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Patricia Wentworth
The Alington Inheritance
Miss Silver – #31, 1958
Chapter I
Je
Miss Garstone lay in a narrow bed, her head raised by pillows, her arms neatly laid down by her sides, her face as pale as if she were already dead. She had not moved since they had brought her home that morning. She had not moved and she had not spoken. The doctor had been and gone. Miss Adamson, the village nurse, had been there all day. Now she had gone home to get one or two things she would need for the night.
“It’s not likely she’ll come round at all. And there’s nothing to be frightened of, Je
Je
“Well, I won’t be long-not longer than I can help.” Her footsteps went away down the narrow stair where you could not walk quietly however hard you tried, because the stairs were all twisty and they had never had a carpet on them since they were first built three hundred years ago.
As the sound of Miss Adamson’s feet on the stairs died away and the other sounds of her going ceased, Je
She mustn’t think about her dreams, she mustn’t think about herself. She wondered what could have happened to Miss Garstone on that lonely bit of road. Every day for as long as Je
Je
Miss Garstone had always been there, too. Je
Je
“Je
Je
“I’ve been hurt.”
“Yes, but you’ll be all right now, Garsty.”
“I-don’t-think-so-”
Je
The eyes opened. Miss Garstone’s voice came again. She seemed to be continuing something that she had been saying in the dream in which she walked. She said,
“So it all belongs to you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Don’t worry about it now, Garsty.”
Miss Garstone shut her eyes, but she was not at peace. The hand that was under Je
“Don’t. Don’t try, Garsty. It’s bad for you. You mustn’t. Another time when you’re better-”
The eyes opened again. For the first time the head moved. A very slight movement. It said, “No.” She lay quiet, her eyes open, fixed on Je
“Did I say it?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s-so-difficult. I-must-tell-you. I oughtn’t-to-have-kept it- from you. I never meant-to go-without-telling you. It seemed-best -at the time. Your mother-” She stopped. “She was Je
Je
“Doa’t worry yourself, Garsty. Oh, please don’t!”
“I must.” The two words came out quite clearly and strongly. They were weighted with a deep earnestness. After them she fell silent. It was like watching someone drift. Presently she spoke again.
“I ought not to have done it. At first I wasn’t sure. And there were you, just a tiny baby, and your mother dead and she didn’t tell me anything. If she had told me-I wouldn’t have-let her down. Oh, I wouldn’t! Do you believe me-because it’s true-”
“Of course I believe you. Oh, don’t trouble yourself.”
The pale lips said, “I must-” on a failing breath. She was silent again. After what seemed like a long time she spoke in a faint voice. “I didn’t think there was anything more-not till you were seven and Mr. and Mrs. Forbes had been here all that time. I was talking to a friend of mine, and she said, ‘There’s a way you can be quite sure, you know. If there was a marriage, it will be at Somerset House.’ Did I tell you about the letter?”