Latter End by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page B

first one thing and then another from a crowded pen-tray—picking them up and dropping them again with flustered, jerky fingers. When he turned round his face was red. He said angrily,
    “What do you mean by that?”
    Julia’s right hand lay clenched in her lap. She drove the nails into her palm. She mustn’t let Jimmy see that she was angry too. She couldn’t manage him that way. Mummie never got angry with him or with anyone. That was why everyone listened to her. If only things didn’t boil inside you until you felt you didn’t care—
    She’d got to care about Ellie. She managed such a temperate, reasonable voice that it surprised her.
    “Look here, Jimmy, I don’t want to have a row—I want to talk. I just want you to listen, that’s all. Lois does the flowers—that’s all she does in the house. It isn’t anything to be angry about—it’s a fact. It’s her house, and there isn’t any reason why she should do more than she wants to. She hasn’t ever lived in the country before. She’s been so much in hotels that perhaps she just doesn’t know what a lot there is to do.”
    She began to feel pleased with herself. She was letting Jimmy down lightly, and who said she hadn’t any tact? She went on, warming to it.
    “I’ve got a really good plan, and it wouldn’t cost very much—it really wouldn’t. If you would have Mrs. Huggins here every day instead of just once a week for Manny, it would make all the difference. You see, neither Minnie nor Ellie are what you’d call strong. They haven’t the muscle for the heavy jobs, and they get awfully tired doing them. But Mrs. Huggins is as strong as a horse—she’d just gallop through the work. And Minnie and Ellie could do the lighter things.”
    Jimmy had stopped being angry. He looked puzzled.
    “But Mrs. Huggins does come. I’ve seen her.”
    “She comes on Saturdays, and she scrubs Manny’s floors. She doesn’t do anything else.”
    He said in a worried voice,
    “I thought she did. And there’s a girl—Joe Marsh’s wife— I’ve seen her about.”
    “She does sewing for Lois.”
    “Are you sure she doesn’t help in the house?”
    “Quite sure.”
    She left that to sink in.
    “Jimmy—about Ronnie—I do want you just to listen. If Ellie hadn’t the hard work, and those bicycle-rides to Crampton which are much too much for her, I do think she could manage Ronnie. It would make her happy, and you can do a lot when you’re happy… No, please listen. He gets about on a crutch now. If you let them have the old schoolroom, he wouldn’t need to go upstairs at all. The beds could come down from our old room, and there’s the cloakroom just opposite. It would all be quite easy, and—oh, Jimmy, it would make Ellie frightfully happy! You’ve always been so kind to us.”
    She wasn’t angry any more. She was remembering all the times that Jimmy had been kind—a long procession of them, stretching back, and back, and back until they were out of mind. This warm remembrance filled the room. The look she gave him was a lovely smiling one.
    He came over to her and put his arm about her shoulders.
    “Well, well, my dear—I’ll see. Very nice of you to put it like that. Very nice to have you here again. I’ve missed you very much. Haven’t given me much opportunity of doing anything for you the last two years, have you? But we’ll see what we can do about Ellie. She’s fretting, is she?”
    “She’s breaking her heart.”
    “Well, well, we can’t have that. I’ll do what I can.”
    CHAPTER 8
    Jimmy—darling!”
    Jimmy Latter rumpled his fair hair.
    “Well, it seems quite a good plan. Julia says—”
    Lois came up to him laughing and put her hand against his lips.
    “Oh, my dear, if it’s Julia! No, Jimmy, really—I do call it the limit! She doesn’t come near us for two years, and then she comes sailing in and wants to turn the house upside down. After all, you know, it is our house.”
    “Well, it is—”
    She was still