks on her as a sister."

"If you want to engineer a husband for Mousie," Grace went on obstinately, "though I think she is far better off as she is, then why not Mr. Byrd? He and she are mutually attracted and would make an eminently suitable match. While Anthony With his grandfather's fortune now in his hands there isn't a family into whom he might not marry! You let Mousie and Mr. Byrd manage their own love affairs."

"Mr. Byrd doesn't approve of marriage," Doris said coldly. "He goes about saying so. And I don't think that he's the least bit really in love with Olive. But surely that's enough discussion of her matrimonial possibilities," she finished with a rueful laugh.

Grace gave a nod that signified her complete agreement on that point as she rose and left her brother and sister-in-law to their own conclusions.

Doris's glance went to the table in front of her. "I'm just writing to Dick," she said, tapping the paper softly as though the messages it carried made it precious. "I wish he weren't so mysterious about when he's coming home. It makes me dreadfully afraid that he's once more going to spend his leave out there. The Gold Coast isn't the health resort he tries to make me believe it. And oh! I do miss him so frightfully!"

Mr. Avery laid a sympathising hand on her shoulder. He was very fond of his sister-in-law who had kept house for him now for nearly two years. He hoped that Richard really was making his fortune, as he had hinted that he was doing in a letter to himself nearly a month ago. Richard was a clever chap with many irons in West African fires. He had written in the highest spirits of one of his investments. A banana-grove that he had bought from a tired owner, and still more, some ore samples uncovered when a torrential rain had washed away a whole hillside, promised a bonanza. But, he added, it was too soon to write with assurance. Which was why he was not letting Doris in for a disappointment. But if his hopes were realised, that month-old letter had said that Richard would be back with Doris very shortly. And with money enough to stay in England and comfort for the rest of his life.

"Patience!" the rector encouraged her, therefore, before saying that he must get back to Ephesus.

"To 'the Street called Straight?'" she asked. "The street where you certainly belong, Jack," Doris said gratefully as she turned to resume her letter-writing.

Descending the stairs thoughtfully, the rector caught sight of Olive below. She was standing by the table on which lay the book that he had mentioned to her, and he looked at her with new eyes. If she married Anthony Revell she would become a prominent member of his parish. The Causeway, Revell's house, lay quite close; and his father, the Admiral, had been a friend of the Averys for years before he died. Anthony had a privileged place in the community.

Studying his sister's companion with these considerations as he came down, Avery was struck by the intensity of the still figure. Will-power, concentration, leashed-in energy, all were expressed by it. She suggested a tautly-drawn bow, as she stood arched slightly forward over her hands, spread out across the book. A drawn bow? Or? Well, with a humorous twist of his lips the rector privately thought that at this moment Miss Hill was much more like a "Pussy" than a "Mousie." Her eyes were staring straight ahead of her with a very curious light in their depths. A light which the rector did not think had anything to do with the beauty of the bed of Anchusas and Sidalceas lying directly in their line of vision.

Without speaking he went on into his study, and back to his beloved books, with a feeling that whether it was pussy or mousie just outside the study door, the lines had indeed fallen in pleasant places for all within the rectory; until he remembered Grace's suggestion that Olive was in love with Byrd. A most disquieting suggestion.

For Byrd represented to the rector the very spirit of evil in his parish. Byrd—Captain Byrd, to give him the rank which was his when he had retired on a full disability pension of thirty shillings a week—was a "Red" of the most vivid shade. He was not merely an atheist. Avery could have forgiven that. He was an "anti-God;" zealously and potently stable and quick-witted in debate, he was an ever-present thorn in the side of the Churchman. And the idea that, even though only through his sister's companion, his rectory could be linked to that man was intolerable.

Then he reflected that Grace might have no foundation for Olive's supposed sentiments. Doris did not take the assertion seriously, he had seen. Also—(and here the rector reached for his fountain-pen) also, Doris, it appeared, had set her heart on strengthening Anthony's errant fancy for Miss Hill into an actual engagement. And what Doris set her heart on, she usually obtained. So that Olive's own happiness might be confidently hoped for, to the rector's relief on all scores.

Four days later a telegram came for Doris from her sister. Their mother, who lived with this married sister, was seriously ill. So ill that her life was in danger. Doris was off within the hour, leaving very careful instructions with Olive as to the running of the house. Such detailed instructions that she had rather the air of the Matron of a Home for the Feeble-Minded, when leaving one of her charges perforce in command. Mousie, however, listened with her usual air of careful silent attention. Her post as "companion" was now tacitly exchanged for that of housekeeper, with special regard for the order to take Mike, Doris's Irish terrier, for daily walks; though "jumps" would have more accurately described his favourite exercise.

The walks seemed invariably to end up by Mike's joyous incursion into the gardens of The Causeway. And as this necessitated catching him and leading him out on the detested leash, the chase was apt to finish by his dash into the house by any open door or french window.

