Читать книгу Murder in the Mill-Race - Edith Caroline Rivett - Страница 13

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Raymond came in at five o’clock to find tea ready and his wife in a pretty frock, sitting like a lady in the big drawing-room. “Well, angel, I hand it to you for energy. You’ve got straight in just about record time.”

“It was easy,” said Anne. “Everyone’s been falling over themselves to be kind and helpful. Lady Ridding brought a treasure of a woman to help clean up, to say nothing of the flowers: don’t those arums give us an air of chaste superiority? This is a wonderful village.”

He cocked an eyebrow at the word, his lean, pale face crinkled in a grin. “D’you know, I think we’ll delete that word from our vocabulary, Anne.”

“As we deleted the word culture after its redefinition by an eminent poet,” murmured Anne. “For the same reason, Ray?—because it implies too much and is understood too little?”

“Let us not be controversial,” he said, sitting down luxuriously in a chair which offered comfort and yet avoided engulfing him. “If we are not careful, the word ‘wonderful’ will become a gag.”

“How right you are,” she laughed. “Have you been collecting evidence about the person the word is applied to locally? I don’t believe I’m far wrong, Ray. She’s a menace, only nobody dares say so out loud.”

“According to my informant, being old Brown, she’s the noblest creature the Almighty ever made,” said Raymond. “Judging by more indirect evidence, she’s the focus point of most of the village bickerings. The fact is they’ve all been here too long, Anne—doctor and parson, landlord and warden, postman and postmistress. Venner, down at the mill, hit the nail on the head. ‘Time we had some fresh blood,’ he said. You must go and see the mill, Anne. It’s amazing the power they get from that fall.”

“All in good time, sir. To begin with I’m going to have my work cut out. A. Not to be managed by our noble landlady: she’ll be ordering my dinner if I don’t look out. B. Not to be hypnotised by Sister Monica. She’s mistress of the evil eye. C. Not to be bullied by old Thomas, the gardener. He wants to have control over our garden. Now come and see the Aga. It’s functioning. So is the central heating. It’s really rather ... impressive,” she ended, after a rhetorical pause.

“I am duly impressed,” replied Ray. “It’s a grand day’s work you’ve done, angel. How do you feel about it all?”

“It’s lovely,” said Anne, “but we shall have to work hard to avoid using that newly banned word. How were the pneumonias?”

“They weren’t. But Sir James has rather a nice asthma. That’s the real reason why we’re here.”

“How useful of him,” said Anne.