Читать книгу So Evil My Love: Based on a True Crime Story - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 5

Table of Contents

The morning after brought Mrs. Sacret a distasteful post, a refusal to consider her application for the secretaryship of a tract society, small bills from small tradespeople, a letter from the doctor who had attended her husband in Jamaica, “enclosing my account, distressed to send it, but I am not a rich man.”

Nor am I a rich woman, thought Mrs. Sacret. This old debt nagged her; she would, now and then, pay a few pounds off, but it still remained, a heavy sum for her poor means. The little daily maid was sullen, the mood in which she usually returned to work on Monday. Mrs. Sacret suspected her of being on the point of “giving notice.” The missionary’s widow was acutely aware that she was not popular as a mistress; even incompetent servants could “better themselves” in the houses of rich people. It was not so much the low wage that irked as the poverty of the establishment. The hired “helps” loathed having to account for every stick of firewood and pinch of tea; they scorned empty cupboards and all the shifts of genteel penury. “I can manage by myself, of course,” Mrs. Sacret told herself as she had told herself before. But she never did so manage, for long. Not only did she secretly dislike housework, she dreaded the loneliness. Another woman who brought in some neighborly gossip was at least some company, someone to talk to, if only in a tone of distant patronage and reproof.

Mrs. Sacret put down her irritating correspondence and rose.

“That is what I have come to—someone to talk to—I really am without friends, or even acquaintances.” She was frightened, but added resolutely, “It is the Lord’s will.” She fetched Susan’s letters; they lay beside a few of her husband’s books, his spectacles in a worn leather case, some linen bags of cowrie shells and red and black seeds and a papier-mâché box that had belonged to her mother. The letters had been kept out of friendship for Susan and for no other possible reason, Mrs. Sacret was sure of that. She took them downstairs and the fire was burning brightly in the high narrow grate; it would have been simple to have laid them on top of the glowing coals but she hesitated.

Now that this friendship that had meant so much to her, that had been really the most exciting, the brightest episode in her life, was ending, it seemed harsh to destroy these letters without glancing at them again and recollecting the warmth and the pleasure of those few weeks when she had received Susan’s wholehearted confidence. She did not glance at the packed lines of Susan’s crooked words, she read them carefully, intently, as she had never read them before, read them by the light of Susan’s fear and distress and extravagant offer. Then she folded them up carefully and the blood showed in her face, making her appear younger, more comely.

The letters were harmless, of course. Perhaps a little ambiguous. Susan expressed herself so poorly. Some of the sentences might mean what Mrs. Sacret until now had never for a second supposed they could mean, and that, of course, they could not mean.

The gilt-edged sheets were returned to their envelopes and put aside resolutely, as if they had been a temptation. Still with that brilliant glow on her cheeks, Mrs. Sacret picked up the Morning Post and tried to read the column under SITUATIONS VACANT. But her glance strayed from the tedious familiar “wants” that she had never been able to satisfy. She felt a thrill of panic as the deadly fear touched her that possibly she would never be able to qualify even for the more humble posts. She had no impressive housekeeping experience, no talents as a companion, she was not much liked anywhere, had never been needed by anyone. She saw herself being interviewed by a prospective employer and sent away as “unsuitable,” she saw herself entering her name on the books of a domestic agency—qualifications? A little amateur sick-nursing, a little meager housekeeping, a Dissenting background, no friends, no “references.” I shall not come to that, she resolved, at once, but what is to prevent me—?

She turned over and put down the paper and looked at the letters. She intended to burn them, but while they existed she felt important, even powerful, and she desired to prolong this sensation, even though she knew it was absurd. When the letters were destroyed she would, she was sure, feel unprotected, defenseless, of no consequence to anyone, even Susan. I suppose Susan would give me a reference, she thought. I could ask her for that, even if we were no longer friends. Mrs. Sacret stared at the folded sheet of newspaper. One word heading a paragraph took her eye.

Blackmail.

She hardly knew what it meant at first, then she knew, clearly. Taking up the paper she read the case.

The journalist commented that “this horrible crime was rarely brought to light because social ruin awaited the victim who, at last, in f his desperation, appealed to the law, after having been bled of thousands of pounds for years. Many, in this terrible position, preferred suicide to exposure.”

Mrs. Sacret was fascinated by the prospect of unknown and terrible strata of life presented to her by these sentences; for the first time she stared over the edge of her own narrow world, for the first time realized how narrow it was. Crime. She never read even the rare and decorous reports of evil in the newspaper she only bought recently because of the SITUATIONS VACANT column. The Dissenting periodicals and pamphlets, the instructive and enlightening books published by Anglican societies filled her time and her mind.

The reported case was gloomy and pitiful. A man, in his youth, had served a short sentence for petty theft. He had prospered under another name, and one who had known him in prison had blackmailed him for half a lifetime. “Commonplace,” the judge had remarked, “and of a fiendish cruelty.”

Mrs. Sacret reflected on that. She was in the midst of crime and cruelty in this vast city that she had always considered in terms of her modest, respectable home, the school that was beyond her father’s means, the Dissenting chapel set, the wealthy set where Susan belonged, Minton Street, and High Street with the dingy shops and dingy people hastening or loitering along.

Perhaps some of those passers-by were criminals. “Commonplace,” the judge had said. People like myself, she thought. I’m commonplace. Perhaps they look as I look.

Blackmail.

She had an impulse to thrust the letters into the center of the fire, between the bars, but was stayed by a sound uncommon in Minton Street, that of a carriage and horses.

