Read Online To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey - Free Book Online Page A

them, Walter had changed his attitude and decided that Liz was dead. She would never be late for dinner. She was lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Perhaps with the car on top of her. Searle was an American and it was well-known that all Americans were reckless drivers and had no patience with English lanes. They had probably gone round a corner slap into something.
    He played with his soup, his heart black with dread, and listened to the vicar on demonology. He had heard at one time or another everything that the vicar had to say on the subject of demonology, but at least it was a relief to get away from worms.
    Just when his heart had blackened and shrunk to the state of a very old mushroom, the gay voices of Searle and Liz could be heard in the hall. They came in breathless and radiant. Full of off-hand apology for their lateness and commendation for the family in that they had not kept dinner back for them. Liz presented Searle to the vicar but did not think of casting any special word to Walter before falling on her soup like a starving refugee. They had been all over the place, they said; first they had viewed Twells Abbey, and adjacent villages; then they had met Peter Massie and had gone to look at his horses and given him a lift into Crome; then they had had tea at the Star and Garter in Crome, and they had been on the way home out of Crome when they found a cinema which was showing The Great Train Robbery , and it was of course not in anyone's power to refuse a chance of viewing The Great Train Robbery . They had had to sit through several modern exhibits before The Great Train Robbery appeared—which was what had made them late—but it had been worth waiting for.
    An account of The Great Train Robbery occupied most of the fish course.
    'How was the broadcast, Walter?' Liz said, reaching for some bread.
    It was bad enough that she did not say: 'I am desolated to have missed your broadcast, Walter'; but that she should spare for the broadcast only the part of her mind that was not occupied with the replenishing of her bread plate was the last straw.
    'The vicar will tell you,' said Walter. ' He listened.'
    The vicar told them, con amore . Neither Liz nor Leslie Searle, Walter noticed, really listened. Once, during the recital, Liz met Searle's glance as she passed him something and gave him her quick friendly smile. They were very pleased with themselves, with each other, and with the day they had had.
    'What did Ross say about the book?' Searle asked, when the vicar had at last run down.
    'He was delighted with the idea,' Walter said, wishing passionately that he had never begun this partnership with Searle.
    'Have you heard what they plan, Vicar?' Mrs Garrowby said. 'They are going to write a book about the Rushmere. From its source to the sea. Walter is going to write it and Mr Searle to illustrate it.'
    The vicar approved of the idea and pointed out its classic form. Was it to be on shanks's mare or with a donkey, he asked.
    'On foot down to Otley, or thereabouts,' Walter said. 'And by water from there.'
    'By water? But the Rushmere is full of snags in its early reaches,' the vicar said.
    They told him about the canoes. The vicar thought canoes a sensible craft for a river like the Rushmere, but wondered where they could be got.
    'I talked to Cormac Ross about that today,' Walter said, 'and he suggested that Kilner's, the small craft builders at Mere Harbour, might have some. They build for all over the world. It was Joe Kilner who designed that collapsible raft-boat-tent that Mansell took up the Orinoco on his last trip, and then said afterwards that if he had thought in time he could have made it a glider too. I was going to suggest that Searle and I should go over to Mere Harbour tomorrow and see Kilner—if he has no other plans.'
    'Fine,' Searle said. 'Fine.'
    Then the vicar asked Searle if he fished. Searle did not, but the vicar did. The vicar's other interest, a short head behind demonology, was the dry