Читать книгу Miss Silver Comes to Stay - Dora Amy Elles - Страница 9

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On the morning following her arrival, Mrs. Voycey took her friend Miss Silver shopping. Melling had a butcher, a baker who also sold buns, cake, biscuits, fruit preserved in glass bottles, and sweets, and a grocer whose groceries merged by tactful degrees into the appurtenances of a general shop. You could, for example, start at the left-hand side of the counter and buy bacon, coffee, and semolina, and work gradually to the right through apples, potatoes, and root vegetables, till you arrived at twine, garden implements, shopping-bags, and boots and shoes hanging like strings of onions from a nail high up on the wall. Somewhere midway there was a stand of picture post-cards and a blotting-pad, the latter an advertisement of the fact that the shop was also a branch post-office, and that stamps and telegraph forms could be obtained there.

With so many different attractions, it was naturally a very general meeting-place. Miss Silver was introduced to Miss Ainger, the Vicar’s sister, a formidable lady with iron-grey hair, a Roman nose, and the sort of tweeds which suggest armour-plating. It might have been the size of the check, black and white upon a ground of clerical grey, or it might have been something about Miss Ainger’s figure, but the suggestion was certainly there. She was scolding Mrs. Grover about the bacon, and detached herself with difficulty.

‘Yes, much too thick, and with far too much fat—Did you say a school-friend? Oh, how do you do?—Don’t let it happen again or I shall have to tell the Vicar.’

Mrs. Grover’s colour rose. She pressed her lips together and restrained herself. Mrs. Voycey moved a step nearer the post-cards and caught Miss Cray by the arm.

‘Rietta, I want to introduce you to my friend Miss Silver. We were at school together.’

Rietta said, ‘Oh—’ She was in a hurry, but, with twenty years’ experience, she knew that it wasn’t any use being in a hurry with Mrs. Voycey. The large, firm hand upon her arm would remain there until she had done her social duty. She said ‘How do you do?’ to Miss Maud Silver, and was invited to tea that afternoon.

‘And it’s no use saying you can’t come, Rietta, because I know perfectly well that Carr and Miss Bell have gone up to town for the day. The baker saw them start. He mentioned it when he called, because there was a very black cloud overhead at the time, and he noticed that Miss Bell hadn’t got an umbrella so he hoped she wouldn’t get wet. He said he told her she’d better take one, but she only laughed. How long are they staying with you?’

‘I don’t quite know. Carr has brought down some manuscripts to read.’

‘He looks as if he needed a good long holiday. Then you’ll come to tea this afternoon? I’ll ring Catherine up and ask her too. I want Maud Silver to meet you both.’ She leaned closer and said in a throaty whisper, ‘She’s quite a famous detective.’

Miss Silver was examining the stand of post-cards. She looked so much less like a detective than anything Rietta could have imagined that she was startled into saying,

‘What does she detect?’

‘Crime,’ said Mrs. Voycey right into her ear. She then let go of the arm she had been holding and stepped back. ‘I’ll expect you at half past four. I must really have a word with Mrs. Mayhew.’

Mrs. Mayhew was buying onions, and a stone of potatoes.

‘I’m sure I never thought I’d come to having to get either from anywhere else except the garden, but it’s all Mr. Andrews can do to keep the place tidy, and that’s the truth, Mr. Grover—indeed he can’t, and there’s no getting from it. So if Sam can bring them up after school—’ She turned, a little meek woman with a plaintive manner, and was immediately cornered by Mrs. Voycey.

‘Ah, Mrs. Mayhew—I suppose you’re very busy with Mr. Lessiter back. Quite unexpected, wasn’t it? Only last week I said to the Vicar, ‘There doesn’t seem to be any word of Melling House being opened up again,’ and I said it was a pity. Well, now he’s back I hope he isn’t going to run away again.’

‘I don’t know, I’m sure.’

Mrs. Voycey gave her hearty laugh.

‘We must all be very nice to him, and then perhaps he’ll stay.’ She came a step nearer and dropped her voice. ‘Good news of your son, I hope.’

Mrs. Mayhew darted a frightened glance to the right and to the left. It was no good. She was in the angle between the counter and the wall, and get past Mrs. Voycey she couldn’t. Her own tone was almost inaudible as she murmured,

‘He’s doing all right.’

Mrs. Voycey patted her kindly on the shoulder.

‘I was sure he would—you can tell him I said so. Things are different to what they used to be thirty or forty years ago. There wasn’t any second chance then, whether it was a boy or a girl, but it’s all quite different now. He’ll be coming down to see you, I expect.’

Mrs. Mayhew had turned dreadfully pale. Mrs. Voycey meant well—everyone in Melling knew how kind she was—but she couldn’t bear to talk about Cyril, not right here in the shop with people listening. It made her feel as if she was in a trap and couldn’t get out. And then the little lady who looked like a governess coughed and touched Mrs. Voycey’s arm—‘Pray, Cecilia, tell me something about these views. I should like to send a card to my niece, Ethel Burkett’—and she was free. Her heart was beating so hard that it confused her, and she was halfway up the drive before she remembered that she had meant to buy peppermint flavouring.

When the two ladies came out of the shop and were walking home across the Green, Mrs. Voycey said,

‘That was Mrs. Mayhew. She and her husband are cook and butler at Melling House. Their son has been a sad trouble to them.’

Miss Silver said,

‘She did not like your talking about him, Cecilia.’

Mrs. Voycey said in her hearty way,

‘It’s no good her being so sensitive. Everyone knows, and everyone feels kindly about it and hopes that Cyril has made a fresh start. He was their only one and they spoilt him—a dreadful mistake. Of course it makes it hard for Mrs. Mayhew the Grover boy having turned out so well—that was Mrs. Grover serving Dagmar Ainger at the end of the counter. Allan and Cyril used to be friends. They both took scholarships, and Allan went into Mr. Holderness’s office—a very good opening. But Cyril took a job in London, and that’s what did the mischief. He isn’t a bad boy, but he’s weak and they spoilt him. He ought to have been where he could keep in touch with his home. It’s terribly lonely for boys like that when they first go out into the world, and the only company they can get is just the sort that isn’t likely to do them any good. You know, Maud, I used to be dreadfully disappointed about not having children, and I daresay I missed a great deal, but it’s a tremendous responsibility—isn’t it?’

Miss Silver said it was.

‘Even a satisfactory boy like Allan Grover,’ pursued Mrs. Voycey. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say it to anyone but you, and of course it’s too silly for words, to say nothing of being exceedingly presumptuous—’

‘My dear Cecilia!’

‘I was really shocked. And I can’t—no, I really can’t believe that she gave him any encouragement. Of course at that age they don’t need any, and she is a very pretty woman—’

‘My dear Cecilia!’

Mrs. Voycey nodded.

‘Yes—Catherine Welby. Quite too absurd, as I said. It began with his offering to go and put up shelves in her house, and then he said he would plant her bulbs, and she lent him books. And when she wanted to pay him he wouldn’t take a penny, so of course she couldn’t let him go on. He isn’t twenty-one yet, so she is more than old enough to be his mother.’

Miss Silver coughed indulgently.

‘Oh, my dear Cecilia, what difference does that make?’