It was but a step to the window, and she was soon staring out of it. Susan was without, in an elegant barouche, behind a pair of spruce chestnuts, a footman was coming to the mean door, but his mistress, leaning forward, saw Olivia and waved to her with an anxious smile. So, there are menservants, if not in the house, reflected Mrs. Sacret. No moment to be filling the room with the smell of burning paper.

She turned and thrust the letters behind the worn books of piety on the narrow shelf by the fireside. She felt excited because Susan had come to see her so soon and with such pomp. I certainly have an influence over her, and I must use it to her advantage. This reflection covered her real feelings that were confused, and unacknowledged, even to herself.

The footman brought a request for Mrs. Sacret to join his lady for a drive in the park, but Susan followed him before her friend could answer.

“The dear little room!” she exclaimed, glancing around the parlor nervously. “How well I remember it and how happy I am to be here!”

She was prettily dressed in a mignonette green silk, with dark red roses in her bonnet, but she looked, to Mrs. Sacret’s sharp gaze, tired and agitated.

“You will come for a drive, won’t you, Olivia? There is sunshine. Have you considered my proposal?”

Mrs. Sacret felt so keen a sense of power over this eager anxious creature that she could not resist using it.

“I have not had time, Susan. It is such an important matter. It would quite alter my way of life if I were to accept. I am not a very young woman.” She crept behind the prosy tones and dreary platitudes of her husband’s profession. “I am a widow. Frederick would have wished me to continue his work.”

“You are going abroad again, as a missionary! You did not tell me that!”

Mrs. Sacret was vexed at this interruption, given in a note of relief.

“Really, Susan, you need not be so anxious to be rid of me! I shall not cross your path. I was about to write to you stating this. I did not suppose that you would call so soon.”

“Then you won’t accept my offer?” asked Susan, stepping nearer, her bright clothes, hair and face making the room seem very dingy.

“I said I had to think it over—really, I still don’t understand it—so extravagant—”

“I have the money, my own money that Martin can’t touch.”

“I know.” Mrs. Sacret thought dryly of Susan’s two fortunes, apart from her share in the Rue income. “But your suggestion was so unexpected. I have not even met your husband. He might not care for a third person in his house.”

“Oh, Martin often says, when I am moping, or cross, why don’t you get a companion!”

Susan was glancing around the room again, her gaze resting at last on the fire.

“Did you burn the letters?”

“I don’t understand why you worry so over those letters, Susan. Of course they are harmless, or I should not have kept them so long. I was reading them again—”

“Reading them again?”

“Of course. I wanted to remind myself of those days when Frederick was alive, and we were all happy.”

“I was not happy. I nearly went out of my mind.”

Mrs. Sacret scorned this confession of what she did not understand, passion. She considered Susan hysterical.

“You soon married again, dear,” she remarked softly.

Susan pulled out her handkerchief.

“I do want you to live with me, Olivia. You have always helped me—from our school days—I am quite wretched—”

“Why?” asked Mrs. Sacret kindly. “You have so much.”

Susan gave three reasons for discontent; Martin was dominated by his mother, an odious old creature who lived at Blackheath; he was always fussing over his health and doctoring himself; and according to his own morose habits he kept his wife shut away from the life to which she was used.

“How should I help you?” asked Olivia Sacret. “I am not entertaining. I know no one save some dull chapel people. I am outside London society.”

“So am I,” said Susan. “The Rues are so eccentric they never have moved in any circles—and yet they won’t know Father’s friends, because he was a merchant, so I am really isolated. No one likes Martin very much.”

And you, thought Mrs. Sacret, have not the spirit to create your own life.

“I know you are very religious,” continued Susan ingenuously. “And Martin would not allow me to go to chapel. But I could attend church regularly.”

“Don’t you now smiled Mrs. Sacret.

“Oh, I get such headaches! But that is because I am so moped. There is nothing to do all day.”

“It is ridiculous.” Olivia Sacret spoke more to herself than to the other. “I must not think of such a thing! It is just a whim on your part, Susan, because you are out of humor.”

“Indeed, indeed, it is not—but if you don’t like my silly frivolous life, I daresay it would be very boring to you—then I won’t tease you—if you’ll destroy the letters.”

“And if I don’t destroy the letters?”

“How can you be so cruel!”

“Really, Susan! There is nothing in those letters—anyone might not see.”

Susan sighed deeply and twisted her hands in the pearl-colored gloves. “What do you want?” she whispered.

Mrs. Sacret was startled at her own thrill of triumph. It was as if Fortune had knocked at her door, with both hands full of gifts.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “It is rather late for me to be wanting anything.”

“Oh, no,” replied Susan eagerly. “You have never had a chance—you were always so bright and clever—”

“But poor, Susan, and plain.”

“Oh, no! You have such pretty coloring—your eyes and hair are just the tint of a ripe hazelnut—but those dreary clothes—Oh, I’m sorry, you are still in mourning—but I should like to see you handsomely dressed.”

“Would you? You are very generous.”

“Only burn those silly letters.”

“Of course. But—Susan—supposing I was to burn them, here—in this grate—now—would you still want me to live with you and to see me in fine clothes?”

“Certainly—what do you mean, dear?” But the faltering tone, the quick flush, the averted glance betrayed Susan.

The simpleton! thought Mrs. Sacret scornfully. She doesn’t care for me in the least; she is frightened.

Aloud she suggested that the horses had waited long enough; she would like the drive after walking the pavements so long, and she went swiftly upstairs to put on her bonnet and mantle.

Halfway up she recalled that she had left Susan alone with the letters, and paused sharply. But what did it matter? I meant to burn them; besides, she will never think of looking behind the books.

When she returned to the parlor she took the precaution of approaching and glancing at the fireside shelves. Behind the shabby volumes, the letters were still there. Susan was by the window, tapping her foot nervously.