CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MISS SILVER WAS going out to tea. She very often went out to tea on Sundays, and although this was no very special occasion it would be quite pleasant. A friend of her niece Ethel had recently come to live in Putney. Miss Silver had invited her to tea and found her agreeable, and this was a return visit. The afternoon being exceptionally mild, she wore her summer dress, now two years old, a navy blue artificial silk upon which a number of discordant colours were scattered in what looked like an imitation of the Morse-code. In deference to her idea of what was suitable, the skirt displayed no more than three or four inches of grey lisle thread stocking and black Oxford shoe. In case it should be chilly before she got back, she wore over it an old but still serviceable coat of black alpaca, and on her neat mousy hair a black straw hat with a glacé ribbon bow and a kind of trail of purple pansies. The neck of the dress was filled in by a cream net chemisette with a high boned collar and securely fastened by a brooch with a heavy gold border and a centre of plaited hair. Black cotton gloves, rather a shabby handbag, and a neat umbrella completed her toilet.
As she passed through her sitting-room on the way to the door she cast an approving glance about her. It was so comfortable, so cosy. The peacock-blue curtains were wearing so well, and the carpet really hardly looked at all rubbed even when the sun came slanting in. She considered her own prosperous lot with deep thankfulness. The curtains; the carpet; the curly yellow maple chairs upholstered in the same bright shade; the writing-table with its many drawers; the steel engravings of her favourite pictures – The Soul’s Awakening, The Black Brunswicker, Bubbles, and The Monarch of the Glen; the row of silver-framed photographs upon the mantlepiece – all spoke to her of the comfortable independence she had, under Providence, achieved by her own intelligent exertions.
She went down in the lift, walked a quarter of a mile, and entered a Tube station. Half a dozen people were queued up for tickets as she took her place at the end of the row and waited whilst a lady whose dyed hair had seen better days argued at length with the harassed elderly man behind the pigeonhole as to whether she could or could not get a connection for some place whose name she appeared to have forgotten. A little grey-haired man in front of Miss Silver put up his hand to his mouth and said ‘Balmy!’ in a loud stage whisper. Behind her two women were talking about a girl called Janice. One of them had the high fluting voice of Mayfair, the other sounded elderly and rather cross.
Miss Silver listened because there wasn’t anything else to do, and because the name Janice was strange to her. She wondered if she had heard it rightly. Perhaps they had said Janet. No, there it was again, and with a surname this time – Janice Meade.
The cross woman said, ‘I always thought her a most unreliable girl.’
And the other, ‘Rather charming, don’t you think?’
‘Oh, charm – I suppose so, if you like that sort of thing! Of course everyone in the college knew you couldn’t trust a word she said.’
There was a high fluting laugh.
‘My dear, how crushing! Poor Janice – she wasn’t really a bad little thing. Too much imagination – that’s all. Do you know where she is?’
‘Still down at Bourne, I believe. I haven’t seen her for an age.’
The queue began to move forward. The voices began to talk of something else. Miss Silver made a mental note of a new and rather attractive name and proceeded on her way to tea with Ethel’s friend.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
JANICE RANG THE bell of 15 Montague Mansions, and was admitted by a stout elderly woman who looked like the comfortable sort of cook of one’s dreams. She smiled, and said it was a nice morning in a pleasant country voice, and, ‘You’ll be the lady Miss Silver was expecting – the one that sent the telegram – Miss Meade. Well then, come along in.’
One door shut and another opened. The full beauty of Miss Silver’s maple furniture, her peacock-blue curtains, her wallpaper, her brightly flowered carpet, her steel engravings, and her silver photograph frames was disclosed. Janice saw them first, and then she saw Miss Silver, very neatly dressed in a most unbecoming shade of drab, with a bog-oak brooch and a quantity of mousy hair in a fringe controlled by a hair-net and primly coiled behind. She rose from the writing-table at which she was sitting, shook hands, and indicated a chair with bow legs, round back, and a very hard seat upholstered in the prevailing peacock-blue.
Janice sat down, and found a pair of small, nondescript eyes surveying her in a manner that took her back to school again. Not that the Head had remotely resembled Miss Silver, but there was the same flavour of kindness and authority, the same expectation that you would come to the point and not waste valuable time. Sitting up as straight as the curly chair would allow, Janice came to the point.
Observing her, Miss Silver saw a girl of twenty-one or twenty-two in a dark blue coat and skirt which was neither new nor very well cut. The plain small hat was tilted at a becoming angle over short gold-brown curls. The face had a good deal of charm, without regularity of feature or beauty of colouring. There were those very bright eyes with their unexpectedly dark lashes. There was the way the ears were set – very prettily shaped ears, in just the right place to emphasise the curve of the cheek. There were the lips, not too much reddened, and taking a serious sweetness in repose. The skin though pale was very smooth and clear. Miss Silver considered the question of this pallor. Her eyes fell to the hands in their rather shabby gloves, and saw how tightly they were clasped.
She smiled that sudden transforming smile which had won her so many confidences and said, ‘Pray do not be nervous – there is nothing to be afraid of. And take your time. These things are not to be told in a moment. I am quite at your disposal.’
The smile came in among Janice’s thoughts and warmed them. She had had a sense of coldness, of confusion, of the terrible responsibility of being the one to tell this story in such a way that Evan Madoc would be helped and his sister comforted.
She went on with a feeling that the weight had lifted, and that it didn’t matter so terribly what she said, because Miss Silver would understand.
When she had finished, Miss Silver opened a drawer, took out an exercise-book with a bright green cover, opened it at the first page, and wrote a heading – The Harsch Case. After which she picked up a half-knitted sock of Air Force blue and began to knit in the continental manner, needles clicking, hands held low, eyes fixed upon Janice, who was taking something out of her bag. The something was a long envelope which was filled with typescript.
‘This is the evidence which was given at the inquest. It was taken down in shorthand for a government department which was interested in Mr Harsch’s work – but I was to say will you please consider it confidential.’
Miss Silver coughed.
‘Certainly. I regard all professional communications as strictly confidential. I shall be interested to read the evidence. Meanwhile-’
A little colour came into Janice’s face.
‘You’ll take the case?’ she said in an eager voice.
Miss Silver looked at her kindly.
‘Why do you wish me to do so, Miss Meade?’
The cold, confused feeling came back. She had muddled it. Miss Silver hadn’t understood – she was going to refuse. She said piteously, ‘His sister is so unhappy. He is all she’s got. And he didn’t do it.’