Across the way Janet Johnstone and Ninian Rutherford sat on either side of the little girl with the fine eyes who was Stella Somers. Miss Silver regarded them with interest. Miss Johnstone had a very good way with the child, and her brown skirt and fawn jumper struck the happy mean between Mrs Geoffrey’s mourning black and Meriel’s scarlet. Her features were pleasing, her eyes of an unusual and very charming shade, and her whole air that of a sensible and dependable person. With Miss Silver’s experience, it was impossible for her to mistake the fact that Mr Ninian Rutherford was attracted. He took no pains to hide it, and it was equally plain that at least some part of Meriel’s annoyance proceeded from this cause. Adriana, facing Geoffrey down the length of the table, ate little and only spoke occasionally. She looked tired, and the purple house-dress gave her a sombre air.

For once, no one checked Stella’s flow of conversation. After rehearsing for Miss Silver’s benefit every detail of the six dresses which Star had brought her from New York – ‘and it was very, very good of her, because it meant she had to leave a lot of her own things behind’ – she was brightly informative on the subject of her lessons.

‘I read better than Jenny and Molly, and much better than Jackie Trent, but Jenny is better at sums. I don’t like sums, but Jackie says he is going to be an engineer, and Miss Page says they have to know them. She says everyone has to know them, but I can’t see why. I heard Mrs Lenton say she was rotten at sums.’

Edna Ford said reprovingly, ‘Oh, Stella! Not a nice word at all! I’m sure Mrs Lenton never said it!’

Stella gazed calmly back across the table.

‘Well then, she did. I heard her. She said it to the Vicar. She was sort of laughing, and he kissed her and said, “Darling, what does it matter?” ’

Janet said, ‘Stella, finish up your meat! It’s horrid when it’s cold.’

Meriel laughed in a manner which Miss Silver found far from pleasant.

‘So next time the Clothing Club accounts are wrong we shall all know why!’

Stella swallowed three pieces of meat in rapid succession, took a hasty drink of water, and continued.

‘Mrs Lenton laughs a lot when she talks to the Vicar. He laughs a lot too. I like him. But Miss Page doesn’t laugh. She used to, but she doesn’t now.’

Janet said,

‘Tell Miss Silver about your dancing-class. You can do a foxtrot and a waltz, can’t you?’

Stella looked indignant.

‘Oh, we’re past waltzes!’

It did not escape Miss Silver that everyone was relieved, and that the conversation was not permitted to return to Ellie Page. The pudding which Simmons now brought in proving to be of special interest to Stella, she talked much less, and when she had finished Janet took her away.

Chapter Twenty-three

Down at the Vicarage the Lentons were finishing lunch. As soon as it was over it would be the Vicar’s part to stack everything together and carry it through to the pantry, where Mrs Lenton would wash and Ellie Page would dry. But when he arrived with a deftly balanced pile of plates Ellie was nowhere to be seen. His abrupt demand as to where she had got to having been met with a rather over ready ‘I’m afraid she has another of her headaches,’ he frowned at Molly and Jenny and told them to go and play in the garden.

As soon as they had gone he shut the pantry door with some force.

‘Mary, what is the matter with that girl?’

Mary Lenton was running the hot tap – a noisy business, because the pipes were old and made strange hiccuping sounds. He understood her to be repeating what he had begun to find a maddening remark.

‘She isn’t strong.’

‘Has she seen Dr Stokes?’

She turned off the tap and said,

‘Not lately. But he always says the same thing – she’s delicate and she needs care.’

‘Well, she’s getting it, isn’t she? She couldn’t have an easier job, and she scrimshanks out of half the things she ought to do to help you. Washing-up, for instance. Headache or no headache it wouldn’t hurt her to stand here and dry.’

She threw him a laughing glance over her shoulder.

‘It won’t hurt you, darling! There’s a nice dry cloth on that hook.’

He took it, but he had no answering smile for her.

‘The girl eats nothing – no wonder she has headaches. I shall talk to her.’

Mary Lenton looked round again, this time in some alarm.

‘Oh, no! Darling, you mustn’t do that – you really mustn’t!’

‘And why mustn’t I?’

‘Oh, because – John, that’s one of the old spoons, if you rub it like that it will break!’

His frown deepened.

‘Never mind about the spoon. I want to know why I mustn’t speak to Ellie.’

She said, half laughing,

‘But, darling, I do mind about the spoon. It’s one of your great-grandmother’s, and they are thin.’

‘I said why mustn’t I speak to Ellie?’

Mary Lenton stopped laughing. She caught her breath and said,

‘John, she’s unhappy.’

‘What has she got to be unhappy about?’

‘I don’t know – she doesn’t tell me. Oh, darling, don’t be stupid! What are girls generally unhappy about? I suppose it’s that, and I suppose things have gone wrong.’

‘You mean it’s some love affair?’

‘I suppose so. And it’s no good asking, because if she wanted to tell me she would, and if she doesn’t want to it would only make things worse. She’ll get over it. One does!’ She laughed again.

‘Are you going to tell me you – I don’t believe it!’

‘Of course, darling! Dozens! When I was sixteen it was a film star. I was much too fat, and I took off about a stone and a half gazing at his photograph and pining. I was thrilled! And if anyone had told me I should marry a parson and settle down in a country vicarage, I should have screamed!’

His arm came round her.

‘Are you sorry you did it? Are you? Are you?’’

‘I’m bearing up. No, John – let me go! Oh, darling, you are a fool!’

This time they both laughed.

At Ford House, Adriana having gone upstairs to rest, Miss Silver, who had declined this indulgence, put on coat, hat, and gloves and went out into the garden. The air was mild and the sun shone, but it would not have occurred to her to go out bareheaded or without the neat black woollen gloves which she considered appropriate to the country. Strolling down the lawn in the direction of the river, she observed undoubted evidence of recent flooding. It was obvious that after heavy rain such as they had had during the early part of the month the winding walk along the bank would tend to be submerged. Even now, after three days of fine weather, it was damp under foot.

She turned back towards the higher ground, and coming to a gate in the hedge which skirted the lawn, she raised the latch and found herself in a garden bright with autumn flowers. At its centre she came upon the pool. A second hedge surrounded it, with arches cut in the green. There were two seats of weathered oak, and a small summerhouse which broke the hedge. A pleasant place when the days were drawing in, and admirably sheltered. It was a pity that the shadow of a fatality should have fallen upon it.

She came and stood above the pool and looked at it. It would be easy enough to trip over that low parapet in the dusk and fall into the water. But it was surely not so very deep – two feet, or two and a half. She found a stick in the summerhouse and made it nearly three. People have drowned in less than that. She recalled what Adriana had told her of the evidence at the inquest. Sam Bolton had deposed to finding the body half in and half out of the water – in fact not much more than the head and shoulders had been submerged. Mabel Preston had tripped, fallen forward, and so drowned. A dummy tilted over that low stone wall would have remained like that, but a living woman would only do so if she were stunned by the fall or held beneath the water till she drowned.