The Silk Vendetta Read Online Free PDF Page A

usual.”
    “Well, Mrs. Dillon. I thought you wanted to know.” I walked out of the kitchen, I hoped, with dignity. I passed Willie’s little dog who was sitting patiently waiting for his master.
    Whenever I could I would try to help Willie. I often found him giving me a sidelong glance, but he hastily averted his eyes if I caught him at this.
    I wished I could help him more. It occurred to me that it might be possible to teach him a little, for he was not so stupid as people thought.
    I used to talk about him to Cassie, who was very easily moved to pity, and she would try to do little things for him, such as showing him which were the best cabbages to pull from the kitchen garden when he was sent out for this purpose by Mrs. Dillon.
    I was very interested in people’s behaviour and I wondered why Mrs. Dillon, who was comfortably placed herself, should be so eager to make the life of someone like Willie more of a burden than it already was. Willie was a frightened boy. As I said to Cassie: “If he could only get rid of that fear of people, he would take a step towards normality.”
    Cassie agreed with me. She invariably did. Perhaps that was why I liked being with her so much.
    Mrs. Dillon was relentless. She said that Willie should be “put away” because it wasn’t what was to be expected in a place like The Silk House to have idiots roaming about. When Sir Francis came she would speak to him on the subject. It was no use saying anything to her ladyship and Mr. Clarkson had no authority to get him sent away.
    I believe she thought that a good way of attacking Willie was through his dog. There came a day when she said the dog had taken what was left of a leg of lamb from the table and ran off with it. I was there when she was talking of it and demanding the death penalty for the dog.
    Clarkson was very dignified. He sat at the table like a judge.
    “Did you see the mongrel take the meat, Mrs. Dillon?”
    “As good as,” replied Mrs. Dillon.
    “So you did not see the act?”
    “Well, I’d seen that animal out there … his eyes on what he could steal and when my back was turned he was in like a streak of lightning, and he got the meat from the table and ran off with it.”
    ‘ ‘It might have been one of the other dogs,” suggested Clarkson.
    But Mrs. Dillon wouldn’t have it. “Oh, I know who it was. No kidding me. I see him there with my own eyes.”
    I couldn’t resist saying: “But Mrs. Dillon, you did not see the dog take the meat.”
    She turned on me angrily. “What are you doing here? have to be into everything. Anyone would think you was one of the family instead of …”
    I looked at her steadily. Clarkson was embarrassed. He said: “This is outside the matter. If you did not actually see the dog take the meat then you cannot be sure that he did.”
    ‘ ‘I shall call in one of them woodmen. I shall get him to take a gun to that creature. I’ll not have him prowling round snatching the food I’ve cooked. It’s more than a body can stand and I won’t put up with it.”
    The matter did not rest there. People were taking sides. The dog should be destroyed. He was a miserable little mongrel in any case. No, let the poor little fellow keep his dog. He didn’t have much of a life.
    Poor Willie was distraught. He ran away taking his dog with him. It was winter and everyone was asking how he would look after himself. Mrs. Carter dreamed that he was lying in the forest somewhere … frozen to death.
    May said she heard strange noises in the house; she thought she heard a dog howling. Jenny was walking through the woods and heard someone following her. She looked round and thought die saw Willie holding his dog. They were two ghostly figures and suddenly they disappeared.
    Mrs. Dillon was disturbed. She was the one who had been persecuting him. She wasn’t at all sure about that leg of lamb. It might have been one of the other dogs. She wished she hadn’t asked one of the men to shoot the