Read Online Means Of Evil And Other Stories by Ruth Rendell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ruth Rendell
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And she said, I daresay. That's what she said, I daresay, she said, I'm not bothered either way. Of course she wouldn't have gone ahead with it. You don't even get a room to yourself in that place. Ninety-five pounds a week! They'll put you to bed at eight o'clock, Mother, I said, so don't think they'll let you sit up till all hours watching TV."
"Quite right," said Harry Betts ambiguously.
"Why, if we'd known Mother meant to do a thing like that, we could have lived in Harry's flat when we got married. He had a nice little flat over the freezer centre in the High Street. It wasn't just one room like Mother went about saying, it was a proper flat, wasn't it, Harry? What'd we have done if Mother'd done a thing like that? We'd have had nowhere." Her husband's head-shaking, the trembling droplet, the fidgety feet, seemed suddenly to unnerve her. She said to him, distress in her voice, "I'm going to have a little talk to the officer on my own, dear."
Wexford followed her into the room where Mrs. Wrangton had slept for the last years of her life. It was on the ground floor at the back, presumably originally designated as a dining room, with a pair of windows looking out onto a long narrow concrete terrace and a very long, very narrow garden. No redecorations had been carried out here. The walls were papered in a pattern of faded nasturtiums, the woodwork grained to look like walnut. Mrs. Wrangton's double bed was still there, the mattress uncovered, a pile of folded blankets on top of it. There was a television set in this room as well as in the front room, and it had been placed so that the occupant of the bed could watch it.
"Mother came to sleep down here a few years back," said Mrs. Betts. "There's a toilet just down the passage. She couldn't manage the stairs any more except when nurse helped her." She sat on the edge of the mattress, nervously fingering a cage-like object of metal bars. "I'll have to see about her walking frame going back, I'll have to get on to the welfare people." Her hands resting on it, she said dolefully, "Mother hated Harry. She always said he wasn't good enough for me. She did everything she could to stop me marrying him." Mrs. Betts's voice took on a rebellious girlish note. "I think it's awful having to ask your mother's consent to marry when you're sixty-five, don't you?"
At any rate, he thought, she had gone ahead without receiving it. He looked wonderingly at this grey wisp of a woman, seventy years old, who talked as if she were a fairy princess.
"You see, she talked for years of changing her will and leaving the house to my brother. It was after he died that the nursing home business started. She quarrelled outright with Harry. Elsie Parrish was in here and Mother accused Harry in front of her of only marrying me to get this place. Harry never spoke a word to Mother again, and quite right too. I said to Mother, You're a wicked woman, you promised me years ago I'd have this house and now you're going back on your word. Cheats never prosper, I said."
The daughter had inherited the mother's tongue. Wexford could imagine the altercations, overheard by visitors, by neighbours, which had contributed to the gossip. He turned to look at the framed photograph on a mahogany tallboy. A wedding picture, circa 1903. The bride was seated, lilies in her lap under a bolster of a bosom hung with lace and pearls. The bridegroom stood behind her, frock coat, black handlebar moustache. Ivy Wrangton must have been seventeen, Wexford calculated, her face plain, puffy, young, her figure modishly pouter-pigeon-like, her hair in that most unflattering of fashions, the cottage loaf. She had been rather plump then, but thin, according to Nurse Radcliffe in old age. Wexford said quietly, apparently idly:
"Mrs. Betts, why did you send for Dr. Moss on May 23rd? Your mother wasn't ill. She hadn't complained of feeling ill."
She held the walking frame, pushing it backwards and
"Quite right," said Harry Betts ambiguously.
"Why, if we'd known Mother meant to do a thing like that, we could have lived in Harry's flat when we got married. He had a nice little flat over the freezer centre in the High Street. It wasn't just one room like Mother went about saying, it was a proper flat, wasn't it, Harry? What'd we have done if Mother'd done a thing like that? We'd have had nowhere." Her husband's head-shaking, the trembling droplet, the fidgety feet, seemed suddenly to unnerve her. She said to him, distress in her voice, "I'm going to have a little talk to the officer on my own, dear."
Wexford followed her into the room where Mrs. Wrangton had slept for the last years of her life. It was on the ground floor at the back, presumably originally designated as a dining room, with a pair of windows looking out onto a long narrow concrete terrace and a very long, very narrow garden. No redecorations had been carried out here. The walls were papered in a pattern of faded nasturtiums, the woodwork grained to look like walnut. Mrs. Wrangton's double bed was still there, the mattress uncovered, a pile of folded blankets on top of it. There was a television set in this room as well as in the front room, and it had been placed so that the occupant of the bed could watch it.
"Mother came to sleep down here a few years back," said Mrs. Betts. "There's a toilet just down the passage. She couldn't manage the stairs any more except when nurse helped her." She sat on the edge of the mattress, nervously fingering a cage-like object of metal bars. "I'll have to see about her walking frame going back, I'll have to get on to the welfare people." Her hands resting on it, she said dolefully, "Mother hated Harry. She always said he wasn't good enough for me. She did everything she could to stop me marrying him." Mrs. Betts's voice took on a rebellious girlish note. "I think it's awful having to ask your mother's consent to marry when you're sixty-five, don't you?"
At any rate, he thought, she had gone ahead without receiving it. He looked wonderingly at this grey wisp of a woman, seventy years old, who talked as if she were a fairy princess.
"You see, she talked for years of changing her will and leaving the house to my brother. It was after he died that the nursing home business started. She quarrelled outright with Harry. Elsie Parrish was in here and Mother accused Harry in front of her of only marrying me to get this place. Harry never spoke a word to Mother again, and quite right too. I said to Mother, You're a wicked woman, you promised me years ago I'd have this house and now you're going back on your word. Cheats never prosper, I said."
The daughter had inherited the mother's tongue. Wexford could imagine the altercations, overheard by visitors, by neighbours, which had contributed to the gossip. He turned to look at the framed photograph on a mahogany tallboy. A wedding picture, circa 1903. The bride was seated, lilies in her lap under a bolster of a bosom hung with lace and pearls. The bridegroom stood behind her, frock coat, black handlebar moustache. Ivy Wrangton must have been seventeen, Wexford calculated, her face plain, puffy, young, her figure modishly pouter-pigeon-like, her hair in that most unflattering of fashions, the cottage loaf. She had been rather plump then, but thin, according to Nurse Radcliffe in old age. Wexford said quietly, apparently idly:
"Mrs. Betts, why did you send for Dr. Moss on May 23rd? Your mother wasn't ill. She hadn't complained of feeling ill."
She held the walking frame, pushing it backwards and
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