Her voice fell to a deprecating tone. She didn’t see how she could have managed to find out any more than she had. She was used to being blamed by Mabel and Nettie when things went wrong, but in this case she really had felt sure of being praised. She looked at Nettie, and Nettie shook her head. She looked at Mabel, and Mabel said in her firmest voice,
‘You should have followed them.’
TWENTY-THREE
IT WAS EARLY the same afternoon that Miss Silver looked across the second of the vests she was knitting for Dorothy Silver’s little Tina and said,
‘My dear, I think you will just have to make it a duty to eat.’
Her mind had been on her knitting and upon the pretty fair-haired child who was to wear the vest. Pinks vary a good deal, but this was really a particularly pleasing shade. She looked up from it now and saw Althea Graham in profile. She had a book upon her knee, but it was a long time since she had turned a page. Her face was colourless and there were dark smudges under her eyes. The eyes themselves looked as if she had not slept. In reply to Miss Silver’s remark she said in a soft, indifferent voice,
‘Oh, I’m all right, thank you.’
The needles clicked briskly.
‘It is possible to starve for quite a long time without being aware that one is doing so. The mind is occupied, food has become distasteful, there is a complete loss of appetite. It all happens unnoticeably. And then suddenly when one is called upon to confront an emergency one finds oneself at a loss. The mind is not active, and the judgement not to be depended upon. I should like you to promise me that you will eat an egg with your tea.’
Althea looked up with the ghost of a smile.
‘How very, very kind you are. But you needn’t worry about me – I am really very strong.’
Miss Silver produced what Frank Abbott would have acclaimed as one of her Moralities.
‘Strength is given to us when we are trying to do what is right, but we are better able to avail ourselves of it if we do not neglect a proper allowance of food and sleep. You have eaten nothing all day. If I make a nice cup of tea, will you not please me by drinking it – perhaps with a beaten-up egg?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t. I don’t like them raw.’
Miss Silver beamed.
‘Then I will boil it lightly and cut a little thin bread and butter. I assure you that you will feel a great deal better when you have taken it.’
All at once it had become too much trouble to go on saying no. Miss Silver produced the egg, the tea, the thin bread and butter with the minimum of fuss, and when Althea had taken the first mouthful she found herself suddenly hungry. She ate the egg, the bread and butter, and some cold milk pudding pleasantly sprinkled with brown sugar, and whilst she ate Miss Silver conversed in a manner which somehow managed to be soothing without being dull. She seemed to be interested about Grove Hill.
‘It is not of any very great age as a suburb, I believe?’
‘No, I don’t think it is.’
‘These houses would be – about how old?’
‘I think they began to be built about 1890. This is one of the older ones.’
‘Before 1890?’
‘Oh, no, I didn’t mean that. But I think it was the first house built on what used to be called the Grove Hill Estate. Grove Hill House just above here, where the Harrisons are, was really an old country house. It was built somewhere about 1750. Our gazebo was in the grounds. It must have had a lovely view before everything was so built over. The house was wrecked and partly burned down in the Gordon Riots. It belonged to a Mr Warren who was a Roman Catholic, and the rioters were looting and burning all the Catholic houses. Mr Warren was a wealthy brewer. He had a fine collection of pictures and a lot of beautiful furniture and things. He was warned about the rioters but he wouldn’t go away. He tried to save what he could, but I think nearly everything was burned, and some of the masonry fell in on him and killed him. Nicky’s great-greatgrandfather bought the estate from Mr Warren’s grand-daughters.’
Miss Silver was gazing at her with rapt attention.
‘How extremely interesting! Mob violence is a terrible thing. We now hardly know what it is in this country. Charles Dickens has left a very vivid picture of the Gordon Riots in his novel Barnaby Rudge. It is extraordinary to reflect that the rioters attacked the Bank of England, burned down the prison of Newgate, and destroyed and pillaged at will, practically without a hand being raised to stop them.’
As she spoke she noticed with approbation that Althea was making good progress with the egg and bread and butter. Having contributed a Morality on the subject of religious intolerance, she said,
‘This is all most interesting. Pray continue.’
‘I don’t think there is very much more to tell. My father liked going into the history of the place. There are some books of his up in the attic – there is one about Grove Hill. I think the High Street and the shops and the railway station were built somewhere between 1850 and the end of the century. The houses came farther and farther up the hill. Nicky’s great-grandfather began to sell some of the land on the Grove Hill Estate. His grandfather sold everything except Grove Hill House and the garden round it. Nicky used to spend his holidays there with his aunt, Miss Lester. While he was away in the East she sold the house to the Harrisons who are cousins and went to live with a sister in Devonshire. That is why Nicky came here – the attic was full of his things and he had to sort them. It is Jack Harrison who is the cousin, not Ella.’
She spoke in a gentle, colourless manner, as if she were reciting a lesson so often repeated as to have lost its meaning. She had finished the bread and butter, and in the same almost mechanical manner she was now helping herself to the cold rice pudding. Miss Silver noticed the improvement in her colour with satisfaction and continued to talk upon such harmless and improving topics as the tendency of towns to expand and absorb the villages of an earlier day, with especial reference to London.
It was while she was so engaged that two of the Miss Pimms came out of Warren Crescent into Belview Road, which it joins no more than a hundred yards down the slope. They stood at the corner for a moment looking up and across in the direction of the lodge. After exchanging a few words they were about to cross the road, when the green bus came up the hill from the town. It stopped at the corner of Belview Road and Hill Rise and Frank Abbott got off. Lily Pimm had a second moment of triumph, since she knew who he was and her sister Mabel did not. She was quite beaming as she told Mabel that that was the inspector from Scotland Yard.
Mabel Pimm was justly annoyed. It wasn’t often that Lily could tell her something she didn’t know, but this was the second time it had happened today, and her instinct was to reject it. She said in a deep, vibrant voice,
‘Nonsense, Lily – he doesn’t look in the least like a policeman!’
‘I know he doesn’t but he is. Mrs Justice told me all about him. His grandmother was Lady Evelyn Abbott, and she had one of these big shipping fortunes and she left it past all the rest of the family to a grand-daughter who was a schoolgirl of fifteen. This man’s name is Abbott too – Frank Abbott.’