There was a moment of hostility, a moment of fading antagonism, a moment when Jennifer stood frowning and uncertain. Then she gave Mrs. Craddock quite a rough push, said, “Be off with you!” and ran up the stairs without waiting.

Miss Silver followed at leisure. She was perfectly able to carry her suit-case, but she had no intention of hurrying. She wondered a little whether Jennifer would be in sight when she reached the landing which corresponded with the hall below. It was crossed by a long passage upon which rooms opened to either side. A faint light illuminated the stair-head, but the passages were dark, and Jennifer had vanished in the darkness.

Miss Silver took a chance and walked down the right-hand passage. She was nearing the end of it, when a door flew open and light streamed out to the accompaniment of Jennifer’s mocking laughter. It broke off suddenly.

“You didn’t scream!”

“I could see no reason to scream.”

“Do you always see reason?”

The child’s voice accused her of something-she wondered what? She said in her most equable tones,

“It is a very good plan.”

As she came into the room, Jennifer backed away from her, tall and thin in old patched shorts and a faded scarlet jersey. The long bare legs were brown, the long thin feet were naked in their sandals. Miss Silver was reminded of a startled foal. There was the same mixture of awkwardness and grace, the toss of the head with which a straying forelock was shaken back. There was no timidity, but an alert wariness. From a safe distance Jennifer said,

“Do you always plan things?”

Miss Silver gave her the smile which had won the heart of many a reluctant client.

“Do you not do so?”

“Sometimes I do. Sometimes my plan isn’t the same as someone else’s plan. It mightn’t be the same as yours-it might be a very opposite plan indeed. What would you do then?”

Miss Silver appeared to give this question as much serious attention as if it had been put to her by a grown-up person. Then she said,

“One can really only make plans for oneself. When they come into conflict with the plans of other people one has to consider to what extent each can accommodate his plan to another’s. It is a problem that arises constantly. People who are successful in dealing with it will also make a success of their lives.”

She had caught the child’s attention. The dark eyes had a sudden bright spark of intelligence. Under the overhead light she saw that they were not brown as she had thought at first, but a sombre grey heavily shaded by black lashes. The spark flashed and was gone. Jennifer stood poised with her weight on one foot, as if ready to fly off at a tangent. She said,

“You planned to come here. So did the others. They didn’t stay. Perhaps you won’t stay either. Do you think you will?”

Miss Silver was removing her black cloth coat. As she hung it up in the cheap plywood wardrobe she said in her temperate way,

“That will depend a good deal upon you. I should not care to stay where I was not wanted. But I think your mother needs someone to help her.”

Jennifer stamped her foot. She said with sudden passion,

“If she doesn’t have someone she’ll die! I told him so! That’s why he got you! He wouldn’t like her to die! Because of the money! But she will if someone doesn’t help her!” She came at Miss Silver with a rush, not touching her but coming up close, her dark head on the same level, her eyes full of angry tears. “Why do you make me say things?”

“My dear-”

The child stamped again.

“I’m not! And you needn’t think you can make me do things I don’t want to! Nobody can!” There was tragic intensity in the words.

Before Miss Silver could make any reply, one of those quick rushes took Jennifer across the floor and out of the room. She was as light on her feet as a kitten, the darting flight was soundless. The door clapped to with a bang.

Miss Silver said, “Dear me!” After which she removed her hat, changed into indoor shoes, and remembered that she had not ascertained the whereabouts of the bathroom. She was tidying her hair-an entirely superfluous action, since it was always perfectly under control-when the door was flung open again. Jennifer stood beyond the threshold, her head up, her look defiant.

“The bathroom is next door. I thought I’d make you look for it-and then I thought I wouldn’t. Are you coming down?”

“I thought that I would put my things away first.”

Jennifer backed. She remained poised for a moment in the patch of light from the doorway. She said with a jerk in her voice,

“You won’t stay-they never do!”

And was gone.

CHAPTER IX

Seen in the light of a grey January morning, Deepe House had a very desolate and ruined look. The main block of the house showed plainly the bomb damage which it had sustained. Of the ornamental balustrade which had run the length of the roof only a few fragments survived, and no more than three of the windows in the whole façade still kept their glass, the rest had been roughly boarded up. These three windows, all on the ground floor, imparted a curious furtive look, as if the house were peering up from under the clogging weight of its two blind storeys. The courtyard between the two wings was slippery with moss. When the wind stirred, fallen magnolia leaves and droppings of ivy whispered against the stone flags with which it was paved.

Even in the Craddocks’ wing not all the windows had glass in them.

“It is too big for us,” Mrs. Craddock explained. “We could not furnish or keep so many rooms. But it will be nice when we can get the windows mended.”

On the other side of the courtyard in the opposite wing all the windows were boarded up, the tenant using only those rooms which looked upon what had once been a garden. He was a Mr. Robinson, and Miss Silver gathered that he preferred seclusion and was addicted to bird-watching and nature-study. He could not be said to have a very extensive view, but if he desired privacy he had it. Dead grass stood knee-high amongst unpruned fruit trees. Roses gone back to briar contended with the wild raspberry and currant. Evergreens, some half dead, ran riot, with here and there a cypress grown to an immense height. There were dark patches of the churchyard yew. Miss Silver could see only the outer fringe of this wilderness, but the signs of ruin and neglect were unmistakable.

At lunch she made bright conversation about the house.

“A very interesting old place. It is sad to think how much irreparable damage was done during the war, but perhaps it is better to reflect with gratitude upon what has been spared.”

Mrs. Craddock said, “Oh, yes.” Mr. Craddock, partaking of a lentil cutlet, said nothing at all. The children said nothing.

Miss Silver, who was never at a loss for meal-time conversation, continued her remarks. An enquiry as to whether Mr. Craddock had had any difficulty with the plumbing-men generally took so much interest in this subject-elicited, not from him but again from Mrs. Craddock, an assurance that it was all that could be desired, and that though the new bathroom and hot water system had been a great expense, they were certainly a comfort.

It was not until he had absorbed four lentil cutlets and an inordinate amount of greenstuff that Mr. Craddock emerged from his philosophic abstraction. That he happened to do so at the moment when Miss Silver was remarking upon the ruins of what appeared to be a chapel at some little distance from the house was no doubt a coincidence. She had asked if the damage had been caused by the same bomb which wrecked the house, and was surprised to receive a decided negative.

“Oh, no. The old church had been a ruin for thirty or forty years before that. And by the way, the place is not safe. There is a danger of flying masonry.”