Читать книгу Accident by Design - Edith Caroline Rivett - Страница 13

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“A phone call from Templedean Place, madam. They want to get in touch with Miss Vanstead—very urgent, they said, and Lady Allinger has called, madam.”

Miss Alicia Hobart got up from the sofa where she had been resting so peacefully, and sneezed violently as she replied to her aged parlourmaid:

“Oh dear ... of course I’ll go to the phone. I do hope it doesn’t mean—— Oh, this wretched hay fever of mine, it’s so upsetting. Ask Lady Allinger to wait, Fenton. Am I very untidy?”

“If you’ll come back here after you’ve answered the phone, madam, I’ll see to you.... Very urgent, they said.”

“Oh dear. I’m afraid that can only mean one thing,” said Miss Hobart, making ineffectual adjustments to her grey hair net as she sneezed her way across the hall and hurried to the telephone.

It was several minutes later that Miss Hobart joined Lady Allinger in the drawing room. “Maudie, my dear, I do apologise for keeping you like this,” said Miss Hobart. “The most appalling thing——” Her sentence was broken off by an outburst of sneezing, and the only word which Lady Allinger could grasp until the paroxysm was over was “Vanstead.” With great dignity and determination, the Dowager Lady Allinger said:

“Sit down, Alicia, and pull yourself together. Blow your nose hard and make an act of will. If you would only realise that hay fever is ninety per cent nerves you would be able to control it. I suppose you mean that Sir Charles has passed away. I am very sorry to know it, very sorry, but it was not unexpected, and I think your epithet of appalling is quite unsuitable.”

Miss Hobart blew her nose and sat down; possibly she also made the act of will recommended, but she recovered her voice and spoke trenchantly.

“Hay fever has nothing to do with nerves, Maudie. It’s pollen. I am allergic to pollen and you are not. And I did not say that Sir Charles had passed away. Sir Charles is better than anybody dared to hope. I said appalling, and I meant it. It is appalling! Poor Judith, as though she hadn’t troubles enough, and now this. It is too dreadful.”

“Really, Alicia, you are the most maddening woman I know!” declared the dowager, thumping her parasol vigorously on the floor. “Would you kindly tell me to what disaster you are referring?”

Miss Hobart mopped her eyes, whether from grief or hay fever her visitor could not determine. “It’s Gerald Vanstead and his wife,” she said. “In a motor smash. He lost control of his car coming down Templedean Hill and hit the steam roller on the bend. He was killed, and his wife, too. The little boy is still alive. Of all the appalling things....”

“A most tragic and shocking thing,” agreed Lady Allinger, “but I am not in the least surprised. Gerald Vanstead was notorious for his reckless driving. Everybody about here has commented on it. I do not wish to be uncharitable but I fear he got exactly what he deserved. I can only hope that he did not kill the driver of the steam roller as well.”

“No, no one else was hurt,” said Miss Hobart. “Really, it seems as though it were fated. Three sons ... and all dead before their father. It’s simply heart-rending....”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Alicia. I grant you that this accident is a most shocking thing—shocking! But to say that it is heart-rending is sheer uncontrolled sentiment. Whose heart is rent, pray? You know as well as I do that all right-minded people about here had the very gravest apprehensions as to what would happen when Gerald inherited Templedean. A most decadent and ill-mannered fellow, and his wife—— Well, frankly, she was impossible, and nobody knows it better than you do, Alicia. As a matter of courtesy and decorum I shall express my deep sympathy to Judith and Sir Charles, but with you I can speak my mind. We have known one another for nearly sixty years, Alicia, and though we drive each other mad, at least we can speak truthfully. While I agree that this accident is a shocking and horrifying thing, I do not pretend that it has not simplified a most difficult and unhappy situation.”

“I have no doubt that your reasoning is sound, Maudie—it always has been,” said Alicia Hobart, “but on some occasions reason can be indecent, and this is one of them. Do you realise that both those poor young things were killed instantaneously?”

“If they were to be killed at all, instantaneous death is more merciful than any other,” retorted Lady Allinger, “and as both Gerald and his wife had turned forty, I should not describe them as young things.”

