‘Put the cushion on the floor and sit on it there. Your place is at my feet, not in my lap. You’re getting a big girl now.’
‘But it’s cold in here. I thought you could keep me warm.’
‘Such thoughts are most unbecoming, my child. Besides, I want to stretch my legs and I can’t do that if you’re sitting on them. What did you learn at the Singleton home about Aunt Eliza and her island?’
‘Nothing, really, that you could call anything much, but I did get a hint or two which might explain Boobie’s reactions.’
‘The only hint I got at the Singletons’ was that we were expected to leave before eight so that they could get the supper (dignified by the name of dinner) on the table.’
‘Well, we call it dinner, so why shouldn’t they? And what’s the difference, when you come right down to it?’
‘I never answer rhetorical questions. But come along! Your story. We haven’t got all the evening.’
‘Well…’ Margaret flung the cushion on the floor, plumped herself down on it and rested her arms across her brother’s long legs ‘… you know that downstair cloakroom of theirs where we parked our things? I was in the little wash-place, sponging strawberry mousse off my frock, when Cousin Marie and that ghastly friend of hers came out with Barbara Singleton to get their coats because they were all going to the church concert. I don’t think anybody had noticed me slip out except Barry Singleton, who’d spilt the mousse on me, the clumsy idiot, so I don’t imagine they realised they could be overheard, especially by one of our family. Barbara said she didn’t suppose it would affect the Lovelaines, even if they knew, and Cousin Marie said that of course Marius and Clothilde didn’t know, and even if they came to hear of it later on she didn’t think they would take in what it might mean, because they were so unworldly.’
‘The Tutor didn’t sound so very unworldly when he was plotting for us to ingratiate ourselves with Aunt Eliza in order to cut ourselves in for her worldly goods,’ commented Sebastian. ‘Never mind. Go on. This is rather interesting.’
‘Cousin Marie said it seemed very peculiar to her, considering Eliza’s previous lapse from respectability, and that she was glad to be on Clothilde’s side of the family and so did not need to be mixed up in anything strange and rather (she was afraid) unsavoury. Then the ghastly friend said, all the same, wasn’t it rather romantic, in its way, that after all these years Eliza had taken a partner? To that Cousin Marie said there were partners and partners, and that nothing had been said about Eliza getting married and that she felt pretty certain that nothing of the sort was contemplated.’
‘How did Marie come to know anything about it?’ asked Sebastian.
‘I’m coming to that. Well, Barbara Singleton, who isn’t a bad sort in spite of being a district visitor, said that business reasons could make any alliance respectable, she supposed, so long as there was no jiggery-pokery, and that probably all Eliza had been after was a bit more capital. To this Cousin Marie said there were other ways of obtaining a bit more capital and that, for her part, she would sooner do without it than get it by some people’s methods.’
‘Cousin Marie,’ said Sebastian, ‘is a prize bitch, and always has been. I don’t know why The Tutor ever has her to stay with us.’
‘Well, she’s Boobie’s only living relative, that’s why. Still, I do think she might come without that other creep.’
‘Oh, The Tutor’s too gullible for his own good. Cousin Marie told him that the blighted Potter woman is too nervous to be left alone in their cottage, so she has to tag along wherever Cousin Marie goes. That’s why we have to put up with her as well as Cousin Marie.’
‘Mary and the lamb. It’s quite a common relationship, of course,’ said Margaret.
‘What on earth do you know about it?’ asked Sebastian, amused. ‘And take your pointed elbows off my legs. You’re making dents in me. Go on about your eavesdropping.’
‘It wasn’t eavesdropping! There’s a sort of grille at the top of that door, so I couldn’t help hearing what was said, and I didn’t like to emerge in the middle of their conversation, because it was obvious they hadn’t a clue that anybody was near them.’
‘Stop making excuses. I bet you stayed put with your ears flapping and forgot about the stain on your frock.’
‘Well, of course, it was rather interesting in a way,’ confessed Margaret, ‘and you needn’t put on airs. You’re keen enough to hear what I’ve got to tell you.’
‘Touché, mademoiselle! So now get on with it. One thing, though. This partnership is going to play havoc with The Tutor’s little game. I can’t think we stand any chance of coming in for Aunt Eliza’s property later on. It seems to me more than a fifty-fifty chance that, even if she leaves nothing to this son of hers, the partner will take most of the pickings. He’ll be no end of a fool if he doesn’t. After all, he’s the man on the spot. Anyway, was there more?’
‘Yes, there was, and this, I think, is most peculiar.’
‘Peculiar-strange or peculiar-nasty?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing was said straight out, but, unless I’m mistaken, Aunt Eliza’s previous boy-friend and their son Ransome are also living on the island, and I’m absolutely certain that’s a thing which The Tutor and Boobie don’t know.’
‘Living on the island? Are you sure?’
‘Well, not absolutely sure, but Cousin Marie seemed pretty confident about it.’
‘How did she get hold of the dirt?’
‘Well, that’s just it. She and the Potter woman have been to the island and stayed at Aunt Eliza’s hotel. It seems they went there last summer, after the Potter saw Aunt Eliza’s advertisement in a newspaper and thought the island sounded “rather fun”. She would, wouldn’t she? So they talked it over and sent for the brochure and they went, not knowing until they got there that it was Aunt Eliza’s hotel.
‘ “Of course, it was expensive for what we got,” Cousin Marie told Barbara Singleton, “but, although the meals were monotonous, the vegetables were fresh, and I must say Eliza, considering what a busy woman she is, made us very welcome.” Well, it turned out that the vegetables came from a smallholding and the dairy produce and eggs from a farm on the island and, according to what Cousin Marie was saying, the owner of the smallholding was the farmer’s son and Aunt Eliza had known the farmer for more than thirty years and the son since she was a girl of twenty. And’, concluded Margaret, ‘if that doesn’t ring a bell, nothing will ever make sense again.’
‘You go too fast,’ said Sebastian.
‘No, I don’t. It sticks out a mile. The farmer is Aunt Eliza’s old boy-friend and the smallholder is their son Ransome. I suppose the son couldn’t also be this partner she’s taken? If he is, a fat chance of The Tutor’s rather muddy little plans coming to anything, wouldn’t you say?’
‘It would delight me to think that you are right and that the farmer is Aunt Eliza’s boy-friend and that she’s taken Ransome into partnership, but I rather doubt it, you know. Did Marie and Potter meet the partner?’
‘Oh, no, he hadn’t taken over at that time. It was only in the air, so to speak.’
‘So how did Marie know it had come off?’
‘I expect she’s received this year’s brochure, the same as we have.’
‘I don’t remember reading anything in it about a partner. It said, Eliza Chayleigh, Resident Proprietor.’
‘No, there wasn’t anything, I’m sure. I expect, as they’d been there before, Aunt Eliza sent Cousin Marie and the Potter a covering letter. She must have mentioned the possibility of the partnership, though, while they were there.’