But Ogle's dislike of the Clement Kanes was so bitter that it superseded her mistrust of Miss Allison. She said: "Them to be in the master's place, driving my dear into her grave with their nasty ways!"
"Nonsense!" said Miss Allison.
Ogle shot a smouldering look at her under her thick low brows. "You may call it nonsense if you please, miss. I'm only an ignorant old woman that never had any fine education, but I know what I know, and no one'll ever persuade me different." She went on folding Emily's clothes away, handling them tenderly, as though they were a part of Emily. "Forty-five years I've been with her. I know her better than Mr. Silas did, better than the old master did." She paused and added grimly: "He was a bad husband to her. Light come, light go. But she never said anything. She was never one to talk about her troubles."
"You should not tell me this," Patricia said gently.
"You could learn it easy enough from others besides me. She's too old to have more troubles."
"I know it's unfortunate that she should dislike Mr. Clement, but perhaps she'll get used to him. He's very kind to her, after all."
"She won't get used to him!" Ogle said fiercely. "She'll eat her heart out, with no one but me to turn to! Everyone leaves her but me. There's no one cares what becomes of her. She took a fancy to you, but you don't mean to stay."
Patricia said guiltily: "I'm going to be married."
"Yes, miss, she told me. You're going to marry Mr. James. Why don't you stay with her, the both of you?"
"We couldn't do that. This is Mr. Clement's house. Of course, I shall stay till she finds someone else to take my place."
Ogle rolled up a pair of stockings, her hands trembling a little. "Some worthless madam to plague her life out! You're the only one she ever had that wasn't a worriting fool! But you don't care! No one cares but me!"
Miss Allison felt that the news of her approaching nuptials could scarcely be said (in Oscar Roberts' phraseology) to have gone over big either with Ogle or with Rosemary.
Emily, however, had seemed pleased; and Clement, though it was evident that he thought his cousin might have done better for himself, congratulated both parties and said that Miss Allison would be a great loss to everyone at Cliff House. Young Mr. Harte was no believer in marriage and was inclined to look upon his stepbrother's engagement as yet another instance of a promising career blighted, but he admitted that Miss Allison was quite a decent sort.
"Anyway, she's not half as bad as that Malcolm dame you were nuts on two years ago," he said.
This handsome tribute failed to please. Jim said in a dulcet voice: "My little pet, what a gift from heaven you are! It may interest you to know that I don't even remember what the Malcolm dame looked like."
"She was a bit like the other one you were gone on," said Timothy helpfully. "I forget her name, but she had red fingernails, and—"
"If you don't shut up I'll wring your neck!" said Mr. James Kane.
This ferocious threat made Mr. Harte aware suddenly that he had hit upon a subject for blackmail. His eye brightened; he said: "I bet Miss Allison doesn't know about the others."
"There weren't any others," said Jim. "Don't try to be funny!"
Mr. Harte drove his hands into the pockets of his trousers and said with a grin: "Say, buddy, let's talk business!"
Jim sighed his resignation. "You're barking up the wrong tree. My life's an open book."
"Sure it is," agreed Mr. Harte. "The way I figure it—"
"Talk English!"
"Right!" said Mr. Harte briskly. "Will you take me with you when you have the speedboat out?"
"I might."
"Nix on that!" said Mr. Harte, reverting to a foreign tongue. "I've got the drop on you, and don't you forget it!"
Miss Allison arrived on the scene a few minutes later to find Mr. Harte, in a highly dishevelled condition, ensconced on the branch of a tree well above Jim's reach. She shook her head regretfully. "You should have wrung his neck while you had him," she said.
"I know I should," replied Jim. "Blackmail's his latest racket."
"Do you swear to take me out every time with you in the boat?" demanded Mr. Harte.
"No. Do your worst!" said Jim.
"You are a rotten cad!" said Mr. Harte, disgusted. "I've a jolly good mind to blow the gaff."
"Ha!" exclaimed Miss Allison. "I knew it! You've got a guilty secret. Timothy, is there another woman in his life?"
"Hundreds of them!" said Timothy with relish.
Miss Allison appeared to be overcome and begged Mr. James Kane, in throbbing accents, not to touch her.
"Curse you, you have been my ruin!" groaned Mr. Kane, shaking his fist at the tree.
"I say, Jim, you will take me, won't you?" said Mr. Harte, abandoning blackmail.
"Yes, and drop you overboard with a weight tied round your ankles. Come down!"
"Is it pax if I do?" inquired Mr. Harte suspiciously.
"All right," agreed Jim.
Mr. Harte descended, gave his trousers a perfunctory brush with his hands, and said darkly: "I know one person who'll probably have a fit when he hears about Miss Allison and you getting married."
"Talking about serpents' teeth—" began Miss Allison hastily.
"No, you don't!" interrupted Jim. "Go on, Timothy; who is it?"
"Mr. Mansell," replied Timothy. "Not old Mr. Mansell; the other one. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if he tried to poison you, or something. He's batty about Miss Allison."
"What, that bounder?" said Jim. "Fellow with waved hair and a wasp waist? Pat, I thought better of you!"
"Nor was your trust misplaced," answered Patricia cheerfully. "I think he's a horror."
"He is too," nodded Timothy. "I jolly well hope he comes oiling round you again before he knows about your being engaged to Jim. Then Jim can dot him one on the boko." This programme appealed to him so strongly that his eyes gleamed with simple pleasure, and he added: "It 'ud be a pretty good lark if he did come and start making love to Miss Allison! I should think you could knock him out easily, couldn't you? I say, let's lay a trap for him! I bet Clement would be as pleased as punch if you beat him up."
"Why?" demanded Miss Allison.
"Because he can't stand him, of course. He had a stinking row with him on the phone yesterday. I know, 'cos I was in the room, and when Clement rang off he woffled a whole lot to me about people bothering his life out, and never seeing any point of view but their own, and being sick to death of the whole Mansell family."
Jim told him he ought not to repeat such confidences, but they did not come as news to him. Clement had already unburdened himself to his cousin, complaining of the enormous death duties Silas' estate would have to bear, of the weight of responsibility Silas had left him. He had even touched upon the Australian project, but though Jim could sympathise he felt himself to be quite unqualified to advise.
Clement made it plain that he was being badgered by his partners. It seemed to Jim that one half of his mind liked the Australian plan, while the other half shrank from it. He vacillated as Silas would never have done, mistrusted all the Mansells' arguments in favour of the scheme, and ended by absenting himself from the office on the score of having so much to do in picking up the threads of Silas' private affairs that he had no time for more than flying visits to the office.
The ingenuity he displayed in evading Oscar Roberts lent a certain amount of colour to Timothy's theory, but Roberts cornered him at last by the simple expedient of stating calmly that when he came to Cliff House on Saturday afternoon, as he had been invited to do, he hoped to have a little talk with Clement before presenting himself at Mrs. Kane's tea table. Clement agreed, vaguely thankful that he would be able to make his position clear to Roberts without having to encounter at the same time arguments, and possibly recriminations, from his two partners.