Free The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R. A. Dick

keep on her feet, and tripped over hidden roots and into bramble bushes, and finally into a stream, coming home wet to the skin.
    “Did you go with them?” asked Lucy accusingly when the captain came to visit her that evening.
    “I did,” he said, “I pushed her in. What an ungentle manly thing to do, but there are no gentlemen and ladies after death.”
    “Only saints and schoolboys, it seems,” said Lucy severely. “Heaven wouldn’t seem to have done much for you though you’ve been there twelve years.”
    “I keep telling you that there is no time in this life,” said the captain, “and that I am not a perfect specimen of an after-lifer, since half my time is spent here. But don’t let’s argue about that; our job at present is to get rid of Eva and live in peace again.”
    Eva was made of tough fibre and it took another ten days to dislodge her, and there was a scene, so much dreaded by Lucy, before she left.
    “You are mad to stay in this exposed house for the winter,” Eva said as she and Lucy sat over a fire in the sitting-room after dinner.
    Though the coals glowed redly, a most inexplicable column of smoke poured into Eva’s face wherever she sat, making her cough and shed tears. She had rheumatism in her knees and a cold in her head, and was very angry with herself, and Lucy, and life.
    “Look at me,” she went on crossly, “aching in every joint—and I am never ill at home.”
    Lucy said nothing with such significance that it penetrated even through Eva’s insensitiveness.
    “Yes, I will go there, and what’s more, I’ll stay there,” she snapped. “You’ll have to go on your bended knees ever to get me to visit you in this benighted house again, and if you all die of pneumonia this winter, don’t blame me.”
    “The place seems to suit us, we are very well here,” said Lucy, trying not to sound too complacent as a fresh cloud of smoke poured over her sister-in-law.
    “Wait,” gasped Eva, “wait—in the meantime I will be making enquiries about inexpensive flats in Whitchester.”
    “For whom?” asked Lucy.
    “For you, when you come to your senses,” replied Eva.
    “I have come to them,” said Lucy quietly.
    “Thoroughly selfish, that’s what you’ve become,” said Eva.
    “Why?” asked Lucy, bending over the sock she was darning to hide her flushing cheeks. If only she could argue with Eva without all this heat and physical agitation! “Why am I selfish? Just because I am living as I like at last?”
    “You have always lived as you liked,” declared Eva.
    “No,” said Lucy swiftly, “I’ve lived as Edwin liked and his mother liked, and as you and Helen liked. Now at last I am going to be myself.”
    “In spite of your poor children’s health and happiness,” said Eva hotly.
    “Because of it,” said Lucy. “I want them to grow up with a true sense of values, and we are quite healthy here, and very happy when we are alone.”
    “When you are
alone
—I see,” said Eva. “Well, I can take a hint better than most people, sensitive as I am. You want me to go—don’t deny it—you want to be rid of your own husband’s sister—don’t deny it, I say.”
    Lucy said nothing, sitting over her darning, her fingers trembling so that the needle shook in her hands.
    “Don’t deny it,” shouted Eva for the third time, losing all control.
    “I am not denying it,” said Lucy very quietly.
    For a moment Eva stared at her in such astonishment that Lucy herself could scarcely believe that she had found the courage to say such wounding words. “I’m sorry, Eva,” she said impulsively, “but it’s true—you can’t live other people’s lives for them. Go home and make something worth while of your own.”
    “Oh, I’ll go,” said Eva, bundling her knitting together, rising to her feet and striding to the door, “I’ll go by the very first train in the morning.”
    I wish that I didn’t feel so mean, said Lucy to herself as she leaned on her window-sill