Fear by Night_A Golden Age Mystery by Patricia Wentworth

Author:Patricia Wentworth [Wentworth, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2016-06-16T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Ann sat still and thought about her talk with Jimmy Halliday. One thing emerged. She had begun by being amused, and had ended by being rather frightened. She wasn’t afraid of Jimmy Halliday. She felt quite sure of being able to keep him in order, and if she couldn’t, Mrs. Halliday could and most certainly would. No, she wasn’t afraid of Jimmy. He had undoubtedly signified his intention of making her the offer of his hand in marriage. Why? Propinquity, sentiment, a desire to settle down, a filial ambition to provide Mrs. Halliday with a daughter—or some reason connected with those odd bits of conversation about a will? Whose will?

She could very easily believe that Jimmy Halliday would like to provide for his old age by marrying an heiress, but it was very difficult to imagine that that heiress was herself. Who was there to leave her money? Elias Paulett? Why, he had never seen her or taken the slightest interest in her. As far as he was concerned, she might have starved or gone to the workhouse.

Well, she would just have to stave Jimmy off. He did not appear to be an ardent wooer. According to Mrs. Halliday it had usually been the girls who had done the wooing, so it ought not to be too difficult to keep him at a good safe distance.

She dismissed Jimmy’s courtship and turned to the other part of their conversation. There was something here that puzzled her a good deal. After insisting that the loch was dangerous, and appearing to lend quite a ready ear to her account of having seen something swimming in the strait at night, Jimmy Halliday had gone off the deep end at the idea of her having seen the same something by daylight. Her thought became momentarily more impressed by this discrepancy. He didn’t mind her believing that she had seen something by moonlight, but he had been disturbed—was that the word, or was it alarmed?—at her insisting that she had seen, what she had just missed seeing, under the eye of the sun. She thought there was something odd about this—odd, and a little frightening.

She stood up and looked out over the water for a long time, but there was no more to be seen than hill and sky above, and below, again hill and sky, like a clear transparent picture upon the surface of the loch. The sunlight made all the colours quiver as if they were alive.

Ann went back to the house with regret.

The rest of the day wasn’t at all comfortable. Mrs. Halliday was cross because her nap had been interrupted, and both Jimmy Halliday and Gale Anderson gave her plenty to be cross about. Ann was responsible for bringing down a storm upon Mr. Anderson’s devoted head. He had spoken to her in a low voice, and she at once repeated his remark for Mrs. Halliday’s benefit.

“Mr. Anderson is shocked to think that I can’t swim.”

They were all out on the lawn, Mrs.

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