Blindfold by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online

again.
    â€œNo,” said Kay—“it wasn’t a gooseberry bush.” Then, quickly, “I don’t really know anything about my father and mother. I don’t remember them.”
    Mrs Green finished her first cup of tea and poured herself out another, horribly black. This time she put in five lumps.
    â€œThen ’ow were you brought up? Relations? You don’t look like a norphanage girl.”
    â€œAn aunt brought me up. I haven’t any other relations.”
    â€œOh, come on!” said Mrs Green. “This isn’t a police court, for me to be asking you questions and you to be saying just as little as you can for fear of what might come out. Unless such was the case,” she added darkly and stirred her tea again.
    Kay looked down at her piece of bread and jam and began to cut it into strips.
    â€œThere isn’t anything to tell,” she said. “My aunt wasn’t well off. We moved about a good deal. She taught me, and I helped in the house. I didn’t go to school. She died two years ago, and there wasn’t any money, so I went as mother’s help to the Vicar’s wife—we were in a village then.”
    â€œMother’s ’elp!” said Mrs Green, in a tone of scorn. “’Eaven ’elp them is what I say! All ’elp and no wages—work from six in the morning till eleven at night in return for a kind ’ome! That’s about the size of it as a rule!”
    â€œOh no!” said Kay warmly. “They were most awfully kind to me, and they paid me ten pounds a year. They had six children and very little money, so they couldn’t pay me any more. I only left because they couldn’t afford to go on having me.”
    Mrs Green scooped up the remains of her sugar lumps and ate them out of her spoon.
    â€œDid you go for another ’elp?”
    â€œYes. I only stayed a few months. They were rather like you said.”
    Mrs Green nodded.
    â€œThey mostly is.”
    â€œSo then I thought I’d try being a house-parlour-maid. I thought I could do the work, and I should get a proper day out and get much more money. But I didn’t like the place I got, and now I’ve come here.”
    â€œAnd ’ow did you come ’ere?” said Mrs Green. “That’s what I want to know, my girl. That there Ivy Hodge, she come yesterday, and so far as anyone knew we were all fixed up. Well, she takes and runs away—banged the area door and off like a mad thing. And lunch-time to-day Nurse comes in in ’er outdoor things and she says as cool as a cucumber, ‘There’s a new ’ouse-parlour-maid coming in, Green, and I ’ope you’ll find ’er satisfactory.’ Now that’s what I call a quick bit of work.”
    Kay hesitated. Her colour rose. Then she said,
    â€œI wanted a place, and you wanted a house-parlour-maid. That’s how it happened, Mrs Green.”

CHAPTER VII
    Whilst Mrs Green was sugaring her strong tea, Flossie Palmer was entertaining Mr Ernest Bowden. It was the first time he had been officially received in the family circle—Aunt being so pertickler. Flossie’s return after a mere twelve hours absence had not been at all well received. In sheer self-defence she had secured another situation, and the tea-party had been conceded by Mrs Palmer as a send-off. Not to anyone except that chance-met stranger in the fog had Flossie spoken of her headlong flight from No. 16 Varley Street. Her ordinarily voluble tongue became dry and silent under Aunt’s questioning. She hadn’t liked the place and she had come away, and that was all. For one thing, if Aunt knew she had been out all night, the fat would be in the fire. She bought herself another brush and comb, and said nothing about the hat, the night-dress, and the change of underclothes which she had left behind in the basement bedroom. Not for anything in the world would she go back and fetch them