The Gazebo by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online

to be particular, but there he was, smiling at her in the most intimate manner! And then that wretched van came along, and by the time the road was clear again they had completely disappeared. I thought they might have gone into the Sefton café, so I went in and bought half a dozen scones, but I couldn’t see them. Of course there are those little screened alcoves…’ Ella Harrison and Fred Worple sat in one of the alcoves and sipped their coffee. The Sefton had very good coffee. After the first shock – and frankly it had been a shock – Ella found herself astonishingly pleased to see him again. You don’t always want bits of your past to come bobbing up so to speak out of nowhere, but she had had a bit of a soft spot for Fred. There was a time when she had gone right off the deep end about him, but that was all over and done with. It had been very uncomfortable while it lasted, because they had neither of them had a bean and they both had tempers. There were scenes and recriminations, and a furious parting. It was all a long time ago and the anger had faded out, but the soft spot remained. They were being very comfortable together. He told her she had better forget all about his having called himself Selby, because Worple was his real name – ‘and don’t you forget it, ducks.’ And she told him about getting ill and losing her job in the chorus and running into Jack Harrison down at Brighton, where she was staying with her Aunt Annie.
    ‘Mean wasn’t the word for her! Kept everything locked up and measured it out! I wouldn’t have stayed a day, only I hadn’t anywhere else to go. And then, there was Jack Harrison coming up to me on the front and asking me if I remembered him. He’d been at a party Anna Kressler threw, so I said of course I remembered him, and he said he’d never forgotten me and perhaps I’d dine with him.’ She laughed. ‘I’d have dined with the devil and been glad to! It didn’t take me long to see I could get him just where I wanted him. He’d come in for money from an old bachelor cousin, and – well, it was a chance I couldn’t afford to let slip, so I took him and here we are.’
    ‘All settled down and respectable?’
    ‘Oh, I’m not chancing my luck.’
    But even as she said it she knew that the luck had gone sour on her. When you were down and out, your looks all gone to bits through being ill and Aunt Annie getting the last ounce out of you, Jack Harrison might have seemed like a godsend. All very well to say he hadn’t changed. That was just it – he hadn’t. Day after day, week after week, year after year, he went on being the little dull, grey man whom she had married. There had been plenty of money until lately, but he had begun to talk about cutting down expenses – selling the house, finding somewhere cheaper. He spoke of losses, and the way he went on about the income tax was enough to feed anyone up. In the old days you were tired, you were hungry, you tramped your shoes out looking for jobs, but you didn’t get bored.
    She looked at Fred and thought about the times they had had together. There had been rows, but there had been other things as well. She thought about dancing all night, and the way men used to stare at her, and about making love and being made love to. And here was Fred looking at her the way he used to do. It didn’t mean a thing, but – why shouldn’t it? In the old days he never had a bean, but there seemed to be plenty of money in his pockets now, burning a hole there the way it does when you’ve never had much and it comes to you all of a sudden.
    He laughed softly and said,
    ‘Oh, I’m a good boy now – safe as houses. And look here, this is where you can help me. You’d like to help an old friend, wouldn’t you, Ella?’
    She flashed him a glance.
    ‘Provided it’s on the level.’
    ‘Of course it’s on the level! I want to settle down – buy a house and start a nice little business.’
    ‘What kind of a