“Cheerio, Gladdie dear. Lovely weather for it, I don’t think.”
Gladys opened the door wider.
“Come in, Dorrie. I’d like you to meet Miss Hilton.”
When the front door had slammed behind Dorrie, she still seemed to be in the room. There was no mistaking Dome’s profession. It was in her walk, in her unwillingness to speak to a woman not of her world. Clara struggled to appear matter of fact. Not to sound appalled.
“Did my uncle know?”
Gladys did not hesitate, though she could still hear Simon saying, “I’m countin’ on those hussies of yours keepin’ me in me old age.” The old man might be dead, she might kill any chance she still had of being left the house, but “never split on a pal” had been her rule for living.
“Not him, dearie. Is it likely?”
Clara considered Dorrie quite dispassionately.
“She’s not at all young, is she?”
Gladys pulled her chair nearer the fire, so her legs could feel the comforting heat.
“No. Neither are the other three. It’s a terrible life when you’re getting on.” She moved her head to indicate the window. “It’s snowing again. I never did care for railway stations at the best of times; you try hanging about outside one on a night like this. Often it’s a waste of time, but they don’t give in. They’ve got guts, I’ll say that.”
“Couldn’t they do some . . .” Clara fumbled for a suitable way of expressing her meaning, “some other work?”
“What?”
Clara turned her mind to the mission. What was it girls of that sort did?
“Laundry work?”
“Not them. They’re not the domesticated sort. The only time they’ve got down to anything for long is when they’ve made mail bags for His Majesty.”
“But they can’t go on doing, what they do, for much longer, can they?”
A weary look passed over Gladys’s face. She had often asked herself that question. “The girls” as she called them, were supposed to pay, and supposed to feed themselves, and officially she had no idea on what they lived. Actually there were many weeks when no rent was forthcoming and sometimes she provided a meal. A sudden dislike of discussing the problem of “the girls” swept over her. All her life she had laughed at problems. Laughter was the way to treat worries, to send them scurrying like rats into dark corners.
“Never mind them, dearie. They’re my headache, not yours. Mind you, they hand me a good laugh, I’ll give them that. Now, I’m going to slip in next door where there’s a telephone, and get you a taxi, for you ought to be getting along. Never know who may come here later.”
* * * * *
Charles and Henry sat in the kitchen. Charles on the table, Henry on the chair. Henry’s nose was red and his eyes watery.
“You could ’ave knocked me down with a daffodil when the ’orspital rings through to say she’s gone. She goes off with ’er little suitcase just as if she was off for the day. Do you s’pose she knew?”
“Of course. She fixed every damn thing with my father.”
“No! An’ she so set on you and all.”
“That’s why. She spoke to him about Miss Julie and myself, and arranged things so that some day Miss Julie would have some money of her own.” He offered Henry a cigarette. “She’s left you ‘The Goat in Gaiters.’”
Henry’s head shot up.
“That she never!”
“Truth. There’s a tag to it. The Frossarts are to live there with you, for as long as they care to stay; she hoped you would make up to them for losing those sons of theirs. You have to keep the horses, and when they retire the fourteen greyhounds . . .”
“They won’t never retire, not if I know Perce, they won’t.”
“Perhaps she thought of that one. She told my father there was no need to worry about Perce, you’d see after him.”
“That’s a cert, that is. What about Gamblers’ Luck? Miss Julie ’avin’ that?”
“Some day Miss Julie comes into the lot, but all she gets now is the lease of this place. Mrs. Gladys Smith is to live for life in number one Lipton Grove, Paddington, and she also gets the proceeds from Gamblers’ Luck Limited for her lifetime, the proceeds to be used for the benefit of four ladies whose names I forget.”
Henry’s eyes widened.
“They aren’t called Dorrie, Eunice, an’ . . .”
Charles stopped him.
“That’s them. Who are they?”
Henry was speechless for a moment.
“’o’d have thought it of ’er! When did she see ’em? They’re Jane Shores, or was, they’re gettin’ on now.”
Charles slid off the table.
“That’s the lot. Except money for Mr. Hilton’s stone and a wish to be buried near him.”
Henry swallowed. He took a furious puff at his cigarette.
“Left nothin’ for a stone for ’erself I s’pose. Still, I’ve got a nice piece what I can spend on one. Might ’ave an angel pointin’ up, she’d like that.”
Charles got up. He whistled to disguise the fact that he was moved.
“She could have a hell of a great stone, we’d all see to it, but she wouldn’t like it. She left a wish that if there was money for a little stone, all that should be written on it was, ‘She hath done what she could.’”
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Noel Streatfeild
Mary Noel Streatfeild was born in Sussex in 1895. She was one of five children born to the Anglican Bishop of Lewes and found vicarage life very restricting. During World War One, Noel and her siblings volunteered in hospital kitchens and put on plays to support war charities, which is where she discovered her talent on stage. She studied at RADA to pursue a career in the theatre and after ten years as an actress turned her attention to writing adult and children’s fiction. Her experiences in the arts heavily influenced her writing, most notably her famous children’s story Ballet Shoes which won a Carnegie Medal and was awarded an OBE in 1983. Noel Streatfeild died in 1986.
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First published 1952 by Collins
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Copyright © Joan Aiken 1952
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Table of Contents
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Aunt Clara Page 27