The Key (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 8) by Wentworth Patricia

Author:Wentworth, Patricia [Wentworth, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781453225462
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2011-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FIVE

MRS BUSH, WHO had been born Susannah Pincott, was the kind of stirring woman whose energies are quite unable to find sufficient scope in the domestic round. As soon as her children could be bundled off to school she embarked upon the contest with a reluctant husband which resulted triumphantly in the addition of a glass bay to their living-room and the stocking of it with picture postcards, bottles of lemonade and other soft drinks, china ornaments, cigarettes, and cheap sweets. She could thus see life, enjoy unlimited opportunities for gossip, and ensure her own control over at least a part of the family finances.

When Miss Silver entered the shop at eleven o’clock, Mrs Bush was deep in conversation with a little elderly person with a long nose, pale eyes, and a black felt hat tipped sideways over straggling grey hair. Mrs Bush herself towered mountainous behind her counter, her hair still as black as when she was a girl, her cheeks red and firm, her massive figure upright and controlled in spite of the temptation offered by the prevailing village fashion. Like every other woman in Bourne, she wore a loose flowered overall, but beneath it were the formidable stays of her youth.

In a most deprecating manner Miss Silver enquired if she might look at some postcards.

‘I am in no hurry – no hurry at all. Pray do not let me disturb you. I always like plenty of time to make a choice.’

She became immersed in a colourful series depicting the ruined Priory, Bourne village showing the stream running down the side of the street, the church with its old squat tower, the new secondary school at Marbury, and the water-works. As she turned them over she was aware of the two women’s voices, hushed to a sibilant undertone. Not for the first time, she felt gratitude for the excellence of her hearing.

‘He ought to be ashamed of himself,’ said the little elderly woman.

Mrs Bush was leaning close. Her voice was deeper.

‘Ezra never did have any shame, nor never will. Nothing but a trouble to the family first and last, and no good expecting anything different. I suppose he was drunk as usual.’

Out of the tail of her eye Miss Silver saw the black felt hat shaken.

‘Not to say drunk, Tom says – it takes more than what you can get nowadays to make Ezra Pincott drunk, Tom says. Just a bit above his usual, if you know what I mean, and telling everyone that’d listen to him as how he knew something that’d be money in his pocket if some he wouldn’t name knew which side their bread was buttered.’

‘Gracious, goodness me!’ said Mrs Bush.

‘And all of them laughing and egging him on, but he wouldn’t say no more than that, only of course everybody knew what he meant.’

‘Ssh, Annie!’

There was a nudge across the counter. Two pairs of eyes were turned upon Miss Silver, who gazed with rapt attention at the card which depicted the secondary school, bright yellow against the kind of blue sky which an English summer has seldom been known to achieve.

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