Ladies’ Bane by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page B

visits, and then the rush and scramble of the wedding. Cousin Eleanor had been too ill to have them for more than a brief week-end, but they had gone the rounds of relations of Allegra’s-friends of Geoffrey’s! Aunt Marion and Aunt Hester, Uncle Henry, and old Cousin Oliver Wayne. But on Geoffrey’s side not a single solitary relation except Margot Trent. Masses of friends of course-but a sinfully good-looking bachelor with money would certainly not lack for friends. Parties for the races, for this, for that, for everything conceivable-they simply never stopped. Allegra had been completely worn out before the wedding day. But she oughtn’t to go on looking as if she had just used up the last drop of her strength.
    Right in the middle of Geoffrey showing her one of the staircases he kept locked-and a horrid dark, precipitous affair it was-she found herself saying,
    “What is the matter with Allegra?”
    He stopped half way through a sentence, appeared to have some difficulty in deflecting his attention from the medieval stair, and repeated his wife’s name in a tone tinged with surprise.
    “Allegra?” Ione could have stamped her foot. She restrained the impulse. She had too many impulses, and she was always having to restrain them. It made life varied and interesting, but if you didn’t watch out, it could land you in a mess. She certainly didn’t want to have a row with Geoffrey, and about nothing at all. She looked at him frankly and said,
    “Aren’t you worried about her? I think you ought to be. She looks dreadful.”
    He frowned.
    “She was tired last night.” Ione shook her head.
    “Has she seen a doctor? What does he say?”
    “She has seen two-one here, and one in town. They both say the same thing-she is not very strong, but there is nothing wrong with her.”
    She drew a long breath of relief. She was aware that he was watching her.
    “What did you think was wrong?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve never seen her like this-no life, no interest. She didn’t even seem glad to see me.”
    He gave rather a rueful smile.
    “Too bad-and I’m afraid it’s all my fault. The fact is we had had a bit of a tiff, and you arrived before we had time to make it up. All over now and nothing to worry about, but Allegra is like a child, she can’t be happy if she thinks I’m vexed.” Ione felt herself put in the wrong-very charmingly, kindly, even gaily. She was a maker of mountains out of molehills. She was that immemorial butt of all comedians, the visiting in-law who is determined to find something wrong. She had a very good sketch on those lines herself, and it always went down well. She turned on what she hoped was a friendly smile and said,
    “How tactless of me not to come by a later train and give you time to put things right. But I don’t see how I was to know.”
    He laughed cheerfully.
    “No need to worry. Our quarrels never last very long.”
    He was locking the little dark stairway as he spoke.
    “I think it’s better to keep it shut up-don’t you? It’s of no real use, and it’s so near this other one that anyone might make a mistake and perhaps get a nasty fall. Now, you see, this one isn’t nearly so steep.”
    Like the other it was closed in by its own door and ran down between dark walls. It was certainly less precipitous, and perhaps-but she was not entirely sure upon this point-it did not smell quite so strongly of mould. It came into her mind that a medieval house might be terribly interesting to visit, but she could think of nothing she would dislike more than to have to live in one. As she followed Geoffrey up and down staircases and along narrow and most bewildering passages, the impression deepened, and she found herself dwelling passionately upon the mental picture of a perfectly modern house full of windows and without a dark corner in it anywhere.
    “Now,” said Geoffrey, “this is the real gem of the place.” He opened a door, not this time upon one of those horrid enclosed