“My darling child, the ship isn’t a total wreck. There are some survivors-you, for instance, and I. Is it necessary for you to look at me as if we were not only dead but buried? Snap out of it! How did you leave the other survivors?”
He was pleased to observe that a little of her colour came back. She said in a hurry,
“I’m sorry-I don’t mean to do it. If my eyes were blue it would be all right.”
“Darling, you’d look foul with blue eyes.”
“I know. But I shouldn’t give people the pip when I looked at them. I’m always getting told about it, and it’s so difficult to remember.”
Antony laughed.
“I shouldn’t worry. It’s the clutch-at-the-heartstrings touch that does us in. Nobody really likes having their heartstrings clutched. An occasional smile assists us to bear up. Try it! How’s Jimmy?”
She answered with relief.
“Oh, definitely better. He isn’t going to keep Lois’ money, you know.”
“I didn’t think he would.”
“No. He’s written to the solicitors and told them to make arrangements for handing it back to the Doubledays as soon as they get probate. That’s set him up a lot. And then Minnie’s awfully good with him. She keeps flying to him with things which can’t possibly be decided without the superior male intelligence-new washers for the bathroom taps, how to word an advertisement for a butler, how much extra on the laundry bill is five per cent, and will he please come at once and remove the largest spider ever from the sink in the housemaid’s cupboard, because Mrs. Huggins has gone, and she and Ellie just can’t cope. It’s what she used to do, and it’s frightfully good for him. Of course he ought to have married her years ago.”
“I don’t suppose he ever thought of it.”
“I’m sure he didn’t. But just think what a lot we’d all have been saved if he had. This time, I don’t mind telling you, I’m going to make it my business to see that he does think.”
Antony laughed, but he didn’t stop frowning.
“You’d better leave them alone.”
“Oh, I shan’t do anything yet. They’ll be all right as long as Ellie and Ronnie are there, but when it comes to Ronnie going off to his job and Ellie going with him, then someone will have to point out to Jimmy that Minnie can’t possibly stop on and keep house for him. Too, too compromising.”
“Rubbish!”
“Oh, no-not in a village. Besides, all that matters is that Jimmy should be induced to think. She’ll make him frightfully happy, and he deserves something to make up for all this. So does she.”
“Women haven’t any consciences at all. All they think about is getting the wretched man where they want him- in the bag.”
“It’s an awfully nice bag,” said Julia, her voice deep and soft.
“Oh, yes-that’s the way you get us into it. All the comforts of home and a ring through the nose-a nice strong, unbreakable wedding ring. You’ve had millions of years of practice, and you’re awfully good at it, darling.”
When Antony said “darling” something took hold of Julia’s heart and twisted it. The pain made her sit up straight and say,
“Well, I haven’t a bag, and I haven’t a ring-your nose is perfectly safe. And the sooner you tell everybody that we’re disengaged, the better I shall be pleased.”
Antony put up a finger.
“Temper, darling! Always count up to a hundred before you speak. It may slow conversation down a little, but all the best medical authorities agree that our lives are shortened by the fevered rush of the machine age.”
“In spite of which everyone lives a great deal longer than they used to. Do you know that Mr. Pickwick was only forty-three, and they all talk about him as a dear old gentleman?”
“Darling, this is not a Dickens Society. And we are not discussing Mr. Pickwick. At the moment when you dragged him across the trail I was about to go down gracefully on one knee and ask you to name the day. After which you would of course blush becomingly, swoon gracefully, and recover sufficiently to consult an almanac.”
So far from blushing, Julia was quite monumentally pale. She said,
“I wish you would stop talking nonsense. There is no point in our going on pretending to be engaged.”
Antony agreed cheerfully.
“None whatever. Engagements are damnable anyhow. I don’t think you’ve been attending, darling. I wasn’t asking you to go on being engaged, I was asking you to marry me.”
Her eyes were turned on him with a flash of anger.
“And I was telling you that I simply won’t go on with this pretence any longer! I wouldn’t have done it for anyone but Jimmy!”
He met the flash with rather a searching look.
“Oh, it was for Jimmy, was it?”
“You know it was! And there’s no need for it any longer, so will you please let everybody know.”
He leaned forward, his hands clasped about his knee.
“Are you supposed to have jilted me, or am I supposed to have jilted you? I’d better know, hadn’t I?”
Julia said, in a composed voice,
“Neither. We’re breaking it off because 1 think being married would interfere with my writing. But of course we’re going to go on being friends.”
Antony burst out laughing.
“The great Career motif! Darling, it’s quite dreadfully out of date. The modern woman can take a husband, several careers, a family, and a staffless home all in her stride, without turning a hair. But I think we’d better have a service flat-I seem to remember Manny being rude about your cooking.”
“I do all the right things, but it turns out like lead,” said Julia gloomily. “Look here, Antony, it’s no good dodging I won’t go on with this sham.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he came nearer and took her hands. She had said that she was hot, but he found them icy cold. He held them rather hard and said,
“What about the real thing, Julia?”
Where Julia got enough breath from, she had no idea, but she said,
“No.”
“Is that for me, or for you?”
She said, “Both.”
Because everything in her was shaking, the word shook too. She jerked at her hands to get them away, and he let them go.
“You don’t love me? Or I don’t love you?”
“We don’t-neither of us does-”
“Darling, you lie in your teeth! I love you-very much. Didn’t you know?”
“You don’t!”
“Don’t I? Do you remember, I asked you what you would say if I told you I loved you passionately. All right, I’m telling you now. I love you-passionately-and every other way. If you weren’t colossally stupid you’d have known without my telling you. Come here and stop talking!”
It was some time later that she said in a protesting voice,
“You simply haven’t bothered to ask me whether I care for you. Perhaps I don’t.”
“Then you oughtn’t to be letting me kiss you.”
“Don’t you want to know?”
Antony kissed her.
“Darling, I’m not colossally stupid.”
Patricia Wentworth
Born in Mussoorie, India, in 1878, Patricia Wentworth was the daughter of an English general. Educated in England, she returned to India, where she began to write and was first published. She married, but in 1906 was left a widow with four children, and returned again to England where she resumed her writing, this time to earn a living for herself and her family. She married again in 1920 and lived in Surrey until her death in 1961.
Miss Wentworth’s early works were mainly historical fiction, and her first mystery, published in 1923, was The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith. In 1928 she wrote The Case Is Closed and gave birth to her most enduring creation, Miss Maud Silver.
