The Sibyl in Her Grave by Sarah Caudwell Read Free Book Online

being there so much—without it, so far as I can see, she’d have no social life at all. Since neither she nor Daphne can drive a car, and public transport is beneath her dignity, she doesn’t get about much outside the village. She hasn’t made many friends since she arrived here, and if she had any before then, they evidently aren’t close enough to come and visit her. The fortune-telling business seems to be done mostly by correspondence—Mrs. Makepeace at the Post Office says she gets quite a lot of letters.
    There is one exception, which I have to admit we’re all very curious about. Every four or five weeks or so, at about seven in the evening, a large black Mercedes car with tinted windows drives rather fast into Parsons Haver and straight to the Rectory, where it parks in the part of the drive that is hidden from view by the shrubbery—this could be pure chance, but no one in the village believes that. The man who gets out of it rings at the front door and is let in. After two or three hours, he comes out and drives off again equally fast, heading towards London.
    And what everyone wants to know is—who is he? We all agree he must be rich or he wouldn’t have a Mercedes. And famous, or he wouldn’t need tinted windows. But is he a famous footballer? Or atelevision personality? Or a member of the Royal Family? These are the main possibilities put forward in the bar of the Newt and Ninepence—in some circles he’s thought to be something far more sinister.
    The only person who’s actually seen him is Maurice. His study window is the one place in Haver with a clear view of the Rectory doorway, and he’s seen the man quite plainly several times. But that’s no use to anyone, because Maurice is almost as unobservant as you are—is it something that happens to people who read Classics at Oxford? All he can find to say about the man is that he’s an ordinary, middle-aged man, in a City suit.
    The visits of the black Mercedes are at irregular intervals, but one can always tell when it’s expected. Poor Daphne is banished from the Rectory at about six o’clock, with just enough money to buy herself a sandwich and a glass of wine, and sits hunched up all evening in a corner of the Newt and Ninepence, looking like a puppy that’s been turned outdoors in disgrace and doesn’t understand why.
    If I see her in there, of course, I say “Good evening” and buy her another glass of wine. She used to be very hesitant about accepting—she was obviously embarrassed, poor girl, that she couldn’t buy me one back—but now she seems used to the idea. And she always tells me that she has to stay out all evening, because Aunt Isabella is giving a Personal Reading—one can hear the capital letters—and anyone else in the house would disturb thevibrations. So it looks as if the visits are professional, rather than personal.
    It’s really too mean of Isabella—if she wants the girl out of the house, she might at least give her enough to go into Brighton to enjoy herself a bit. She doesn’t seem even to give her pocket money, let alone any proper wages. I suppose one would say that she pays for Daphne’s keep, but she certainly doesn’t buy her any clothes—or if she does, it must be at jumble sales. I’ve never seen Daphne in a pretty dress—really, some of her things look as if she’d got them from someone’s dustbin, and not a very clean one either.
    I don’t say Isabella physically ill treats her—though Griselda’s sure she does—but her feet are always rubbed sore from going without stockings in badly fitting shoes, and she often has quite painful-looking peck marks on her face.
    Griselda gets very upset and indignant about it all, and says that we ought to do something. But what? One can’t ring the RSPCA or the cruelty-to-children people—Daphne’s not a child or an animal, she’s a grown-up human being, not all that much younger than you are.
    And she’s not a prisoner—she could leave