leaning forward, their lips parted a little, their eyes agog, staring at her, Elinor, with a horrible ghoulish enjoyment—listening with a kind of slow, cruel relish to what that tall man with the Jewish nose was saying about her.
‘The facts in this case are extremely easy to follow and are not in dispute. I shall put them before you quite simply. From the very beginning…’
Elinor thought:
‘The beginning… The beginning? The day that horrible anonymous letter came! That was the beginning of it…’
An anonymous letter!
Elinor Carlisle stood looking down at it as it lay open in her hand. She’d never had such a thing before. It gave one an unpleasant sensation. Ill-written, badly spelt, on cheap pink paper.
This is to Warn You (it ran),
I’m naming no Names but there’s Someone sucking up to your Aunt and if you’re not kareful you’ll get Cut Out of Everything. Girls Are very Artful and Old Ladies is Soft when Young Ones suck up to Them and Flatter them What I say is You’d best come down and see for Yourself whats Going On its not right you and the Young Gentleman should be Done Out of What’s yours—and She’s Very Artful and the Old Lady might Pop off at any time.
Well-Wisher
Elinor was still staring at this missive, her plucked brows drawn together in distaste, when the door opened. The maid announced, ‘Mr Welman,’ and Roddy came in.
Roddy! As always when she saw Roddy, Elinor was conscious of a slightly giddy feeling, a throb of sudden pleasure, a feeling that it was incumbent upon her to be very matter-of-fact and unemotional. Because it was so very obvious that Roddy, although he loved her, didn’t feel about her the way she felt about him. The first sight of him did something to her, twisted her heart round so that it almost hurt. Absurd that a man—an ordinary, yes, a perfectly ordinary young man—should be able to do that to one! That the mere look of him should set the world spinning, that his voice should make you want—just a little—to cry… Love surely should be a pleasurable emotion—not something that hurt you by its intensity…
One thing was clear: one must be very, very careful to be off-hand and casual about it all. Men didn’t like devotion and adoration. Certainly Roddy didn’t.
She said lightly:
‘Hallo, Roddy!’
Roddy said:
‘Hallo, darling. You’re looking very tragic. Is it a bill?’
Elinor shook her head.
Roddy said:
‘I thought it might be—midsummer, you know—when the fairies dance, and the accounts rendered come tripping along!’
Elinor said:
‘It’s rather horrid. It’s an anonymous letter.’
Roddy’s brows went up. His keen fastidious face stiffened and changed. He said—a sharp, disgusted exclamation:
‘No!’
Elinor said again:
‘It’s rather horrid…’
She moved a step towards her desk.
‘I’d better tear it up, I suppose.’
She could have done that—she almost did—for Roddy and anonymous letters were two things that ought not to come together. She might have thrown it away and thought no more about it. He would not have stopped her. His fastidiousness was far more strongly developed than his curiosity.
But on impulse Elinor decided differently. She said:
‘Perhaps, though, you’d better read it first. Then we’ll burn it. It’s about Aunt Laura.’
Roddy’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
‘Aunt Laura?’
He took the letter, read it, gave a frown of distaste, and handed it back.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Definitely to be burnt! How extraordinary people are!’
Elinor said:
‘One of the servants, do you think?’
‘I suppose so.’ He hesitated. ‘I wonder who—who the person is—the one they mention?’
Elinor said thoughtfully:
‘It must be Mary Gerrard, I think.’
Roddy frowned in an effort of remembrance.
‘Mary Gerrard? Who’s she?’
‘The daughter of the people at the lodge. You must remember her as a child? Aunt Laura was always fond of the girl, and took an interest in her. She paid for her schooling and for various extras—piano lessons and French and things.’
Roddy said:
‘Oh, yes, I remember her now: scrawny kid, all legs and arms, with a lot of messy fair hair.’
Elinor nodded.
‘Yes, you probably haven’t seen her since those summer holidays when Mum and Dad were abroad. You’ve not been down at Hunterbury as often as I have, of course, and she’s been abroad au pair in Germany lately, but we used to rout her out and play with her when we were all kids.’
‘What’s she like now?’ asked Roddy.
Elinor said:
‘She’s turned out very nice-looking. Good manners and all that. As a result of her education, you’d never take her for old Gerrard’s daughter.’
‘Gone all lady-like, has she?’
‘Yes. I think, as a result of that, she doesn’t get on very well at the lodge. Mrs Gerrard died some years ago, you know, and Mary and her father don’t get on. He jeers at her schooling and her “fine ways”.’
Roddy said irritably:
‘People never dream what harm they may do by “educating” someone! Often it’s cruelty, not kindness!’
Elinor said:
‘I suppose she is up at the house a good deal… She reads aloud to Aunt Laura, I know, since she had her stroke.’
Roddy said:
‘Why can’t the nurse
