The Mark-2 Wife Read Free Page B

what the woman thinks,’ said the General loudly, ‘whether it’s ridiculous or not.’ More quietly, Mrs Ritchie added:
    ‘She thinks she has a powerful intuition when all it is is a disease.’
    ‘I’m cross with this Mrs Mackintosh for upsetting you two dear people!’ cried Mrs Lowhr with a shrillness that matched her roundness and her glasses. ‘I really and truly am.’
    A big man came up as she spoke and lifted her into his arms, preparatory to dancing with her. ‘What could anyone do?’ she called back at the Ritchies as the man rotated her away. ‘What can you do for a nervy woman like that?’
    There was dark wallpaper on the walls of the room: black and brown with little smears of muted yellow. The curtains matched it; so did the bedspread on the low single bed, and the covering on the padded headboard. The carpet ran from wall to wall and was black and thick. There was a narrow wardrobe with a door of padded black leather and brass studs and an ornamental brass handle. The dressing-table and the stool in front of it reflected this general motif in different ways. Two shelves, part of the bed, attached to it on either side of the pillows, served as bedside tables: on each there was a lamp, and on one of them a white telephone.
    As Anna closed and locked the door, she felt that in a dream she had been in a dark room in a house where there was a party, waiting for Edward to bring her terrible news. She drank a little whisky and moved towards the telephone. She dialled a number and when a voice answered her call she said:
    ‘Dr Abbatt? It’s Anna Mackintosh.’
    His voice, as always, was so soft she could hardly hear it. ‘Ah, Mrs Mackintosh,’ he said.
    ‘I want to talk to you.’
    ‘Of course, Mrs Mackintosh, of course. Tell me now.’
    ‘I’m at a party given by people called Lowhr. Edward was to be here but he didn’t turn up. I was all alone and then two old people like scarecrows talked to me. They said their name was Ritchie. And a man ate my hair when we were dancing. The Lowhrs smiled at that.’
    ‘I see. Yes?’
    ‘I’m in a room at the top of the house. I’ve locked the door.’
    ‘Tell me about the room, Mrs Mackintosh.’
    ‘There’s black leather on the wardrobe and the dressing-table. Curtains and things match. Dr Abbatt?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘The Ritchies are people who injure other people, I think. Intentionally or unintentionally, it never matters.’
    ‘They are strangers to you, these Ritchies?’
    ‘They attempted to mock me. People know at this party, Dr Abbatt; they sense what’s going to happen because of how I look.’
    Watching for her to come downstairs, the Ritchies stood in the hall and talked to one another.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Mrs Ritchie. ‘I know it would be nicer to go home.’
    ‘What can we do, old sticks like us? We know not a thing about such women. It’s quite absurd.’
    ‘The woman’s on my mind, dear. And on yours too. You know it.’
    ‘I think she’ll be more on our minds if we come across her again. She’ll turn nasty, I’ll tell you that.’
    ‘Yes, but it would please me to wait a little.’
    ‘To be insulted,’ said the General.
    ‘Oh, do stop being so cross, dear.’
    ‘The woman’s a stranger to us. She should regulate her life and have done with it. She has no right to bother people.’
    ‘She is a human being in great distress. No, don’t say anything, please, if it isn’t pleasant.’
    The General went into a sulk, and at the end of it he said grudgingly:
    ‘Trixie Flyte was nothing.’
    ‘Oh, I know. Trixie Flyte is dead and done for years ago. I didn’t worry like this woman if that’s what’s on your mind.’
    ‘It wasn’t,’ lied the General. ‘The woman worries ridiculously.’
    ‘I think, you know, we may yet be of use to her: I have a feeling about that.’
    ‘For God’s sake, leave the feelings to her. We’ve had enough of that for one day.’
    ‘As I said to her, we’re not entirely useless. No