The Gazebo by Patricia Wentworth

you’re feeling is just what everyone does feel when they’ve been bullied within an inch of their lives or in prison for years, and then quite suddenly there’s an open door in front of them and they are free to walk out? They have only got to take that one step and shut the door behind them, and they are afraid to do it. It’s the common reaction – they think it’s a trap – they think they’ll be caught and brought back again. And they’ve been conditioned to being at someone else’s orders – they can’t face having to take their own decisions and act on their own initiative. Wake up and realize that there’s nothing on earth to stop you from walking out and marrying me!’
    ‘Suppose I did, and suppose she died…’
    ‘Suppose she didn’t do anything of the sort.’
    ‘She might…’
    He said,
    ‘Look here, Allie, you can’t tell me anything about your mother that I don’t know. She was much younger than your father, and she was pretty and he spoiled her. Incidentally, he knew perfectly well what she was like. He tied up the money so that she couldn’t touch it and he left the house to you. Outside his job he let her have her own way. And when he died you took over, only you haven’t got a job to escape into. There isn’t one turn or twist in the game of getting her own way that she hasn’t got at her fingertips, and as long as she has anything to gain by it she’ll use them all.’ He said the last words over again with a heavy emphasis on them – ‘As long as she has anything to gain. But once we are married, Allie, the game will be out of her hands and she’ll know it. If she goes on and throws fits she will only be hurting herself, and as I’ve said before, she is a great deal too fond of herself to do that.’
    Althea listened. She hadn’t looked away. He could see right down into her eyes. The green hangings made them look very green indeed, and the colour had gone out of her face and left her pale. They ought to have run away together seven years ago. They ought never to have let Winifred Graham drive them apart. It wasn’t going to happen again. He laughed and said,
    ‘I’ve got a present for you, my sweet. Wait a minute – it’s in my wallet.’
    He produced the leather case, opened it, took out a paper, and spread it in front of her on the shiny green table.
    ‘Marriage licence.’ He dipped into his waistcoat pocket. A screw of tissue paper came up and was unwrapped. A plain gold ring dropped down upon the licence. ‘Wedding ring,’ he said. ‘Just try it on and see if it fits.’

TWELVE
    MISS SILVER PUT down the letter which she had been reading and turned to the telephone. Since she was sitting at her writing-table, the receiver was conveniently to her hand. She lifted it and heard her own name spoken.
    ‘Is that Miss Maud Silver?’
    ‘Miss Silver speaking.’
    The voice said in rather a hesitating manner,
    ‘I wonder if I could come and see you. Perhaps you will remember talking to me at the Justices’ the other day. I am Sophy’s friend, Althea Graham. You gave me one of your cards…’
    ‘Oh, yes. What can I do to help you?’
    Althea said, ‘I don’t know.’ And then, ‘At least – I hope you don’t mind my troubling you, but would you let me come and see you?’
    Miss Silver said, ‘Certainly.’
    ‘At once — today? I – I’m in town – just round the corner. Would it be all right for me to came now?’
    ‘It would be quite all right.’
    Miss Silver resumed the letter which she had put down in order to answer the telephone. By one of those coincidences which really do happen, it was from her nephew Jim Silver’s wife Dorothy – the same Dorothy Silver whom Sophy Justice had befriended four years ago in Barbados. Jim Silver’s work as an engineer had taken him to the island, and his wife had accompanied him, taking with her what was then her only child, a little boy born after ten years of marriage. Her illness in Barbados had