“What a nice child.” Mark closed the door on her. “With all the right ideas.”
Over breakfast, the two of them ganged up on Patience. “You can’t let Paul Protheroe get away with it,” insisted Veronica, “and go on and rip off other widows and orphans. This time you really have got to go to the police, Patience.”
“Or at least to Mr Jones,” Mark told her. “You have to tell him he’s got a spy in his office. Let him decide what to do about it.”
“But I promised Priss I wouldn’t tell on her. It’s not the police she’s afraid of, it’s Paul.”
“Then maybe she’d be better off without him,” Mark said. “There must be some way we can work out for you to alert Jones without involving Priss. Let him go to the police. Once they are on to all that fraud, they are bound to sort it, and Protheroe should go down for a good long sentence. Time for his family to find how pleasant it is not to have him around.”
“I keep thinking about the twins,” Patience said. “And their brilliant careers. Look, why don’t we wait and see what Paul says at lunch?”
“Very well,” Mark stood up. “But I’m joining you for lunch, Patience. Everything is different today, thank God. You’re not on your own any more.”
“Why, nor am I.” She looked from one to the other. “I’ve got a whole family. How lucky I am. Ring the Black Stag for me, would you, Veronica, and change my booking from two to three.”
“Right.” She reached for the telephone. “Oh,” she said presently. “Thank you. I’ll tell her.” And, replacing the receiver: “A message for you, Patience. Mr Protheroe to say he can’t meet you.”
“Is that so?” Mark did not sound entirely surprised. “Pass me the phone, would you, Veronica. What’s Protheroe’s office number, Patience?” He dialled it. “I bet he’s done a runner.”
“I should have thought of that. Goodness, I wonder if he’s taken Priss.”
They were silent as Mark conversed briefly with what sounded like a flustered female voice. “Yes.” He hung up. “Chaos in the office, and the staff in tears. You’d better ring Priss at the Thompsons’, Patience, and break the news, if necessary. She may need time to consider her position.”
“She may indeed. I don’t know what to wish for her.” She paused, phone in hand. “No, she’ll be there. I was wondering why Paul bothered to leave the message for me. He knew I’d break it to her, the coward; didn’t want to tell her himself.”
She was proved right. Priss had heard nothing and dissolved into hysterical tears at the news, gently broken to her by Patience. “Do nothing. Say nothing,” Patience advised her. “Stay where you are and let the Thompsons look after you. No, of course I won’t tell.” She rang off. “So that’s that,” she said. “It will unravel by itself now, don’t you think, without any intervention from us. Poor Priss; poor twins.”
“Better without him,” said Veronica. “And talking of that, how soon do you want me to move out, Patience?”
“Nonsense,” said Mark, before Patience could speak. “You’re our family, Veronica. Besides, who’s going to mind the house for us while we are on honeymoon?”
“Just so.” Patience smiled at them both. “I was thinking in the night that we might make a flat for you in the attic, Veronica.”
“Were you so?” asked Mark. And then, as she blushed helplessly: “The really important question, Patience, is what kind of a wedding you want. I hope you were thinking about that too.”
“Well, I was actually. And I know just what I want. A nice old-fashioned church wedding here in Leyning. As quiet as we can make it.”
“Which won’t be very,” Mark told her.
“May I look after your trousseau?” asked Veronica.
“And Mrs Vansittart in the front row, of course,” said Mark.
Right on cue, the front door bell rang.
A Note on the Author
Jane Aiken Hodge was born in Massachusetts to Pulitzer prize-winning poet, Conrad Aiken, and his first wife, writer Jessie McDonald. Hodge was 3 years old when her family moved to Great Britain, settling in Rye, East Sussex, where her younger sister, Joan, who would become a novelist and a children’s writer, was born.
From 1935, Jane Hodge read English at Somerville College, Oxford University, and in 1938 she took a second degree in English at Radcliffe College. She was a civil servant, and also worked for Time magazine, before returning to the UK in 1947. Her works of fiction include historical novels and contemporary detective novels. In 1972 she renounced her United States citizenship and became a British subject.
Discover books by Jane Aiken Hodge published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/JaneAikenHodge
A Death in Two Parts
Leading Lady
Rebel Heiress
Strangers in Company
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,
London WC1B 3DP
First published in Great Britain 2000, Severn House Publishers Ltd
Copyright © 2000 Jane Aiken Hodge
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eISBN: 9781448209743
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