Read Online The Coldstone by Patricia Wentworth - Free Book Online Page A

eye was caught by a little lady who was about to enter one of the houses. He slowed down, and recognized Miss Arabel, her air of exquisite finish rather startlingly out of keeping with her surroundings. The street was narrow and mean. The dull little houses were all exactly alike; they had yellow brick walls and grey slate roofs, and their windows were entirely obscured by Nottingham lace.
    As Anthony approached, the door in front of which Miss Arabel was standing opened and let her in. He drove on, and had just a glimpse of a young woman in nurse’s dress—just an impression of fluffy hair, butcher’s blue, and white starched linen. Then the door shut, and he made haste out of Wrane.
    Miss Arabel sat on the edge of a horsehair sofa and talked to the fluffy-haired young woman, whose name was Mabel Collins, but whom she addressed as “Nurse.” She talked to her for about ten minutes about what a fine August it was, and how nice it was for the farmers to have it so warm and dry, but didn’t Nurse find it just a little oppressive in a town like Wrane?
    â€œWhat’s she want? ” said Miss Collins to herself. “You bet your life she didn’t come out here seven miles—and they’re as mean as misers—just to talk about the weather.” Aloud, she agreed with Miss Arabel in a tone of deferential sweetness.
    Miss Arabel passed from the weather and began to talk about her father’s illness—“As if I wasn’t fed to the teeth with the whole thing,” Miss Collins commented inaudibly. “Oh, get on, you old fool! If you’ve come here to say anything, for goodness sake say it and get out!”
    Miss Arabel sat a little more upright. Her feet, in their very small shoes, were pressed down hard upon the bright green Brussels carpet. All the while that she talked about “poor Papa” she saw, not the dreadful little room with the bright walnut furniture, but the room at Stonegate where Papa sat propped against pillows looking across the footrail of the bed at the field where two tall grey stones stood amongst the high grass.
    She said how good Nurse Collins had been, and how grateful they felt, and how much she hoped Nurse had not found her next case as trying. And all the while she saw that room, and Papa looking past her, and talking, talking, talking in a low mutter that sometimes made words and sometimes lapsed into mere sound. Her little black-gloved hands held one another very tightly as she said,
    â€œI would have come to see you before, because there was something that I wanted to ask you about. You know, you went off in such a hurry.”
    â€œBaby cases won’t wait,” said Miss Collins in a brisk, decided voice.
    Miss Arabel fluttered a little. This girl—she seemed so young—it didn’t seem quite nice. She returned to “dear Papa” with the sound of his muttering voice in her ears. She must ask—she must find out.
    â€œWhat did you want to know, Miss Colstone?” said Miss Collins. “And for the Lord’s sake hurry up!” she added to herself.
    Miss Arabel hesitated, opened her little button mouth, half closed it again, and said suddenly,
    â€œMy father talked a good deal—”
    â€œYes, he did.” (“And so do you, you silly old maid.”)
    Miss Arabel proceeded with difficulty:
    â€œOn the afternoon—the last afternoon—the afternoon before he died, the—the Monday —”
    â€œYes, Miss Colstone?”
    â€œYou may remember that I sat with him whilst you went to your tea.”
    Miss Collins nodded. What a rigmarole!
    Miss Arabel found it very hard to go on, because she could hear Papa’s muttering voice so plainly—just a smudge of sound, and then her own name, “Arabel.” And then things, frightening things, forbidden things, that were not to be talked about, by Papa’s own especial order. And yet here was Papa talking about