If anything, you feel as anyone can do anything. And anyway, there’s that nice couple, the General and his wife, out for a nice walk in the evening, and there they were, both shot through the head.” “Was it through the head?” “Well, I don’t remember exactly now and of course I never saw anything myself. But anyway, just went for a walk as they often did.” “And they’d not been on bad terms with each other?” “Well, they had words now and again, but who doesn’t?” “No boy friend or girl friend?” “Well, if you can use that term of people of that age, oh, I mean there was a bit of talk here and there, but it was all nonsense. Nothing to it at all. People always want to say something of that kind.” “Perhaps one of them was—ill.” “Well, Lady Ravenscroft had been up to London once or twice consulting a doctor about something and I rather think she was going into hospital, or planning to go into hospital for an operation of some kind, though she never told me exactly what it was. But I think they managed to put her right—she was in this hospital for a short time. No operation, I think.
And when she came back, she looked very much younger.
Altogether, she’d had a lot of face treatment and you know, she looked so pretty in these wigs with curls on them. Rather as though she’d got a new lease of life.” “And General Ravenscroft?” “He was a very nice gentleman and I never heard or knew of any scandal about him and I don’t think there was any.
People say things, but then they want to say something when there’s been a tragedy of any kind. It seems to me perhaps as he might have had a blow on the head in India or something like that, I had an uncle or a great-uncle, you know, who fell off his horse there once. Hit it on a cannon or something and he was very queer afterwards. All right for about six months and then they had to put him into an asylum because he wanted to take his wife’s life the whole time. He said she was persecuting him and following him and that she was a spy for another nation. Ah, there’s no saying what things happen or can happen in families.” “Anyway, you don’t think there was any truth in some of the stories about them that I have happened to hear of, bad feeling between them so that one of them shot the other and then shot himself or herself?” “Oh, no, I don’t.” “Were her children at home at the time?” “No. Miss–er–oh, what was her name now, Rosie? No.
Penelope?” “Celia,” said Mrs. Oliver. “She’s my goddaughter.” “Oh, of course she is. Yes, I know that now. I remember you coming and taking her out once. She was a high-spirited girl, rather bad-tempered in some ways, but she was very fond of her father and mother, I think. No, she was away at a school in Switzerland when it happened. I’m glad to say, because it would have been a terrible shock to her if she’d been at home and the one who saw them.” “And there was a boy, too, wasn’t there?” “Oh, yes. Master Edward. His father was a bit worried about him, I think. He looked as though he disliked his father.” “Oh, there’s nothing in that. Boys go through that stage, I think. Was he very devoted to his mother?” “Well, she fussed over him a bit too much, I think, which he found tiresome. You know, they don’t like a mother fussing over them, telling them to wear thicker vests or put an extra pullover on. His father, he didn’t like the way he wore his hair. It was–well, they weren’t wearing hair like the way they are nowadays, but they were beginning to, if you know what I mean.” “But the boy wasn’t at home at the time of the tragedy?” “No.” “I suppose it was a shock to him?” “Well, it must have been. Of course, I wasn’t going to the house any more at that time, so I didn’t hear so much. If you ask me, I didn’t like that gardener. What was his name now– Fred, I think. Fred Wizell. Some name like that. Seems to me if he’d done a bit of–well, a bit of cheating or something like that and the General had found him out and was going to sack him, I wouldn’t put it past him.” “To shoot the husband and wife?” “Well, I’d have thought it more likely he’d just have shot the General. If he shot the General and the wife came along, then he’d have had to shoot her, too. You read things like that in books.” “Yes,” said Mrs. Oliver thoughtfully, “one does read all sorts of things in books.” “There was the tutor. I didn’t like him much.” “What tutor?” “Well, there was a tutor for the boy earlier. You know, he couldn’t pass an exam and things at the earlier school he was at–prep school or something. So they had a tutor for him. He was there for about a year, I think. Lady Ravenscroft liked him very much. She was musical, you know, and so was this tutor. Mr. Edmunds, I think his name was. Rather a nambypamby sort of young man, I thought myself, and it’s my opinion that General Ravenscroft didn’t care for him much.” “But Mrs. Ravenscroft did.” “Oh, they had a lot in common, I think. And I think she was the one really that chose him rather more than the General, Mind you, he had very nice manners and spoke to everyone nicely and all that–” “And did–what’shis-name?” “Edward? Oh, yes, he liked him all right, I think. In fact, he was quite a bit soft on him, I think. Almost a bit of hero worship. Anyway, don’t you believe any stories you hear about scandals in the family or her having an affair with anyone or General Ravenscroft with that rather pie-faced girl who did filing work for him and all that sort of thing. No.