"Paul J. McAuley - Inheritance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

 When the other passengers carried the injured away from the wreck, the
squire told his tenants that they were not to go near. 'Let them use
their
blasted railway to save themselves,' he's supposed to have said. Well,
it
was more than two hours before a relief train arrived, and by that time
many had died who might otherwise have lived. You can see where they're
buried, in the churchyard. The squire tried to prevent that, too, but
the
diocese overruled him. Two graves under the old yew hold bodies that
never
were identified, a man and a woman. They say you can see them on the
anniversary of the accident, searching the track."
Tolley smiled. "And have you seen them?"
"I wouldn't go near there on that night, or any other. It's a sad place
at
the best of times. I have a feeling of something in need, not at rest."
Gerald Beaumont said, "I'm not given to believing in ghosts and such
myself, but it's true that Marjory fainted there once, won't go there
again."
"It's the woman, I expect," Marjory Beaumont said softly, as if to
herself. "It usually is."
Her husband said, "You didn't know about this, Professor Tolley?"
"Not a thing. My grandfather never said a word about what happened to
the
manor house. That he came from Steeple Heyston, I know only because my
father saved his naturalisation papers. That's about all he left the
family."
There had been money, but most of it had been squandered before Tolley
had
been born, the rest lost in the Wall Street Crash. All Tolley had
inherited was an appetite for luxury and a careless attitude towards
money; his ex-wife's accusations of profligate spending had stung when
her
other charges had not because Tolley knew that it was true. He had
always
wanted more than he could afford.
"Do you know what happened after the accident? No? It seems," Gerald
Beaumont said, "that ten years after, there was a great fire in the
manor
house, and at the same time the mill burned down, too. That was the
only
reason the village existed, the manor house and the mill, and the
people
drifted away afterwards."
"I guess that was when my family came to the States. My grandfather was
about eighteen then. Don't know anything about his father: he would be
your squire, right?"
Abruptly, Marjory Beaumont got to her feet. "I'll make another pot of
tea.