“I don’t think so. I think we can have-our bit-if we want it.”
All this time she hadn’t taken her eyes off him. Now she looked away out over the sea. Her eyes dazzled so that the blue of the water was mixed with the blue of the sky.
Felix said in an odd offhand voice, “I suppose-we couldn’t get married-”
“I don’t see why not.”
“You wouldn’t be getting much out of it. There would be very little money.”
Still looking away from him, she said,
“I’ve got some too, you know.”
He was so surprised that he sat up and put a hand on her shoulder.
“You! I always thought you hadn’t a farthing.”
“I hadn’t. Uncle Martin gave me some. He settled it on me. I didn’t know until he told me last year when I was twenty-one. It’s-it’s quite a lot. He said not to tell anyone, so I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want to go away, and if they had known it, it would have been very difficult to stay.”
“You didn’t tell me.” His tone accused her.
Her eyelids fell. He saw the lashes wet against her cheek.
“You were away.”
He wasn’t stupid. He knew very well how far away he had been. He wanted her to know that he had come back, and that he never wanted to go away again. He couldn’t find the right words. His grip bruised her shoulder.
“If you’ve got-enough-without me-”
Penny said in a small, quiet voice,
“I’d never have enough without you.”
He said with a groan,
“It would be better for you. When I’m working I shan’t even know whether you’re there.”
“But I’d be there-if you wanted me. And you will.”
“Penny-” He choked on the name. “I’ve got a brute of a temper.”
The wet lashes lifted. She turned round to him with her hands out, laughing and crying.
“Darling, I’ve lived with it for twenty years. I expect I can go on.”
Patricia Wentworth
Born in Mussoorie, India, in 1878, Patricia Wentworth was the daughter of an English general. Educated in England, she returned to India, where she began to write and was first published. She married, but in 1906 was left a widow with four children, and returned again to England where she resumed her writing, this time to earn a living for herself and her family. She married again in 1920 and lived in Surrey until her death in 1961.
Miss Wentworth’s early works were mainly historical fiction, and her first mystery, published in 1923, was The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith. In 1928 she wrote The Case Is Closed and gave birth to her most enduring creation, Miss Maud Silver.
[1] Manufacturer based in Stoke. Important producers of Porcelain and various types of earthenware under several different partnerships. 1793 to present.
[2] aka “She was a phantom of delight”) William Wordsworth, Poems in Two Volumes (1807) (separate text file enclosed)
[3] The Diverting History Of John Gilpin, Showing How He Went Farther Than He Intended, And Came Safe Home Again. By William Cowper, 1782 (project Gutenberg e-text enclosed)
[4] All right, according to Cocker. According to established rules, according to what is correct. Edward Cocker (1631-1677) published an arithmetic which ran through sixty editions. The phrase, “According to Cocker,” was popularised by Murphy in his farce called The Apprentice. – http://www.bartleby.com/81/3797.html