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

inhibitions. If you don’t get the better of them, they’ll end in turning you to stone. You know that, don’t you?’
    She said, ‘Yes…’ from the very bottom of her heart.
    ‘What are we going to do about it, Allie?’
    Her lips were stiff, but she made them move.
    ‘I don’t know…’
    ‘Sure? What about this?’ His arms came round her hard and strong. They held her up against him and she felt the beating of his heart. He didn’t kiss her, just held her there and looked into her eyes. She didn’t know what he saw in them, but she knew what she saw in his. It wasn’t any of the things she expected to see. Anger, mockery, passion – he had looked at her with all of these in his time. This look was different, and she couldn’t look away. He said,
    ‘What are we going to do about it, Allie?’
    There wasn’t anything they could do about it. She said,
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘It’s very strong. I didn’t know it was as strong as this. Did you?’
    ‘Yes…’
    ‘You ought to know. You did your best to kill it five years ago, and I’ve been having a go at it ever since. If it hadn’t been practically indestructible we ought to have been able to polish it off. I’ve been telling it just how dead it was for the last five years, but it doesn’t seem to have had the slightest effect.’
    ‘No…’
    ‘I only came down here because I had to. Emmy left all my things behind when she sold the house to Jack Harrison. I wasn’t going to come and see you, because I was afraid. And do you know why? I kidded myself that it was because I didn’t want to risk the whole thing starting again. But it wasn’t that. I was afraid that I might find out how dead everything really was. And what do you do when you’re left with a corpse on your hands? Very difficult things to get rid of corpses. I wasn’t going to risk it! And I needn’t have troubled, need I? The damned thing was not only alive, it was ramping. I had only got to see you across the room and there it was, shouting at the top of its voice and hurting like hell!’
    He spoke with extraordinary velocity. The words drove, and checked, and found their way again, his voice quite low, his clasp of her unbroken, and through it all the heavy beating of his heart. Something in her that had been slowly freezing to death began to thaw. She felt a warmth and a relaxing. She couldn’t move away, she couldn’t move at all – they were too close. She laid her head against his sleeve and felt the tears run down. It was all that there could ever be between them, tears and parting and pain, but at least they were shared, they hadn’t to endure them alone.
    He let go of her suddenly and stepped back.
    ‘Allie, you’re crying!’
    No use to say she wasn’t with her face wet and the tears still running. She said,
    ‘Yes…’
    ‘You never cry!’
    ‘No…’
    He broke into sudden shaken laughter.
    ‘Well, you’ve made a proper job of it now! Here, have my handkerchief. I don’t suppose you’ve got one – unless you’ve changed a lot.’
    The linen was soft and cool. She held it to her face and said,
    ‘That’s just it, Nicky, I have changed – dreadfully…’
    ‘And how?’
    ‘I’ve got hard and cold – and – and resentful. I don’t like people any more – I don’t have friends. I’m not a bit the same as I used to be. You wouldn’t like me a bit. I don’t like myself.’
    ‘And who is to blame for that? She’s made a slave of you. Even Ella Harrison says so.’
    She said, ‘Yes…’
    The barriers were all down and nothing was there but the truth. Her tears had even washed away the futile pretence of girlish bloom. He could see her as she was, too thin, too pale, too old for her years. He said in a laughing voice,
    ‘Darling, some of the colour has got on to your nose. Here, you’d better let me have the handkerchief.’
    All at once something happened. It was like a fresh wind blowing over her and carrying away all the morbid thoughts that