Judy said, “Is that all?”
There was a little scorn in her voice. It got him on the raw. He said more than he had meant to say.
“Roger doesn’t believe his father’s death was an accident.”
“Why doesn’t he?”
Frank’s shoulder jerked.
“Old Pilgrim went for a ride and never came back. They found him with a broken neck. The mare came home in a lather, and the old groom says there was a thorn under the saddle-but as they’d come down in a brier patch there’s a perfectly believable explanation. Only that makes rather a lot of things to explain, don’t you think? I don’t want you to go there.”
He saw her frown, but there was no anger in her eyes.
“It’s not so easy, you know. Everyone says there are millions of jobs, but there aren’t-not with Penny. Even now people don’t want a child in the house-you’d think you were asking if you could bring a tiger. And then a lot of them seem to think I couldn’t have Penny if she wasn’t mine. When I tell them about Nora and John they get a kind of we’ve-heard-that-tale-before look. I was just beginning to think I should have to go round with Nora’s marriage lines and Penny’s birth-certificate and even then they’d have gone on believing the worst, when I saw Miss Pilgrim’s advertisement and answered it. And I liked her, and it’s a nice safe village. And anyhow I couldn’t back out at the last minute. We’re going down there tomorrow. It’s no good, Frank.”
He found himself accepting that. It laid a burden on his spirits.
Judy pushed back her chair and got up.
“Nice of you to care and all that.” Her tone, casual again, indicated that the subject was now closed.
As they cleared away and washed up together, the sense of pull and strain was gone. Presently she was asking him about the people at Holt St. Agnes-about his cousins, and he was offering to write and tell them she was going to Pilgrim’s Rest. And then,
“You’ll like Lesley Freyne. She’s right in the village, only a stone’s throw from the Pilgrims. Both the houses are right on the village street. She’s a good sort.”
“Who is she-one of your cousins?”
“No-the local heiress. Rather shy and not very young. Pots of money and a big house. She’s got about twenty evacuees there. She was going to marry a cousin of the Pilgrims, but it never came off-”
He had nearly stumbled into telling her about Henry Clayton, but he caught himself in time. She would only think he was piling it on, and it was, of course, quite irrelevant. He changed the subject abruptly.
“If by any chance a Miss Silver turns up, either in the house or in the village, I’d like you to know that she’s a very particular friend of mine.”
Judy gave him a bright smile.
“How nice. Do tell me all about her. Who is she?”
Frank was to all appearance himself again. His eye had a quizzical gleam, and his voice its negligent drawl as he replied,
“She is the one and only. I sit at her feet and adore. You will too, I expect.”
Judy felt this to be extremely unlikely, but she went on smiling in an interested manner whilst Frank continued his panegyric.
“Her name is Maud-same as in Tennyson’s poetry, which she fervently admires. If you so far forget yourself as to put an ‘e’ on to it, she will forgive you in time because she has a kind heart and very high principles, but it will take some doing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Maudie. I love her passionately. She used to be a governess, but now she is a private detective. She can’t really be a contemporary of Lord Tennyson’s, but she manages to produce that effect. I’ve told Roger to go and see her, so she may be coming down, and if she does, I shall feel a lot happier. Only you don’t know anything, remember. She may be just an ordinary visitor taking a holiday in the village or anything, so not a word to a soul. But if she’s there, you’ll have someone to hold on to.”
Judy swished water into the washing-up bowl and stuck her chin in the air.
chapter 3
Miss Silver was inclined to see the hand of Providence in trifles. Her first contact with the Pilgrim case occurred when she had just finished working out a new and elaborate stitch for the jumper which she intended for her niece Ethel’s birthday. This she regarded as providential, for though she could, and did, knit her way serenely through all the complications which murder produces, she found it difficult to concentrate upon a really elaborate new pattern at the same time. Ethel Burkett’s annual jumper provided sufficient mental exercise without being brought into competition with a criminal case.
She was considering her good fortune in having obtained this excellent pre-war wool. So soft-such a lovely shade of blue-and no coupons, since it had been produced from a box in the Vicarage attics by Miss Sophy Fell, who had pressed, positively pressed, it on her. And it had been very carefully put away with camphor, so it was as good as on the somewhat distant day when it had been spun.
She had all her stitches on the needles, and the pattern well fixed in her mind, when her front door bell rang and Emma Meadows announced Major Pilgrim. She saw a slight, dark young man with a sallow complexion and a worried frown.
On his side Roger Pilgrim was at once reminded of his aunts. Not that Miss Silver resembled any of them in person, but she and her surroundings appeared to be of approximately the same vintage. His Aunt Millicent, who was as a matter of fact a great-aunt, possessed some curly walnut chairs which were the spit and image of those adorning Miss Silver’s flat-waists, and bow legs, and tight upholstery- only the stuff on Aunt Milly’s had once been green, whilst Miss Silver’s were quite freshly covered in rather a bright shade of blue. Both ladies crowded every available inch of mantelshelf and table-top-Miss Silver’s writing-table excluded-with photographs in archaic silver frames. His Aunt Tina had clung for years to very similar flowered wallpaper, and possessed at least two of the pictures which confronted him as he entered-Bubbles and The Black Brunswicker. But the frames of Aunt Tina’s were brown, whilst these were of the shiny yellow maple so dear to the Victorian age.
Miss Silver herself added to the homely effect. His old Cousin Connie also wore her hair in a curled fringe after the fashion set by Queen Alexandra in the late years of the previous century. Aunt Collie’s stockings were of a similar brand of black ribbed wool. For the rest, Miss Silver was herself-a little governessy person with neat features and a lot of grey-brown hair very strictly controlled by a net. It being three o’clock in the afternoon, she was wearing a pre-war dress of olive-green cashmere with a little boned lace front, very fresh and clean. A pair of pince-nez on a fine gold chain was looped up and fastened on the left side by a bar brooch set with pearls. She also wore a row of bog-oak beads ingeniously carved, and a large brooch of the same material in the shape of a rose, with an Irish pearl at its heart. Nothing could have felt less like a visit to a private detective.
Miss Silver, having shaken hands and indicated a chair, bestowed upon him the kind, impersonal smile with which she would in earlier days have welcomed a new and nervous pupil. Twenty years as a governess had set their mark upon her. In the most improbable surroundings she conjured up the safe, humdrum atmosphere of the schoolroom. Her voice preserved its note of mild but unquestioned authority. She said,
“What can I do for you, Major Pilgrim?”
He was facing the light. Not in uniform. A well-cut suit, not too new. He wore glasses-large round ones with tortoise-shell rims. Behind them his dark eyes had a worried look. Her own went to his hands, and saw them move restlessly on the shiny walnut carving which emerged from the padded arms of the Victorian chair.