A Night of Errors Read Free

hot-water jug. The sound had no power over the absent Swindle, gently respiring in a summer day’s slumber in his distant pantry. But it brought Lucy to her feet – a tall, dark girl in her early thirties, at once lackadaisical and restless. Her movement was received by Lady Dromio as if it was something entirely unexpected.
    ‘Well, dear, if you would like to fetch some that will be very nice.’
    Lucy compressed her lips, held out her hand for the hot-water jug and departed across the lawn. Lady Dromio watched her go, turned to scrutinize her tea-table, watched again. Across the hot lawn Lucy was almost out of earshot. Lady Dromio called; she picked up and waved an empty cream-jug. Lucy turned obediently back.
     
    Lucy Dromio (for she was called that) was Lady Dromio’s experiment, an experiment made some thirty years before. The Reverend Mr Greengrave, now advancing up the drive to pay a call, and observing the girl as she trailed towards the house, reflected that she was an abandoned experiment. Most experiments were that, of course, after thirty years. Was she an abandoned girl? Mr Greengrave, who was professionally obliged to weigh questions of this sort, shook his head doubtfully. He knew very little about Lucy despite an acquaintance stretching back over a considerable period. She was secretive. But then for that matter so was Lady Dromio, despite her open, amiable air. After all, was not Lucy perhaps Lady Dromio’s experiment still – or rather a sort of private laboratory for the carrying out of tiny, daily vivisections? This was an uncharitable thought. But Mr Greengrave was aware that one has to do a lot of uncharitable thinking if one is to get people clear. And until one does that how can one help them?
    What sort of a woman had Lady Dromio been before Mr Greengrave’s time as incumbent of Sherris Parva? Pausing by a tulip tree and mopping his brow (for he was a shy man who had often thus to brace himself before plunging into parochial duties), the vicar reviewed what he knew of that early time. The lady now waiting placidly for her cream and hot water was the widow of Sir Romeo Dromio. Her married life had early ended in tragedy. Two of her children had died in a horrible disaster and not long afterwards her husband had died also – mad, it was said, and talking strangely. Sir Romeo, it seemed, had been a wayward and violent man, brooding over sundry reverses and misfortunes which the family had over several generations suffered. Through half a dozen parishes queer tales were still told of him. If some of these were true it must be judged that Lady Dromio had got off lightly, even at the cost of widowhood and the difficult care of a single surviving son. But these legendary tales were already hopelessly confused with popular memories of other and earlier Dromios noted for this or that sultry eccentricity. Not a comfortable family, had been Mr Greengrave’s summary. He had never been prompted to sift or analyse chronicles so patently barren of edification.
    But he knew that Lady Dromio had to all seeming taken everything quietly. The tablet she had erected to her husband’s memory in Mr Greengrave’s church was quiet. Any reference she ever made to him was quiet to the extent of, as it were, a metaphorical inaudibility. And she had done nothing in haste. When her son was eight years old, and having maturely rejected, maybe, any thought of second marriage, Lady Dromio had adopted the infant girl who was now Lucy Dromio. Perhaps she judged that a sister might ameliorate the manners of her son; perhaps she merely obeyed an inadequately satisfied maternal instinct. But all that was long ago. And, whatever the bill, Mr Greengrave doubted whether Lucy had filled it. Of necessity she must have been a pig in a poke, her virtues and vices unfolding from an unknown stock. And almost certainly she abundantly if covertly possessed something that had not been desired. Was it passion, or intelligence, or