“I don’t think Parfitt was the name,” broke in Miss Climpson hurriedly, “I’m sure it wasn’t. It was a Miss somebody—a Miss Whittaker, I think, Mrs. Budge mentioned.”
“Miss Whittaker?” cried both the ladies in chorus. “Oh, no! surely not?”
“I’m sure Miss Whittaker would have told me if she thought of giving up her house,” pursued Miss Murgatroyd. “We are such great friends. I think Mrs. Budge must have run away with a wrong idea. People do build up such amazing stories out of nothing at all.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as that,” put in Mrs. Peasgood, rebukingly. “There may be something in it. I know dear Miss Whittaker has sometimes spoken to me about wishing to take up chicken-farming. I daresay she has not mentioned the matter generally, but then she always confides in me. Depend upon it, that is what she intends to do.”
“Mrs. Budge didn’t actually say Miss Whittaker was moving,” interposed Miss Climpson. “She said, I think, that Miss Whittaker had been left alone by some relation’s death, and she wouldn’t be surprised if she found the house lonely.”
“Ah! that’s Mrs. Budge all over!” said Mrs. Peasgood, nodding ominously. “A most excellent woman, but she sometimes gets hold of the wrong end of the stick. Not but what I’ve often thought the same thing myself. I said to poor Mary Whittaker only the other day, ‘Don’t you find it very lonely in that house, my dear, now that your poor dear Aunt is no more?’ I’m sure it would be a very good thing if she did move, or got someone to live with her. It’s not a natural life for a young woman, all alone like that, and so I told her. I’m one of those that believe in speaking their mind, you know, Miss Climpson.”
“Well, now, so am I, Mrs. Peasgood,” rejoined Miss Climpson promptly, “and that is what I said to Mrs. Budge at the time. I said, ‘Do I understand that there was anything odd about the old lady’s death?’—because she had spoken of the peculiar circumstances of the case, and you know, I should not at all like to live in a house which could be called in any way notorious. I should really feel quite uncomfortable about it.” In saying which, Miss Climpson no doubt spoke with perfect sincerity.
“But not at all—not at all,” cried Miss Murgatroyd, so eagerly that Mrs. Peasgood, who had paused to purse up her face and assume an expression of portentous secrecy before replying, was completely crowded out and left at the post. “There never was a more wicked story. The death was natural—perfectly natural, and a most happy release, poor soul, I’m sure, for her sufferings at the last were truly terrible. It was all a scandalous story put about by that young Dr. Carr (whom I’m sure I never liked) simply to aggrandise himself. As though any doctor would pronounce so definitely upon what exact date it would please God to call a poor sufferer to Himself! Human pride and vanity make a most shocking exhibition, Miss Climpson, when they lead us to cast suspicion on innocent people, simply because we are wedded to our own presumptuous opinions. Poor Miss Whittaker! She went through a most terrible time. But it was proved—absolutely proved, that there was nothing in the story at all, and I hope that young man was properly ashamed of himself.”
“There may be two opinions about that, Miss Murgatroyd,” said Mrs. Peasgood. “I say what I think, Miss Climpson, and in my opinion there should have been an inquest. I try to be up-to-date, and I believe Dr. Carr to have been a very able young man, though of course, he was not the kind of old-fashioned family doctor that appeals to elderly people. It was a great pity that nice Nurse Philliter was sent away—that woman Forbes was no more use than a headache—to use my brother’s rather vigorous expression. I don’t think she knew her job, and that’s a fact.”
“Nurse Forbes was a charming person,” snapped Miss Murgatroyd, pink with indignation at being called elderly.
“That may be,” retorted Mrs. Peasgood, “but you can’t get over the fact that she nearly killed herself one day by taking nine grains of calomel by mistake for three. She told me that herself, and what she did in one case she might do in another.”
“But Miss Dawson wasn’t given anything,” said Miss Murgatroyd, “and at any rate, Nurse Forbes’ mind was on her patient, and not on flirting with the doctor. I’ve always thought that Dr. Carr felt a spite against her for taking his young woman’s place, and nothing would have pleased him better than to get her into trouble.”
“You don’t mean,” said Miss Climpson, “that he would refuse a certificate and cause all that trouble, just to annoy the nurse. Surely no doctor would dare to do that.”
“Of course not,” said Mrs. Peasgood, “and nobody with a grain of sense would suppose it for a moment.”
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Peasgood,” cried Miss Murgatroyd, “thank you very much, I’m sure—”
“I say what I think,” said Mrs. Peasgood.
“Then I’m glad I haven’t such uncharitable thoughts,” said Miss Murgatroyd.
“I don’t think your own observations are so remarkable for their charity,” retorted Mrs. Peasgood.
Fortunately, at this moment Miss Murgatroyd, in her agitation, gave a vicious tweak to the wrong needle and dropped twenty-nine stitches at once. The Vicar’s wife, scenting battle from afar, hurried over with a plate of scones, and helped to bring about a diversion. To her, Miss Climpson, doggedly sticking to her mission in life, broached the subject of the house in Wellington Avenue.
“Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,” replied Mrs. Tredgold, “but there’s Miss Whittaker
