Penny, invited to come over and have coffee, was given what might be called a preview by Eliza Cotton, who had stepped in for the purpose, supper being cold and all put out on the table.
“Tongue like a leaky tap-drip, drip, drip, and nothing that’s any more good than what you’d let run down the sink. Darling this, and darling that!”
“He didn’t!”
Eliza snorted.
“Not to me, he didn’t.” Then, after an ominous pause. “Not yet. But I don’t doubt he’ll come to it. Darling, or sweet or both-they just run off his tongue. It’s ‘Marian darling,’ and ‘Ina my sweet,’ and arms round their shoulders, and bouncing up to open doors enough to turn you giddy. Tried it on Mactavish-called him ‘Puss’ which he hates like any poison-and who wouldn’t-and snapped his fingers at him to come.”
“What did Mactavish do?”
“Didn’t let on he so much as knew he was there-waved his tail and went out of the window. And if he’d touched him he’d have scratched.”
Penny’s eyes were round and serious.
“Poor Ina! Eliza, are you sure? Perhaps he just doesn’t know about cats.”
Eliza looked down her nose.
“Never was surer about anything in my life. There was one like him down at Bury Dene where I used to stay with my aunt. Jim Hoskins his name was-curly hair and blue eyes, and all the girls running after him. Joked with all of them, kissed a good few more than ever told, and married the one that had the most in her stocking foot, poor girl. She never was sorry for it but once, and that was all her days. Next thing anyone knew, the money was gone and so was he, and she was taking in washing to provide for his twins.”
Penny giggled.
“Well, Ina hasn’t got twins.”
“Not yet,” said Eliza, and departed in the odour of disapproval.
Penny went over. She wondered afterwards whether Cyril would have charmed her if Eliza hadn’t got in first with her Awful Warning. Perhaps he would, and perhaps he wouldn’t-she didn’t know. She saw that neither Ina nor Marian was being charmed. Marian was quiet and thoughtful, and Ina had smudges under her eyes. Nobody talked very much except Cyril, and the more he talked and the more charming he was, the less Penny liked him. Felix might have the worst manners in the world, but he didn’t smarm. He didn’t say darling unless he meant it, and if it didn’t happen very often, that was because he was so desperately unhappy, poor lamb. Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool? Felix was being shorn to the quick, and when there wasn’t any more to be got Helen Adrian would just toss it all away and go and look for somebody else. Like an odd sympathetic echo set off by the nursery tag, there slipped into Penny’s mind the words of a proverb she had heard Eliza use. Something about going out for wool and coming home shorn. She was to remember that afterwards.
Chapter 16
Miss Silver was at breakfast next day with her niece Ethel and little Josephine, when the telephone bell rang. Mrs. Burkett had been reading selected passages out of a letter just received from her husband, and Josephine was taking advantage of the fact to fish all the bits of crust out of her bread and milk and drop them one by one upon the carpet. Miss Silver’s attention being divided between the latest news from Europe and the less stirring events retailed by John Burkett, the manoeuvre had been very successful. It was not, in fact, until Miss Silver had lifted the receiver and said “Hullo!” that she heard Ethel exclaim in a dismayed voice from behind her, “Oh, Josephine! How naughty!” Glancing over her shoulder, she was aware of Josephine being an angel child, all smiles, curls, and innocence.
And then Miss Adrian’s dulcet voice was thrilling along the wire.
“Is that Miss Silver?”
“Miss Silver speaking.”
“This is Helen Adrian. Wasn’t it clever of me to remember the name of the house your niece had taken! That’s how I got your number. I rang up the Supervisor, and she gave it to me at once. And I expect you’re wondering why I wanted it, but as a matter of fact-well-you remember what I came to see you about?”
“Certainly.”
“I thought it might be a good plan if you were to meet the crowd up here. Cyril rolled up last night, too sunny for words. We haven’t got down to anything yet. There’s no hurry, you see. He’s quite comfortable, and he can just go on spreading a little happiness and being mother’s bright-eyed boy until he thinks he’s got me nicely softened and ready to part.” She broke into a trill of laughter. “I hope he isn’t listening in! The two sides of this house are on the same line, so he’d only have to lift the receiver on the other side of the wall, but I think I should hear the click. Well, what I was going to say was, Miss Remington’s got some awful sort of panic affair on this afternoon-she’s the aunt I told you about. We all met in the garden after supper last night, and Cyril buttered her up like mad. He’s the answer to the old maid’s prayer all right-and doesn’t he know it!”
Miss Silver coughed. Really, Miss Adrian’s tone! And the expressions she used-quite unbelievably ill-bred! It was a significant cough. It would have checked a person at all sensitive to the finer shades. Musically, Miss Adrian might have a sensitive ear, but in no other respect. She continued as if there had been no cough.
“What I was trying to explain was, we shall all be making one happy party down on the beach for tea. And when I said you were an old friend of mine and staying at Farne, Miss Remington said wouldn’t I like to ask you to join us. So I thought what a good opportunity it would be for you to see Cyril and Felix and the whole set-out. And actually, of course, it’s supposed to be a very pretty cove, and the view is rather special. And if you’re interested in authors and that sort of thing, Richard Cunningham will be there. You know, he wrote The Whispering Tree. He was in that railway accident I told you about with Marian Brand, but as a matter of fact he used to be rather a special friend of mine.”
Miss Silver coughed with considerable firmness.
“If this is a professional invitation, Miss Adrian, I must remind you that I declined to handle your case.”
“Yes, I know you did. And that’s quite all right, because I am quite sure I can handle it myself. But I thought perhaps you would come out and have tea just in a friendly sort of way. I thought perhaps you might be interested, and then just in case anything went wrong-not, of course, that anything is likely to, but if it did, and I wanted some advice, well, you’d have met everyone, wouldn’t you? And if it came to that, of course I’d be quite willing to pay a fee.”
Just what was in her mind when she said that? There was something about the words, the tone, the manner, that stirred Miss Silver’s professional instinct. Perhaps stirred is too strong a word. The instinct was a very sensitive one. It received and responsed to the faintest possible touch.
Helen Adrian was quite unaware of having touched anything at all. She said,
“You’ll come, won’t you?”
There was that almost imperceptible stimulus, there was Miss Silver’s quite insatiable interest in other people’s lives, and there was something else. It was this with which she chose to cloak her acceptance.
“Thank you, I shall be very pleased to come. I shall be interested to meet Mr. Cunningham. A cousin of his is a valued friend. Will you thank Miss Remington for her invitation?”
Helen Adrian said,
“That’s all right. They tell me there’s a bus from the hotel at a quarter past four, and you can’t miss the house. Come along and give us all the once over.”
The distaste with which Miss Silver heard this final remark very nearly made her retract her acceptance, but, before she had time to do more than experience a strong desire to say that after all she did not think that she could leave her niece, Miss Adrian had rung off.