Read Online The Brading Collection by Patricia Wentworth - Free Book Online Page B

reality, no more responsive to the past or future, no more substantial than a dream. What they did or said wouldn’t matter, because it wouldn’t really be said or done. The burden of responsibility was gone, and the burden of decision. Everything in her softened and relaxed.
    Charles Forrest said,
    “We can leave the car at the top and go down into Wakewell Cove. People don’t go there much. The bathing’s dangerous, and the path looks steeper than it is.”
    It was quite steep enough. They scrambled, she slipped, Charles caught her, they laughed together and he scolded her.
    “You don’t look where you’re going.”
    “I do!”—indignantly.
    “It’s those idiotic shoes.”
    “But I didn’t know I was coming on a beach. You said Ledlington.”
    Charles’s arm across her shoulders, shaking her lightly, teasingly. “ ‘Men were deceivers ever!’ ”
    Then they were down on a beach of shell and shingle, with the sea a long way out and not a soul in sight, and Charles was saying,
    “Business first, pleasure afterwards. We’ll have a nice talk about alimony, and when that’s given you a really good appetite we’ll go and have buns at the Cat and Mouse.”
    Stacy sat on the fine ridged shingle. She ran her hands into it and brought up shells and small translucent stones. One of the shells was like a little cap of purple and mother-of-pearl. She frowned at it and said,
    “That’s nonsense. There’s nothing to talk about.”
    Charles sounded lazy and amused.
    “Think again, darling. The governing word is alimony. I think you must have missed it. There is almost no end to the avenues of conversation which it opens up.”
    Stacy went on looking at the pearly shell.
    “I’m not interested in any of them.”
    He hummed under his breath,
    “ ‘No, I will not walk, no, I will not talk.
    No, I will not walk nor talk with thee.’
    Come, come, let the blessed word alimony persuade you.“ He saw the blood come up into her face. She said in a quick angry voice,
    “There isn’t any question of alimony! You didn’t leave me—I left you.”
    “And you’d do it again tomorrow—a very proper spirit! You rise just like you always did. Now we laugh and start all over again. I’m doing very well out of Saltings. The flats have caught on, and people positively fight for them. All very pleasant and profitable, and a nice change from wondering where the next lot of rates and property tax were coming from. Well, that being that, and quite without prejudice, I would like you to have a look-in on it. I expect it’s slipped your memory, but I did endow you with all my worldly goods.”
    Stacy sat up glowing.
    “It seems to have slipped your memory that we’ve had a divorce.”
    She met a disturbing look.
    “Think so? Well, you always go on reminding me. Now, to come down to brass tacks—I want you to take three hundred a year.”
    “Charles—of course I won’t!”
    He said in quite a serious tone,
    “I’d feel a great deal more comfortable if you would.”
    Stacy’s right hand closed on the little shell and broke it.
    “I couldn’t possibly! You ought to know that without being told!”
    He was smiling.
    “Go on—get it off the chest! There’s a whole lot more, and I know it all by heart—‘I can support myself without your help! I’d rather starve than touch your money!’ ”
    “Oh!” It was a pure breath of rage.
    Charles continued to smile in a manner generally considered to be charming.
    “All quite effective in melodrama, but not really up your street. For one thing it demands the flashing eye, the classic cast of feature, and either the Grecian or the Roman nose. Now with a little flub nose like yours—”
    “It isn’t!”
    “Oh, definitely. I’m not saying anything against it, you know—I’ve always found it pleasant. I should never, for instance, have married a classic mark. It’s what I should describe as an agreeable nose for comedy or the domestic hearth. But not calculated