The Moving Finger Read Online Free PDF

hating them.”
    “Hating them?”
    “Yes,” said Megan.
    Her eyes, those melancholy, unchildlike eyes stared straight into mine, without blinking. It was a long, mournful gaze.
    “You would hate people if you were like me,” she said. “If you weren't wanted.”
    “Don't you think you're being rather morbid?” I asked.
    “Yes,” said Megan. “That's what people always say when you're saying the truth. And it is true. I'm not wanted and I can quite see why. Mummie doesn't like me a bit. I remind her, I think, of my father, who was cruel to her and pretty dreadful from all I can hear. Only mothers can't say they don't want their children and just go away. Or eat them. Cats eat the kittens they don't like. Awfully sensible, I think. No waste or mess. But human mothers have to keep their children, and look after them. It hasn't been so bad while I could be sent away to school - but you see what Mummie would really like is to be just herself and my stepfather and the boys.”
    I said slowly, “I still think you're morbid, Megan, but accepting some of what you say as true, why don't you go away and have a life of your own?”
    She gave me an odd un-childlike smile. “You mean take up a career. Earn my living?”
    “Yes.”
    “What at?”
    “You could train for something, I suppose. Shorthand, typing, bookkeeping.”
    “I don't believe I could. I am stupid about doing things. And besides -”
    “Well?”
    She had turned her head away, now she turned it slowly back again. It was crimson and there were tears in her eyes.
    She spoke now with all the childishness back in her voice:
    “Why should I go away? And be made to go away? They don't want me, but I'll stay. I'll stay and make everyone sorry. I'll make them all sorry. Hateful pigs! I hate everyone here in Lymstock. They all think I'm stupid and ugly. I'll show them! I'll show them! I'll -”
    It was a childish, oddly pathetic rage.
    I heard a step on the gravel around the corner of the house.
    “Get up,” I said savagely. “Go into the house through the drawing room. Go up to the bathroom. Wash your face. Quick.”
    She sprang awkwardly to her feet and darted through the window as Joanna came around the corner of the house.
    I told her Megan had come to lunch.
    “Good,” said Joanna, “I like Megan, though I rather think she's a changeling. Something left on a doorstep by the fairies. But she's interesting.”
    I see that so far I have made little mention of the Reverend and Mrs. Calthrop.
    And yet both the vicar and his wife were distinct personalities. Dane Calthrop himself was perhaps a being more remote from everyday life than anyone I have ever met. His existence was in his books and in his study. Mrs. Dane Calthrop, on the other hand, was quite terrifyingly on the spot. Though she seldom gave advice and never interfered, yet she represented to the uneasy consciences of the village the Deity personified.
    She stopped me in the High Street the day after Megan had come to lunch. I had the usual feeling of surprise, because Mrs. Dane Calthrop's progress resembled coursing more than walking, thus according with her startling resemblance to a greyhound, and as her eyes were always fixed on the distant horizon you felt sure that her real objective was about a mile and a half away.
    “Oh!” she said. “Mr. Burton!”
    She said it rather triumphantly, as someone might who had solved a particularly clever puzzle. I admitted that I was Mr. Burton and Mrs. Dane Calthrop stopped focusing on the horizon and seemed to be trying to focus on me instead.
    “Now what,” she said, “did I want to see you about?”
    I could not help her there. She stood frowning, deeply perplexed.
    “Something rather nasty,” she said.
    “I'm sorry about that,” I said startled.
    “Ah,” cried Mrs. Dane Calthrop. “Anonymous letters! What's this story you've brought down here about anonymous letters?”
    “I didn't bring it,” I said, “it was here already.”
    “Nobody