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

and he didn’t deny it.
    So you’ll understand, if you don’t mind very much, and think it too ungrateful of me, that I’d rather not ask him where he got his information from.
    Yours with much love,
Reg
    Few of the tables in the Corkscrew were still occupied: it was thought time for the proceedings of the Restoration Committee to be adjourned. Even Julia could not be persuaded to linger for another glass of wine: fearing that the interview with the young man from the Revenue might for some reason have proceeded less smoothly than it should have done, she was anxious to telephone again to find out what had happened.
    When she finally succeeded, however, in speaking to her aunt, she found her too preoccupied to discuss income tax: Mrs. Sheldon had a funeral to arrange.

4

    MY DUTY TO HISTORICAL truth does not, I think, require me to bewilder my readers with the version of the day’s events in Parsons Haver which we received from Julia on the basis of her telephone conversation. A more complete and orderly account is contained in the letter which she read to us when we gathered once more in the Corkscrew on the Thursday evening.
    24 High Street
Parsons Haver
West Sussex
    Tuesday, 22nd June
    Dear Julia,
    Do forgive me if I was slightly distrait when you rang earlier—I’d had a rather trying day. I suppose, if I’m going to tell you properly about it, that I ought to start with yesterday evening.
    I’d had a most satisfactory interview with theincome tax man and it occurred to me, as I was beginning to get supper ready for Maurice and Griselda, that we had a first-rate excuse for champagne. So I ran down to the wine merchant’s and bought a couple of bottles, and on my way back I saw poor Daphne, sitting all by herself on a bench outside the Newt and Ninepence.
    I was rather surprised to see her there. The black Mercedes had been seen here less than a week ago, and there’s usually at least a month between its visits. I didn’t feel I had time, though, to stop and talk to her, so I waved and went on my way.
    But a moment or two later she came running after me and seized hold of my shopping basket, saying it looked much too heavy for me and I must let her carry it. I could hardly take it back from her by physical force—which it almost seemed I’d have to, she was so determined—so I let her go on carrying it, and she came trotting home beside me.
    It seemed churlish, when we got back, simply to say thank you and shut the door in her face, so I invited her in for a sherry. It struck me, as I was giving it to her, that she looked even more miserable than usual—I mean, not just as if she might be going to cry, but as if she’d been crying a good deal already. So I asked her whether anything was the matter.
    “Nothing—I don’t know—everything,” said Daphne, and did indeed burst into tears.
    It wasn’t easy, between the sobs and the stammers, to make out exactly what she was upset about. In the end, it seemed simply to come down to this—that Isabella was giving her second“Personal Reading” in the space of a week, and Daphne thought she was dangerously overtaxing her strength. I’m afraid I may have looked rather sceptical.
    With more sobs and stammers, Daphne said that I didn’t understand. No one understood. No one understood what Isabella put into a Personal Reading. No one knew how exhausted she was for days afterwards. She ought to be still resting after the last one. And Isabella wouldn’t admit to physical weakness, and said she just had a cold, but Daphne knew there was something badly wrong with her. She didn’t know how, she just knew. And something awful was going to happen, and she didn’t know what to do about it. More tears.
    Well, what could I do? I thought she was talking nonsense, of course, but I didn’t have the heart to pack her off to sit on her own in the Newt. So I told her that if she’d stop crying, I’d lend her a comb and facecloth to tidy herself up with, and she was