Читать книгу So Evil My Love: Based on a True Crime Story - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 8

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This blunt interview had been exhilarating to Olivia Sacret. She so seldom spoke frankly and there had been a minimum of hypocrisy about Mrs. Rue, who had as good as admitted that she suspected Susan of having an uncomfortable secret and her friend of using this as a “hold” over her. Moreover, the stout widow had practically offered to buy this secret, in order to ruin her daughter-in-law at a higher price than Susan could pay.

Olivia Sacret was not shocked or alarmed; she was, however, extremely interested and her sense of power increased. Now she was important to Mrs. Rue as well as to Susan, she who had been so insignificant, even so slighted.

This was the first time the letters had been mentioned since she had come to the Old Priory, but they were constantly in her mind and she kept them locked in a cashbox she had bought for this purpose, in the bottom of her chest of drawers, which was also locked. She admired Mrs. Rue’s shrewd guess. How notable that both she and Susan had at once attached such importance to the letters! Indiscreet? No, they were quite harmless. Mrs. Rue had only surmised their existence, she would suppose them much more compromising than they were. Mrs. Sacret paused in her reflections at this word “compromising”—that was the word people used when they meant that indiscretion caused a doubt to be cast on a woman’s reputation.

She threw off the muffling sentence she had mechanically formed. Mrs. Rue wanted to ruin Susan, to be rid of the hated interloper, to regain her son. Therefore Mrs. Rue was prepared to deal with the stranger she had found unexpectedly at the Old Priory and whose presence she could only account for by—blackmail.

Mrs. Sacret used the word boldly to herself; she flushed, not with shame, but excitement. She was too sure of herself and her own motives to feel in the least abashed at the position in which she found herself. Susan felt embarrassed, if not guilty of—indiscretion. Mrs. George Rue had revealed herself as an odious person, mean, jealous, backbiting. Martin Rue cut a poor figure between his overbearing mother and his cowed wife. I must pray for all of them, reflected Mrs. Sacret. I must try to bring peace and good will to these unhappy people. Perhaps God sent me here just for that.

She thought that possibly the consciousness of the worthiness of her intentions was giving her this stimulated energy; she felt more vital than ever before, her old existence shriveled away and she flexed her hand as if pulling strings. It was astonishing to her that she had spoken so sharply to old Mrs. Rue. She had never faltered before the sharp assaults of a woman so much older and better placed than herself; indeed, she had enjoyed her own forceful handling of the interview.

Mrs. George Rue had spitefully remarked on her elegant dress. Remembrance of this ‘made Olivia Sacret look more earnestly than usual into her mirror. She was nearly a pretty woman, perhaps could easily be a pretty woman. A strange reflection, this in Susan’s handsome cheval glass: the missionary’s widow, in her mourning, the woman who had, years ago, parted with all expectations, all hopes of anything save a drab routine leading to the chapel burying ground.

She smiled at herself. I’m still young. Of course, it is the rest, the good food, the good clothes. She did not add even in her thoughts, that it was also something else that flushed her smooth cheek and brightened her clear hazel eyes, the knowledge that she possessed power over other people.