Miss Hobart turned indignantly on her old friend. “You are sixty-eight next month, Maudie, and I am sixty-five. We both remember Gerald as a baby, and I had him here to all the children’s parties——”

“Precisely. So did I,” said Lady Allinger tartly. “He was the greediest small child I ever knew, he cheated at every game he played, and he always howled when he was bowled out. But let that pass. What I should be really interested to learn is when this terrible accident occurred, and who telephoned to you about it.”

“But it happened only just now, about half an hour ago,” said Miss Hobart. “It was the police who telephoned. Maudie, do try to be a little less rational. I really am upset.”

Lady Allinger rose to her feet. She was a tall woman, with a superb Edwardian figure, corseted uncompromisingly in a manner which made her almost architectural. Her flowered black-and-white foulard, her toque (also flowered) and her long-sticked parasol gave her an aspect approaching the regal.

“I shall ring for Fenton, Alicia. A good cup of tea and a tablespoonful of whisky in it is what you need. I have never ceased to envy you because Fenton still parlour maids for you. An elderly servant gal of her type is the rarest creature in the world. Ah, Fenton. Tea, please. Miss Hobart is upset—and a tablespoonful of whisky, Fenton.”

“Yes, my lady,” rejoined the rara avis. “I have the tray outside. A very dreadful accident, my lady.”

The tea tray, with its massive Georgian silver, appeared as though by magic, and Lady Allinger superintended the pouring of the tea and the apportionment of the whisky. She then returned to the charge.

“And why, pray, did the police approach you, Alicia?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? They were trying to find Judith. You see, it was my afternoon for the Cottage Hospital. We usually mend the linen, but today we were going to help clean the dispensary cupboards. They have no proper help, and if it weren’t for voluntary service——”

“Precisely. I know all that, and I admire your charitable disposition, Alicia, but why, pray, did the police try to find Judith here because you were supposed to be at the Cottage Hospital?”

“Because my hay fever was so bad, Maudie. Judith drove over after lunch to bring me a new inhalant—I can’t remember the name of it, it is one of those long scientific names—but it was most kind of Judith to think of it, especially when she has so much else to think about, and when I told her I was going to the hospital she said it wasn’t to be thought of when my hay fever was so bad, and she would deputise for me, so she drove off there at half-past two, and the police telephoned here because Judith had left word at Templedean that she was coming to see me.”

“Thank you, Alicia. Now I begin to understand things more clearly. You say that the police telephoned. Do you mean the village constable—I should be justified in saying the village idiot, but one has to pretend to some respect for the appointed representative of the law——”

“Really, Maudie, you are most unfair. William Tupper may be slow of speech, but I always find him most courteous and helpful, and he is very good with bees. In any case, it wasn’t Tupper who phoned: it was that nice Sergeant Brown, a most intelligent and sympathetic officer. As I told you, I was very much upset, and he took a lot of trouble to explain.”

“It is the duty of every policeman to take trouble,” rejoined Lady Allinger loftily. “Did he give any explanation of how this lamentable event occurred? Were there any contributory circumstances, or was it all due to reckless driving?”

“Sergeant Brown said the brakes must have failed. Bailley and his lad were on the hill at the time, and saw the car flash past. Gerald was sounding his horn the whole time, poor fellow, so he must have realised that something was wrong. Brown says that if he had turned the car into the bank he might have got off with nothing worse than a bad spill, but I suppose he hoped the road was clear. He hit the steam roller at the bend at the bottom and the car crashed over the hedge.”

“Gerald always hoped for the best, especially when he had no justification for expecting it,” replied Lady Allinger. “I shall telephone to London for a suitable wreath—the local florists are hopelessly inadequate. And now, Alicia, if you take my advice you will go straight to bed, and will yourself not to sneeze. One comfort is that Fenton will see to your mourning. It will be a big funeral, and we must all do our best to behave with dignity and decorum.”

Miss Hobart sneezed several times in rapid succession, with vigour and velocity, before she retorted:

“Maudie, I know that you have a heart of gold. I have been told so all my life, but I think you can be the most odious creature I have ever known. I don’t care a damn about wreaths or mourning, but I am sorry about Gerald and Meriel—terribly sorry. I shall have a good cry, and then I shall go over to see Judith and try to comfort her.”

“I can only advise you to do nothing of the kind, Alicia. If I had not known that I had measured the whisky with meticulous care, I might have believed it had gone to your head. I will see Fenton as I go out. Aspirin is what you need, and do try to cultivate a sense of proportion.”