All of which, of course, compelled Miss Hill to follow apologetically for the truant's capture. This once entailed explaining things to Mrs. Green on one of these precipitate irruptions into a room where the artist stood palette in hand, talking to her literally "model" host, young Anthony Revell. An arrestingly handsome man, with dark well-cut features, brilliant eyes and a merry smile.

Anthony gave the intruder a laughing welcome. But not so the annoyed artist, for Mrs. Green sharply shook her brushes at him. The dog's sensitive nose received some of the biting turpentine drops. Such an agonised howl followed that Olive's apologies were cut short by her cry of sympathy. While the victim's yelping dad' into the open, whence he streaked for home, was instantaneously followed by Anthony's rush after the dog in a vain impulse to apply some comforting first aid.

As the two women were thus left momentarily alone, Mrs. Green said tartly: "Serve him right! That will teach him not to come barging in here again in a hurry!"

"But the dog didn't harm anything!" Olive protested. "And he does so love coming here!" To which the answer was a sardonically significant:

"He loves to come?" With an insolent stress on the pronoun that emphasised the personal implication.

Mrs. Green looked about thirty-five years old. Dark, too, like Anthony, but with a vividly feminine face, capable of exerting profound attraction. Perfectly dressed, clever, amusing if not actually witty, Mrs. Green was considered to be a social acquisition to the neighbourhood.

She had appeared in the district about four months ago, sending in her card to Lady Revell at The Flagstaff, and asking whether she might be allowed to copy the "Revell Morley." Lady Revell had given permission at once, had met her later at her work, and been struck by it and by her. A commission followed to paint a ceiling for the Chinese room, Lady Revell's pride. Mrs. Green's terms were ridiculously low, but she had explained, with seeming frankness, that she had been ordered by her doctor away from the North of Ireland where she lived, to the milder climate of England, and that the idea of idle hours filled her with horror. The two women had become very friendly. Lady Revell had insisted on her putting up at The Flagstaff, and there Mrs. Green had met Anthony on one of his infrequent calls on his mother. Anthony, twelve years older than Gilbert Revell who was his mother's idol, had been left a very large fortune when a boy of ten by his grandfather, between whom and himself there had been one of those warm affections that sometimes run between children and old people. Along with the fortune had gone The Causeway, a large house where Anthony had lived since coming down from Oxford. Mrs. Green, the well-read, the widely travelled, the splendid artist, had at once offered to paint some panels in his study for him. In other words, she had fallen head over heels in love with him, said local gossip, adding that she would not have been the first woman to find his very unusually good looks irresistible. Anthony flattered, and very much attracted, had at once closed with the offer. Mrs. Green had installed herself at The Causeway. Lady Revell had made no comment, though she had lent Mrs. Green her own maid to stay with her there. Anthony must marry some day, the wonder was that he had not done so before. Mrs. Green was a widow, evidently of independent means, and might carry it off, though Lady Revell thought her foolish to risk a slip, for she did not think Anthony was at all in love with the artist; but that, Lady Revell decided, was the woman's own look-out, and certainly Mrs. Green was both keen-eyed and clever, though a good deal older than Anthony.

This was the woman then who now faced Olive with an appraising glance which was faintly ironic.

Olive said nothing, only looked at the little picture nearest her. Even she recognised the quality of the work being done.

"You're painting the steeple tile by tile," was her only comment. "It'll take a very long time at that rate, won't it," she added sweetly, "but I suppose you won't mind that."

This was the third time that the two had met. The other times Mrs. Green had shown an apparent friendliness, which Olive felt was but skin deep—if that.

Anthony came back now. He looked a mere lad, tall and rangy, though handsome as few lads are, as he jumped through the window on to the rug by Olive.

"Mike refuses to hear my explanations," he said, "you've wounded his feelings deeply, Mrs. Green. Outraged all his notions of hospitality. His last word was that he wouldn't come here again! Ever!"

"But that's the idea," Olive said brightly, "Mrs. Green doesn't like his coming. But, Mr. Revell, will you look out for me a good book on Euripides. You spoke of a Life of his—"

"Oh, I hope not," came from Anthony in mock horror. He had taken a First in Classics. "When? Where?"

Olive only laughed, and had him take her to the big library. There she started him on his favourite Greek authors, and from them to philosophies of life in general. She talked amazingly well, he thought, rather revolutionary ideas—unexpectedly so—but very charming, and how charming too she looked. How her large eyes shone...She was so keen on hearing what he had to say—what he thought—especially about modern problems—

The time flew—as it had flown before when talking with her, Anthony recollected. He said as much when begging her to use the library. She had just explained that she could not go to the rector's fine collection of books, as he so often needed to consult them himself. It was in the middle of his ideas on how to help unemployment, ideas which were like and yet interestingly different to those held, or at least talked of, by her, that she said she must be back in the rectory. They walked home there together. Anthony struck anew by some of the things that she said; things, had he but known it, that Mr. Byrd proclaimed at his weekly talks to any who liked to drop in at his little cottage which he had named, with his characteristic bluntness—The Hut. It too was not far from The Causeway, but on the other side from The Flagstaff.