Susan shook her head.
“I don’t think so. There was a squiggle down in the corner of the last page which I couldn’t quite read, but I thought it was only some more about one of the kittens which had turned out quite unexpectedly good so she had changed its name from Smut to Lucifer. Edward, you don’t mean to say your Uncle Arnold didn’t do anything about it? When he found you weren’t dead?”
“He did not.”
“But couldn’t he be made to? Mr. Random would never have left you out of his will if he hadn’t thought you were dead.”
“And how does one prove what a dead man would or wouldn’t have done? We had had a colossal row, and he did change his will. Those are facts, and the law has a stupid affection for facts.”
“When did he change it-when you went away, or when he thought that you were dead?”
Just for a moment he looked at her with anger. Then he laughed and said,
“Never you mind, my child! And I’m not washing the family linen in public either. It may be dirty, and I think we’ll keep it at home.”
It was so much what he might have said to the schoolgirl of five years ago that it took her aback. She ought to have remembered to go on holding her tongue, but she hadn’t, and he had snubbed her. And instead of really minding, it felt quite natural. She coloured, but she laughed too, and said a little ruefully,
“I’m sorry-it just slipped out.”
All at once there was a warm, comfortable feeling between them. He remembered that there had always been something rather comfortable about Susan. It might be boring in the long run. He wondered whether it would be. It might, but then on the other hand it mightn’t. He found himself saying,
“You really haven’t changed a lot.”
“Nor have you. I said so at once.”
The frown had come down again.
“Most people would say I had changed considerably.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t believe people really do. Sometimes one bit comes to the top and you see more of it than you used to, but that isn’t really a change. Apples don’t turn into pears, or raspberries into plums. People have their own special flavours, and I think they keep them.”
He said,
“Sour grapes and rotten medlars! Perhaps you are right. I must warn you that I am definitely in the medlar category. Even your blameless reputation may be damaged if we arrive practically hand in hand. You see, I haven’t been able to account at all satisfactorily for those four and a half years, and I understand from Emmeline that there are a number of exciting stories going round. It distresses her, I’m afraid, but there isn’t anything I can do about it.”
“You could say where you were.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t bear talking about.” That brittle voice again.
Something hurt Susan at her heart. Brittle things break.
But he went on.
“The favourite theory seems to be that I was in prison under a false name, but there are some quite good variants in which I fly the country because I’ve killed a man in a duel, or have been turned out of my club for cheating at cards.”
Susan said, “I wish you would talk sense!” Her tone was downright and a little angry.
“Too much trouble. Burlingham’s a brave man, isn’t he? He really is offering me the agency, you know. And that’s not a confidence, because if he told Emmeline, everyone within twenty miles or so will have heard all about it. And that means my Uncle Arnold-which is probably why Burlingham did it.”
She said,
“That sounds-horrid.”
“Just a plain sequence. Arnold loves me-Burlingham loves Arnold -how pleased Arnold will be to know that Burlingham is giving me a job that will ensure my being right under his nose. Since the estates march, there’s quite a chance of Arnold running into me any day of the week, even if I don’t stay on with Emmeline.”
Susan said bluntly, “You mean Arnold doesn’t like you, and Lord Burlingham doesn’t like Arnold.”
Edward burst out laughing. “You’ve got it in one!”
CHAPTER III
Emmeline Random was giving a tea-party. When Susan Wayne came in the room appeared to be already quite full of people, but then it was so full of other things to start with that there wasn’t as much space for the human visitor as there might have been if Emmeline and her drawing-room had been different. For one thing, it wasn’t really a drawing-room. It had begun life as the front parlour of the south lodge at the Hall, and when Emmeline was left a widow her brother-in-law, James Random, installed her there. He gave the parlour a bay window, and since she had always been accustomed to a drawing-room, it never occurred to her to call it anything else. The bay window certainly let in a good deal more light. It had also made it possible to admit the cottage piano with green silk flutings which she had inherited from her grandmother. But it did not really increase the wall space, which was a good deal taken up with ancestral portraits of a rather dark and forbidding nature. There was an Admiral whose features could hardly be distinguished from the maroon curtain against which he stood. There was a lady in black velvet and black ringlets whose features could not really be distinguished at all. They were Emmeline’s great-grandparents, and she was very proud of them, because the Admiral had served with Nelson and was reputed to have had a better command of forcible language than anyone in the British Navy either before or since.
Jonathan Random, her late husband, whose portrait occupied the place of honour on the jutting chimney-breast was neither dark nor forbidding. He smiled upon the room in the same charming manner in which he had smiled his way through life. He had been fifty when Emmeline married him, and he had never managed either to make or to keep any money. If he had lived a year or two longer, Emmeline would not have had any money either. As it was, there remained a pittance, and the hospitality of the south lodge, where she had now been living for so long that she quite felt as if it belonged to her.
She was a small, slight person with a quantity of fair hair which was turning grey and a sweet inconsequent manner. Her finely arched eyebrows enhanced the effect of a pair of misty blue eyes. When Edward was about seven he had once remarked, “It’s there, but she sees through it.” Pressed as to what he meant, he had burst out indignantly, “The mist of course! It’s there, but it doesn’t stop her seeing things!”
A great deal had happened since Edward was seven years old. James Random had gone the way of Jonathan, and Arnold reigned at the Hall in his stead. There had been a world war, and an air raid which had killed Mr. Plowden’s prize pig and a cherished cat belonging to Dr. Croft’s housekeeper. Edward grew up, and when the war was over he took a course in estate management. Then he fell in love with Verona Grey, had a furious row with his Uncle James, and was seen no more in Greenings. He did not come back, and according to the postmistress he did not write. Emmeline cried a good deal, and comforted herself with cats. She would rather have been making believe that Edward’s children were her own grandchildren, but you must have something, and kittens were better than not having anything at all. At least there were always plenty of them.
After what seemed like a very long time there was a report that Edward was dead. It was quite circumstantial, and James Random believed it. He told Emmeline that he had talked with a man who had seen Edward lying dead, but he wouldn’t tell her anything more than that. He said it would only distress her. And then he went away very grave and shocked, and made the will which left everything to his brother Arnold. He had been dead six months when Edward Random came back, walking in upon Emmeline in the late dusk of a winter evening and telling her nothing. She cried a great deal, but she didn’t ask any questions-she didn’t really want to. He had been away and he had come back, he had been hurt and he must be comforted. It was enough. She was therefore able to meet the storm of questioning that broke upon her with an invariable “My dear, I really don’t know.” And since this was a bedrock fact, it did ultimately put the questioners to silence -that is, as far as Emmeline was concerned.