Vanishing Point Read Online Free PDF Page B

laughed.
    “That is always one of the difficult things.”
    She thought for a bit, and then shook her head vehemently.
    “I can’t do it like that. I can tell you what happened.”
    “All right—go ahead.”
    She nodded.
    “You mustn’t think about it being a story—it’s just something that happened. But it’s not interesting, or romantic, or anything like that—it’s just a bit frightening. Maggie lived with her father and mother in a cottage in the village. You can see it from the bottom of our drive, only they don’t live there now. The father and mother were quite old, and Maggie wasn’t at all young, or nice-looking or anything like that. And about a year ago, at eight o’clock in the evening when it was quite dark, she finished her ironing and said to her mother, ‘I’m just going out for a breath of air. I won’t be long.’ And no one ever saw her again.”
    “You mean she disappeared just like that?”
    Jenny nodded.
    “I told you it was rather frightening. And if I was writing it for a story I should stop there, because the end rather spoils it.”
    “What was the end?”
    “Oh, she wrote—twice. On a postcard to her mother, and to Miss Cunningham. She was the daily at the Cunninghams’, and their card just said, ‘Away temporary’. But the one to her mother was longer—something about being obliged to go away and coming back as soon as she could. That’s what she wrote, only she never did, and they never heard any more. The postmark on the card was London. And in the end they went to the police, but they couldn’t find her. Nobody knows what made her do it, because she had always been such a good daughter. And when she didn’t send any money or anything, the poor old Bells had dreadfully little.”
    “You say they don’t live here any more?”
    “Oh, no. They’re dead. Maggie oughtn’t to have gone away and left them.”
    Over Jenny’s head Rosamond gave him one of those looks. All right, he was a blundering fool, and Jenny oughtn’t to be encouraged to dwell upon village tragedies. Let her stick to her Gloria Gilmores and life as it never was. Only if you were going in for fairy tales, he preferred Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and the Twelve Dancing Princesses, with the warp in folklore and the weft in fantasy. He gave back Rosamond’s look with as much hardihood as he could muster and said,
    “Yes, that’s the sort of thing I mean. Only it needn’t always be tragedy, you know. Queer things happen in villages, just as they do everywhere—and nice things and interesting ones.” He even steeled himself to add, “Gloom is the hallmark of extreme youth.”
    Jenny flushed. He felt that he had been a brute, but Rosamond’s eyes were thanking him.
    She left him with Jenny after that, and presently brought in a tray with cups of tea and some of Mrs. Bolder’s biscuits which melted in the mouth. She found the party going with a bang and Jenny chattering away nineteen to the dozen, after which she ate a great many biscuits and drank what was practically a cupful of milk.
    “And if any of us was slimming, we shouldn’t be able to, should we? So what a good thing it is that we’re not, because Mrs. Bolder does make the most heavenly biscuits. I expect it will be years, and years, and years before Rosamond and I have to think about that sort of thing. She runs about too much, and I can’t run about enough. And anyhow it must be perfectly ghastly to think about everything you eat and feel perhaps you oughtn’t to. Miss Cunningham is like that, you know. She doesn’t eat this and she doesn’t eat that, and she gets fearfully hungry. And then quite suddenly she can’t bear it any more, and everything she’s taken off comes on again, so what’s the good? Anyhow she’s quite old, so I don’t see why she worries. Nicholas teases her about it, and she goes all pink and says, ‘Oh, my dear boy!’ ”
    Rosamond walked down the passage with him when he had said goodbye.