Читать книгу Accident by Design - Edith Caroline Rivett - Страница 7

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“Heaven bear me witness,” exclaimed Judith Vanstead. “I am not an uncharitable person, but that woman is impossible. I have never met such blatant, unashamed self-centredness.”

Walter Vanstead, brother to Judith’s and Gerald’s father, put down his book and cocked his bushy white eyebrows. “Are you making that statement as an item of news value?” he enquired. “I should have thought that the qualities you mention were patent in Gerald’s wife from the moment one set eyes on her. She is out for what she can get. I take it that her reaction to Waterson’s report is quite typical, resentment that Charles’s life may be prolonged.”

Judith turned away, her eyes filling with tears, and her uncle went on: “It’s no use being nice-minded in assessing your sister-in-law, my dear. When Charles dies, Gerald inherits, and when Gerald inherits, Gerald’s wife will make a clean sweep here. You will go, I will go. The servants will go, and the estate will go to blazes. Gerald always was a duffer, and he’s a duffer still. While you’re here, you can keep him on the rails to some extent. After all, tradition and rearing count for something, but once he’s left alone with that woman, he’ll go to the pack. It’s inevitable.”

Judith sat down beside her uncle. “You’re not being quite fair,” she expostulated. “I wasn’t fair, either, but Meriel’s attitude made me angry. Meriel has got a lot of good qualities—she must have or she wouldn’t have survived those awful experiences out in Malaya. She’s got courage and loyalty and tenacity. I admit all that. It’s probably my fault that I haven’t managed to make friends with her. She’s so crude.”

“She is of another world from yours and she speaks another language,” said Walter Vanstead. “She represents everything you and I dislike. She has bad taste, bad manners, and bad habits. If she weren’t Gerald’s wife you wouldn’t have tolerated her in this house for a week, let alone for a year.”

“But Meriel’s had something to put up with too,” urged Judith. “I realise it’s galling for her, as a married woman, to live in a house controlled by another woman. I know she hates it——”

“Very well,” replied Walter. “Let us assume that you are right, and that Meriel does hate being here. The answer to that is quite simple. Let her go somewhere else.”

Judith raised her fine eyebrows. “But where?” she asked. “I can’t turn her out, Uncle. After all, she and Gerald are here because I asked them here. Meriel is my guest, in a sense. While Father is alive, I am still mistress in this house, and when I cabled to Gerald to come home, I asked him to bring his wife with him.”

“Admitted,” replied Walter Vanstead, “but at the time it did not occur to us that Gerald and Meriel would be here as guests indefinitely. I repeat my suggestion—let her go somewhere else where she may conceivably be happier than she is at Templedean.”

“Gerald hasn’t any money, Uncle, and in any case it’s difficult to get a small house now.”

“Who suggested getting a small house? Certainly I did not,” rejoined Walter dryly. “When I suggested that she should go somewhere else, I meant return to her own home and her own people. Although, for my own comfort, I avoid and ignore the pair of them as far as is possible, I am not totally unobservant, Judith. I give it as my considered opinion that if you or I were to offer Meriel the money to take her home to Queensland, she’d jump at the chance. I am quite willing to stand the expense. I should have the satisfaction of knowing that the distance between us would be as large as this rather small world allows.”

“But, Uncle, she’d never go and leave Gerald here with us ... and there’s the boy. She wouldn’t leave him, either.”

“Very well,” rejoined Walter Vanstead. “Then let her take them with her. I think she would have her work cut out to induce Gerald to agree, but I have no doubt whatever that she’d pull it off. She is, as you say, crude, but she’s got twice the determination which Gerald possesses. I’ll grant her that.”

Judith studied her uncle with a frowning face. “I just don’t understand you,” she said. “When the doctors first told us that Father couldn’t live very much longer, you and I both agreed that Gerald ought to come home, and that his wife should come here with him, so that Gerald could learn the running of the estate, and his wife get used to English ways and people. It was you who insisted that this was the wise and right thing to do, and Father agreed.”

“I don’t dispute it,” replied Walter Vanstead, “but we tried to be wise in advance of our data—the data in this case being the qualities of two human beings, Gerald and his wife. After a fair trial, it is plain to all concerned that Gerald neither wants to learn the business of running the estate nor is capable of so learning even if he did wish it. As for his wife, she dislikes and despises the English ways and people with which you wished her to become acquainted.”

“Even if we admit that all you say is true, Uncle, it’s no use sending them away now,” replied Judith wearily. “However difficult you and I may find the pair of them, Gerald is heir to Templedean. It is better for him to stay here. Actually, I think he has done better than you will admit. He is much less casual and slovenly than he was when he came, and he is beginning to make some efforts to be sociable and to take an interest in life here.”

“And you look forward with equanimity to a continuation of the sort of conditions we have been living under here for the past year or so?”

“What else can I do?” said Judith wearily. “I do my best, and believe me, I don’t find it easy. The peace we used to enjoy has gone and life becomes one long wrangle——”

“And so it will continue, unless we do something about it,” rejoined Walter Vanstead. “Why not agree to my suggestion?—give it a trial.”

Judith sat with her handsome dark head bent in thought. She was a graceful creature, and her forty years had imprinted but few signs of age on her. Fine bones and good muscles were responsible for her poise and easy movements; her hair was untouched by grey, her face scarcely lined. Sitting thus, with her dark head bent, her oval face resting on her slim hands, she still looked young.

“You suggest that Meriel goes back to Australia ... and takes Gerald with her,” she said slowly, “What about Alan?”

“Of course he will go too,” rejoined Walter Vanstead. “You don’t imagine that his mother will leave her cub here to be educated and influenced by us? That is the very last thing she would do.”

“Very well. They go back there, and return here when Gerald inherits——”

“Possibly. Possibly not,” put in the other. “I have a very shrewd idea that once Mrs. Gerald gets back to her ‘home town’ as she calls it, she will feel no enthusiasm for returning to a place where folks treat her like a nasty smell—I quote the lady verbatim. And believe me, where Gerald’s wife chooses to reside, thither will her fool of a husband reside also.”

“But, Uncle, it’s impossible. What would happen here?”

“Templedean, with an absentee owner and yourself as tenant of this house, would once more be a place for civilised people to live in. It’s worth considering, Judith. You have a fair income of your own, and you’re very competent at estate management and gardening and poultry keeping. I think you could manage. After all, you’ve got to live somewhere. Why not here? Gerald isn’t interested in the house or the land. All he cares about is its value in terms of cash.”

Judith sat very still, her eyes downcast, while Walter Vanstead studied her with shrewd, penetrating eyes. It was fully a minute before she replied, and then she said:

“You are a very acute observer, Uncle. You may be right in your belief that Meriel wants to go back to her own home, and that she would take Gerald with her, but it’s not a position I care to consider. It would mean that, after Father’s death, I should have no security of tenure. Any day Meriel or Gerald might decide to come back, if only for the pleasure of humiliating and dispossessing myself. I couldn’t stand that. I’d rather leave the house altogether and make my own life elsewhere. No. It wouldn’t do. They must stay on here.”

“I think you are unwise, my dear. But think it over. Think of waking up one fine morning and realising that that woman’s voice will no longer be heard in this house. My God, that voice of hers ...”