The Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough

Author:Colleen McCullough [McCullough, Colleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784082154
Publisher: Head of Zeus

“So I don’t have heart trouble at all,” said Missy to her mother and aunt. “In fact, my heart is perfect.” Both the big pale faces turned anxiously to Missy fell instantly into repose.

“Oh, that is good news!” said Octavia.

“What is the matter, then?” asked Drusilla.

“I have a pinched nerve in my spine.”

“Good heavens! Does that mean there’s no cure?”

“No, Dr. Parkinson thinks he may already have cured me. He almost screwed my head off, there was a horrible sort of crunch, and I should be quite well from now on. He referred to what he did as a manipulation, I think. But if I do get more attacks, I have to get you to tie two bricks to each of my feet, and I have to hang in the air with my chin resting on a bar!” She grinned. “The mere thought is enough to cure any complaint!” Only with a hefty swing did she manage to deposit her handbag on the table. “Here’s something a lot more important – look!” And she withdrew four neatly wrapped cylinders. “One hundred pounds for you, Mother, all in gold. And the same for Aunt Octavia, Aunt Cornelia, and Aunt Julia.”

“It’s a miracle,” said Drusilla.

“No, it’s a little tardy justice,” contradicted Missy. “You will buy that Singer sewing machine now, won’t you?”

Prudence warred with desire in Drusilla’s breast until she declared a temporary truce with the outcome undecided. “I said I would think about it, and I will.”

When bedtime came around Missy found herself sleepless, despite the day’s novel exertions; she lay contentedly in the dark and thought about John Smith. So he had been married, but his wife was dead. There could surely have been no children, or he would surely have them with him for at least part of the time. That was sad, so too was Una’s opinion of the union, that he had not liked his wife nearly well enough in the end. Sydney society, decided Missy, was not conducive to happy marriages, what with Una and her Wallace, and John Smith and his dead wife. Still, Mrs. John Smith had not had to suffer the stigma of divorce; at which point, Missy wondered for the first time in her convention-hedged life whether the stigma of divorce might not be preferable to the finality of death.

By midnight her plan was all worked out, and her mind was made up. She would do it, and she would do it tomorrow. After all, what did she have to lose? If her scheme did not bear fruit, she would simply have to continue for the next thirty-three years as she had gone on for the last thirty-three years. Certainly it was worth a try.

Somewhere in her suddenly sleepy brain a little thought was spared for John Smith, the unsuspecting victim. Was it fair? Yes, came the answer. Missy turned over and went to sleep with no further misgivings.

Drusilla elected to bear the four hundred pounds into Byron without assistance, and set off the next morning at nine o’clock, the heavy burden of her bag seeming as a feather.

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