Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave Read Online Free PDF Page A

descendant, still, the habits of a lifetime were difficult to break, she was being spurred on to something courageous by the hawk-like gaze of the fierce autocrat.
    “But I’m so old—” thought Miss Izzy; then, “But not
too
old. Once you let people know you’re not after all a coward—”
    She looked out of the window once more. The effects of the punch were wearing off. Now she was quite certain of what she was seeing. Something dark, darkly clad, dark’ skinned, what did it matter, someone dark had come out of the sea, and was now proceeding silently in the direction of the house.
    “I must be brave,” thought Miss Izzy. She said aloud, “Then he’ll be proud of me. His brave girl.” Whose brave girl? No, not Sir Valentine’s, Daddy’s brave girl. Her thoughts began to float away again into the past. “I wonder if Daddy will take me on a swim with him to celebrate?”
    Miss Izzy started to go downstairs. She had just reached the door of the drawing-room and was standing looking into the decaying red velvet interior, still brightly illuminated, at the moment when the black-clad intruder stepped into the room through the open window.
    Even before the intruder began to move slowly towards her—dark-gloved hands outstretched—Miss Izzy Archer knew without doubt in her rapidly beating old heart that Archer Plantation, the house in which she had been born, was also the house in which she was about to die.
    “Miss Izzy Archer is dead. Some person went and killed her last night. A robber maybe.” It was Joseph Archer who broke the news to Jemima Shore the next morning.
    He spoke across the broad desk of his formal office in Bowtown. Joseph Archer’s voice was hollow, distant, only the familiar Bo’lander sing-song to connect him with Jemima’s handsome dancing partner of the night before. In his short-sleeved but official-looking white shirt and dark trousers he looked once again completely different from the cheerful ragged fisherman Jemima had first encountered. This was indeed the rising young Bo’lander politician she was seeing: a member of the newly formed government of Bow Island. Even the tragic fact of the death—the murder as it seemed—of an old lady seemed to strike no chord of emotion in him.
    Then Jemima looked again and saw what looked suspiciously like tears in Joseph Archer’s eyes.
    “I just heard myself, you know. The Chief of Police, Sandy Marlow, is my cousin.” He did not attempt to brush away the tears. If that was what they were. But the words were presumably meant as an explanation. Of what? Of shock? Grief? Shock he must surely have experienced, but grief? Jemima decided at this point that she could at least enquire delicately about Joseph Archer’s precise relationship to Miss Izzy. It came back to her that he had visited the old lady the week previously, if Miss Izzy’s rather vague words concerning “Little Joseph” were to be trusted. She was thinking not so much of a possible blood relationship as some other kind of connection. After all Joseph Archer himself had dismissed the former idea in the graveyard. His words about Sir Valentine and his numerous progeny came back to her: “Don’t pay too much attention to the stories. Otherwise how come we’re not all living in that fine old Archer Plantation House?” At which point Greg Harrison had commented with obvious fury, “Instead of just my ex-wife.” The exchange made far more sense to her ofcourse, now that she knew of the position of Tina Harrison, now Tina Archer, in Miss Izzy’s will.
    The will! Tina Archer would now inherit! And she would inherit in the light of a will signed that very morning, the morning of the day of Miss Izzy’s death. Clearly Joseph had been correct when he dismissed the claim of the many Bo’landers called Archer to be descended in any meaningful fashion from Sir Valentine. There was already a considerable difference between Tina, the allegedly sole legitimate descendant (other