[Mrs Bradley 55] - Nest of Vipers

famous Surrey witch who lived in a cave near Farnham. Her dog was so lazy that it even rested its head against the wall to bark.'
'My home was in Surrey,' said Niobe, laughing. 'But,' she added, sobering down, 'what are we to do about these letters?'
'So far as you and I are concerned, I don't propose to give in to anonymous rubbish,' I said, laughing in my turn. 'But we'd better find out whether the letters are a nuisance to any of the others, or whether you and I are especially favoured.'
We soon knew the answer to that one. Billie came to me and said that she and Elysée would be giving up their tenancy. I referred her to Niobe, who pointed out that they had signed a three-year lease.
'Although actually,' Niobe said to me privately, 'I think we ought to let them go. They're rather an embarrassing couple, aren't they?'
'I don't find them so. Very nice girls. As for their little idiosyncrasy, well, there are plenty of others like them, especially in these days, as people are beginning to find out.'
'Personally I haven't much use for Women's Lib, and a misogynist like you wouldn't give a hoot how offensive to others their conduct is, so long as neither of them makes a pass at you,' said Niobe bitterly.
'But their conduct isn't offensive. They're most discreet,' I said. 'As for Elysée, I get the impression that, if the right chap came along, she would ditch Billie like a pair of laddered tights.' (I was rather proud of this simile, as you will have noticed.)
'I don't believe it! I'll tell them they can go, then, shall I?' Niobe asked.
'Did they mention any letters?' (I suppose the conclusion I jumped to was the obvious one.)
'No, only the ghost, but it's really the letters, I'm sure. They're bound to have had at least one. After all, they're pretty vulnerable, aren't they?'
'What, in these days? Still, if they want to leave, that's that.'
So the two quietest and best-behaved (so far as I was concerned) of our tenants took their leave of us, and their modest apartment on the second floor remained empty. What is more, the anonymous letters ceased as soon as Billie and Elysée had gone.
'So we were wrong in suspecting Miss Minnie, it seems,' said Niobe. 'It was those two little misfits who wrote them.'
'I don't believe it,' I said, 'You yourself thought that some of the letters came to them as well as to us, and that was the reason for their leaving.'
'Oh, anonymous letter-writers always include themselves. I thought everybody knew that.'
'Maybe, but people who live in glass houses don't throw stones at their own dwellings. There's still plenty of prejudice against emotional friendships between women.'
'Only the other day you denied all that. What a turncoat you are. What with the witch's dog and an altered proverb, I really am learning things this week!' said Niobe.(3)
You must not think, Dame Beatrice, that this account covers only a few days, There were quite long gaps between one happening and the next, and I suppose more than six weeks elapsed between the episode of the notepaper heading and the departure of Miss Kennett and Miss Barnes.
Niobe had asked them to let her have their new address so that she could send on any letters which came for them, but I suppose they had already notified the Post Office, for none of their correspondence turned up, and neither did they leave a forwarding address.
The next couple to go were Sumatra and Irelath, but although they departed from Weston Pipers at the end of September, they paid six months' rent in advance, asked for their apartment to be dusted and aired periodically, and promised to return in the following March. Irelath was to lecture in the United States and Sumatra resigned from her job in order to accompany him. could only suppose that his Canadian I father's money was grafting the trip, for Irelath was so very minor a poet, so far as his published work was concerned, that it was impossible to believe that he had been selected on his merits.
My novel matured slowly. As I finished each chapter Niobe typed it for me. She had invested in a new typewriter for the purpose because, she said, it was unsuitable that deathless prose such as mine should be typed on a ten-year-old machine. That would do for making out receipts to the tenants for their rent and lists for the tradespeople, but not for my novel. Whether she was serious in her stated admiration for my work, or whether she simply wanted a new toy to play with, I did not enquire. I subbed up for the typewriter and I must say that she made my chapters look very attractive indeed, so much so that I began to admire them myself and felt that, given beginner's luck, publication ceased to be problematical and was a near-certainty.
So matters went on for a month or two. The sea became colder, my swims from our strip of beach less frequent, the tenants, as the soldier said of the camp-following prostitutes, became more and more like old war-comrades and we all settled down to winter in. The house was snug and comfortable, for Niobe had installed a splendid central-heating system and had provided electric fires as well. The tenants' excursions up to town to harry their publishers and abuse their literary agents became as infrequent as my dips in the sea and, except for some unexplained excursions into the town, everybody stayed put, although harmony did not always prevail. I was aware of undercurrents.
My novel reached the halfway stage and sometimes I wondered why on earth I had ever begun it. At about this time - I can't remember the exact date - the weather turned wet and Constance Kent hit Evesham Evans over the head with a bottle with (according to his account) no justification whatever. He had to have four stitches in the cut. Polly