God Save the Queen! by Dorothy Cannell Read Free Book Online Page A

looked dolefully down at the floor. “But there is also, when all is said and done, the matter of atonement. Of recent years I’ve become something of a religious man. No point in letting the chapel go to waste, if you understand what I’m saying, m’boy.”
    “Not precisely.” Boris could see that the young man named Vivian was striving not to look disappointingly thick.
    “Never was much good at explaining m’self.” Sir Henry squared his shoulders and looked his nephew in the eye. “But to try and put it in a nutshell, I rather got the idea when Mabel was so stuck on marrying me that I was being handed a penance that might in its small way make some reparation for the sins of the past. Not my past, if you get what I’m saying, Vivian. Dull sort of fellow. Never been sufficiently interesting to get up to any great wickedness.”
    “Then whose past, Uncle Henry?”
    “Enough said, m’boy.”
    “It’s not that business about the family silver?”
    “Mustn’t even discuss it, Vivian; walls have ears, don’t you see, gave m’father my solemn oath when the poor chap was coughing out his lungs on his deathbed. That’s when he told me the story. Just as your father told you before he passed on. That’s how it works, family tradition and all that.” This was a lengthy speech for Sir Henry and he wasn’t done yet. “I hope you understand, m’boy, that in making the decision to leave Gossinger Hall to Hutchins, I feel I’ve done m’damnedest to move our family one step closer to laying the past to rest.”
    “I’m sure you’ve done what you think is best, Uncle Henry,” responded Vivian, “but to be perfectly frank I don’t suppose that is a whole lot of consolation to Aunt Mabel at this moment.”
    “You could be right.” Sir Henry stood there, looking very much like a stuffed owl to Boris, who was still hiding out under the table. “But when all’s said and done it’s not as though Hutchins would turn Mabel out of the house after my day. I haven’t yet spoken to him about m’plans, but I haven’t a doubt in the world he’d invite her to make Gossinger her home for as long as she liked.”
    “And she could be a second mother to Flora?” Vivian raised an eyebrow. “I may be wrong, Uncle, but I rather got the impression from Aunt Mabel’s outburst upstairs that she would sooner be dead than stay on under those conditions.”
    “You think she put it that strongly, do you?” Sir Henry looked crestfallen until he remembered something. “But it’s not as though she won’t have options, m’boy. I plan to leave her a tidy sum, enough money to keep her in reasonable comfort. And she has the flat in Bethnal Green, you know. She’s got a sister there, and after I’m gone I would think she’d want to get back to her roots. Nothing like your own people, is there? Fact of life.” Sir Henry breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Give Mabel time, she’ll come round.”
    “If you say so, Uncle Henry.”
    “She’s a good woman, wouldn’t want you to think I’m not damned fond of her after all these years.”
    Pull the other one, it’s got bells on, thought Boris. He shrank back closer to the wall as Sir Henry looked around him in an absentminded sort of way and said that he thought he would go and look for Hutchins and have a chat with him about the situation. Whereupon Vivian Gossinger said that he would toddle down to the pub for a pint. And after bleating on a bit more like a pair of sheep, the two of them strolled off along the corridor, leaving Boris to get to his feet and ponder.
    The boy found it impossible not to feel a twinge of sympathy for Great-Aunt Mabel, even though she’d never done anything halfway nice for Gran. But there was no denying that he saw the possibilities in the situation. Right now Auntie was bound to be feeling all alone in the world, betrayed by her husband, abandoned by the stupid nephew, so how could she fail to view a visit from Boris as a little ray of