“You must not think,” she said, “that Jenny would be alone here- oh dear me, no! We should have seen to that, I can assure you. I am quite prepared to come myself. Jenny knows that she can rely upon her old friends.”
“I am sure she can. But it won’t be necessary for you to put yourself out. I can stay as long as she needs me.”
Miss Crampton plunged into a series of questions. Where was Alan? Had they heard from him? Did they know where to send a wire? Did they know why Mac had shot himself?
“I never was more shocked in my life. I was in the post office, and Mrs. Boddles gave me the dreadful news. I could really hardly believe it. Such a fine young man. Ah well, it just shows that you can’t ever tell, doesn’t it? You must have come away in a great hurry, Jenny.”
“We came as soon as we heard,” said Jenny.
“Oh, yes, yes-of course.”
“It was the little girls,” said Jenny. “I had to come to them. And Miss Danesworth and Richard wouldn’t let me come alone.”
“Richard Forbes?” said Miss Crampton. “Ah, yes-he would be the son of those people who were killed in an air raid-oh, a long time ago. They were cousins or something.”
“Mrs. Forbes was my sister,” said Miss Danesworth.
“Oh, yes, I believe she was. He’s your nephew then. He would have been very much shocked by Miriam’s death, no doubt. I do not remember if I ever saw her, though of course I remember her mother. She was a sort of third cousin-you know how it was when families were so big. I wrote to her, but I have not had a reply. People are very careless about those sort of things nowadays. My dear father was most severe about it. ‘It is the very least you can do to answer all letters of condolence promptly,’ he used to say, and I have always done so. But Grace Richardson, I remember, was inclined to give way. It comes out at times like this.”
At this point Richard opened the door and looked in. At the sight of Miss Crampton, very stiff and upright in her black clothes, he was visibly shaken, but seeing that there was no help for it, he advanced, was introduced, and shook hands. Miss Crampton looked him over, and exclaimed,
“What an extraordinary likeness!”
Miss Danesworth smiled.
“To the portrait in the hall?” she said. “Yes, he is like it. He has the same name too-Richard Alington Forbes. Likenesses are strange things, are they not?”
“They are indeed,” said Miss Crampton.
She seemed a little shaken by the likeness and kept on looking at Richard. When she got up to go she held his hand a little longer than was usual.
“I can’t get over it,” she said. “You’re so like-so very like. I don’t mean just the portrait in the hall, though you are like that too. But it is Jenny’s father to whom the likeness is stronger. It is really very strong indeed-quite upsetting. Well, I must be going. You will let me know if there is anything I can do to help you.”
She went out by the front door, and they saw her go. She walked with a lagging step and with less than her usual briskness.
“What did she mean?” said Jenny, looking after her with troubled eyes.
“I think perhaps she was fond of your father,” said Miss Danesworth.
Chapter XLIV
Miss Silver sat in the train. She was on her way to Colborough. By her side sat Mrs. Pratt, a wan and tearful figure, and opposite them Dicky in a high state of excitement and good spirits.
“You be careful, Dicky-you be very careful,” said Mrs. Pratt. She pressed a damp screwed-up handkerchief first into her right eye and then her left.
Miss Silver intervened.
“Now, Mrs. Pratt, there is no occasion for you to distress yourself.”
“I’m so afraid,” said Mrs. Pratt. “Suppose they was to say that my Dicky was in need of care and attention and they sent him to one of them schools that are more like prisons than anything else-”
“I do not think that you need be under any apprehension, Mrs. Pratt,” said Miss Silver. “Dicky is going to give evidence about the note which he forgot and which remained in his pocket. No one would dream of blaming you for that, and no one would dream of taking Dicky away from you.”
“I’m so afraid,” sobbed Mrs. Pratt.
Dicky had been whistling. The heart had gone out of it. Suppose his mother was right and the horrible danger of an approved school hung over his head- He cast an uneasy glance at Miss Silver, stopped whistling, and said,
“That’s all nonsense, isn’t it, Miss? They won’t do nothing to me. I just got to give my evidence clear and truthful like you said-that’s all, isn’t it? Nobody’s got any call to go sending me off to a home. Beastly old places homes. I knowed a boy as went to one, and he wasn’t ever the same again, not by half he wasn’t.”
Miss Silver smiled at him.
“No one wants to put you into a home, Dicky,” she said. “You will tell the truth, and that will set poor Mr. Mottingley free. No one will blame you for forgetting the note, I can assure you of that.”
When they reached Colborough they took their way to the police court, which was quite near at hand. Frank Abbott was looking out for them. He smiled at Dicky, who wriggled rather uneasily under his eye, spoke to Mrs. Pratt, and smiled at Miss Silver.
“Punctual to the moment,” he said. “And all complete. Now this young man will come in here”-he led the way to the waiting-room- “and Mrs. Pratt can either wait with him, or she can come into the court.”
Dicky looked so dashed that Miss Silver hastened to say, “I think that Mrs. Pratt had better come in with me. There might not be room later on, and she would like to hear Dicky giving his evidence. Would you not, Mrs. Pratt?”
Mrs. Pratt was understood to say something, but in so low and weepy a tone that no sense could be made of it.
Dicky was shut into the room with other witnesses, where he made himself quite at home, and Miss Silver and Mrs. Pratt followed Frank into the court room. He showed them to their places, and they settled down to waiting.
Mrs. Pratt was awed into silence for the first few minutes. Then she began in an awful whisper to detail all the troubles that had come upon her from the time of her marriage. At the most poignant part her voice sank into complete inaudibility.
“All in a moment he was dead. And we’d been so happy, and Dicky was only a baby. It’s hard, it’s very hard to know why such things are sent.” There was a long inaudible piece here, and when next her voice reached Miss Silver she was saying, “Dicky’s not a bad boy-really he isn’t. Oh, do you think if I was to tell the magistrate that he was a good boy they’d not be too hard on him?”
Miss Silver said firmly, “Mrs. Pratt, there is no question of the magistrate being hard on Dicky. He is only giving evidence. He is not being tried-you know that.”
“And I’ve always tried to keep him respectable,” sobbed Mrs. Pratt. “And I never thought it would come to this.”
“Mrs. Pratt, if you cannot control yourself you will have to leave the court. Nothing is going to happen to Dicky, I can assure you of that. If you do not sit quietly here you will be ordered from the court. Now pray control yourself.”
Mrs. Pratt sat and wept silently-whilst the court filled up, whilst Jimmy Mottingley appeared in the dock, and whilst the magistrates came in, two men and a woman. At this point she raised her head a little and appeared to be taking some slight interest in the proceedings.
Miss Silver looked across at Jimmy and smiled. He was bearing himself well, and she was pleased to see it. His father and mother were both there. She had not seen Mrs. Mottingley before-a big fair woman with a controlled expression and hands that were twisted in her lap.