Out Of The Past by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online

difficulties with her knitting. She does not find it at all easy to keep her stitches on the needles, and I have been trying to teach her the continental method of holding them. It makes a dropped stitch almost impossible, but I am afraid she is not at all an apt pupil.”
    Ethel Burkett was not interested in Esther Field as a knitter. She said,
    “And she told you about Miss Anning?”
    “Oh, yes. The Fields used to take a house down here every year. Her husband was quite a famous artist, but he has been dead for some years. They knew the Annings quite well, and she said how much Darsie Anning had changed from the pretty, lively girl she used to be. You know, my dear, I have frequently had occasion to remark that it is just these gay, spirited girls who are apt to become repressed and over strict in middle life. It seems strange, but I have seen it happen.”
    “Perhaps they go too far, and find out that it doesn’t do,” said Ethel Burkett.
    CHAPTER 5
    Later on that evening Miss Silver paid her accustomed visit to Mrs. Anning. She was, as usual, engaged upon the piece of embroidery which had been begun before her illness, and which never seemed to come any nearer to completion. A spray of wild roses in one corner had been very nearly finished, but the bow of blue ribbon with which it was tied was no more than an outline. It was upon this bow that Mrs. Anning worked continually, drawing a needle full of pale blue silk through the fine canvas. There was no knot on the end of the silk, so that it just went in and came out again, but it kept her happy for hours at a time. She would occasionally give a kind of half attention to the wireless, but there was always a risk of there being something in the programme which disturbed her. Miss Silver could see at a glance that something had disturbed her tonight. The hand that plied the embroidery-needle was shaking, and the usually fair placid face was puckered into lines of distress. She looked at Miss Silver and said in a troubled voice,
    “Darsie doesn’t come. She doesn’t tell me anything. She sent that foreign girl up with my supper. Nobody tells me anything, but I know he is here.”
    “Someone whom you wanted to see?” enquired Miss Silver. She took a chair and leaned forward to look at the embroidered roses. “What a pretty pattern, and how well you have carried it out.”
    Mrs. Anning made a stitch and pulled the blue silk through.
    “I heard his voice,” she said. “We don’t talk of him because of what happened. Darsie used to be so pretty and bright— but we don’t talk about it now.”
    Miss Silver had begun to knit. She said very kindly,
    “It is always better not to recall unhappy things. There are happy memories too, are there not, and pleasant things that happen from day to day?”
    Mrs. Anning gazed at her in a piteous manner.
    “I was so fond of him. We all were. And Darsie was so pretty—”
    At about this same time or a little later Alan Field stepped out of the French window which led from the drawing-room at Cliff Edge and, turning, spoke over his shoulder.
    “It’s a great deal cooler out here. Lovely breeze. You are missing all the best of it in there. Why not come out?”
    The meal had been a dreary affair. Esther looked as if she had been crying. She probably had, but there really wasn’t any need to let everyone know about it. Quite unnecessary for the modern woman to show more of her original face than she wanted to. But of course Esther had no social tact. Then, as if those pink eyelids and her silent air of reproach were not enough, there was old Trevor’s hard stare and Lady Castleton’s quite extraordinary capacity for imparting a chill to the atmosphere. He had never liked her, in spite of her looks. After all, a woman needs something besides beauty, and she had always been much too inclined to throw her weight about. He preferred a more feminine type. And if she thought she could take this glacial line with him, she would just