Silence in Court by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online

in cold storage and getting down to buying a handbag—what we call a purse. Could you use one?”
    They walked on again. Looking down at the bag which, like herself, had been damaged by enemy action and, unlike herself, would never be the same again, she had a horrid suspicion that all this talk of blondes, weddings, and fur coats was so much Machiavellian overstatement in order to undermine her resistance to being given an expensive handbag.
    Whilst she was considering retaliatory measures Jeff’s voice began again overhead.
    â€œYou know, you’ve got this proposal business all wrong. I’ve been reading a lot since I came over—what you might call sound escapist literature, all about how people lived before they started having European wars—late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century stuff. When the girls in those books were proposed to they appreciated it—no jibbing and saying they were going home. Even if they were going to come back with the offer of being a sister to the fellow they did it as kindly as they could. There were some nice blushes and a lot of pretty remarks about its being an honour and they would always remember it and hand it down as a sort of an heirloom.”
    The corners of Carey’s mouth began to twitch. A lazy downward-glancing eye may have perceived this. The voice overhead continued.
    â€œI won’t say you didn’t blush. Maybe you did the best you could, but it didn’t look right to me. It could easily have been mistaken for just ordinary temper. These girls I was talking about, they had a kind of melting look with it. Some of them got their eyes brimming over, and a tear or two trickling down over the blushes.”
    A wave of laughter broke through Carey’s guard. It wasn’t any good being angry, and she wanted to enjoy herself.
    She said, “Oh, Jeff—you fool! ” and heard him chuckle.
    They bought a bag, they lunched, they went to a show. They quarrelled once or twice, and found it an exhilarating adventure. There were no dull moments. No shadow of things to come lay across their path.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    It was in the evening that Honoria Maquisten gave her the brooch. Carey had changed when she came in, and proceeded by order to the bedroom, where Cousin Honoria sat in state by the fire robed in silver tissue hemmed with fur, diamonds in her ears and at her throat, diamonds on the long, thin fingers. None of the jewels were the same as she had worn yesterday. Carey blinked at the splendour, and felt herself very sober in her blue woollen house-gown. She sat obediently on a chair placed for her by Ellen, who then retired, noiseless and lizard-like. She seemed scarcely to open the door or to close it again, but since she was there one minute and gone the next, it was reasonable to suppose that she had done both.
    With a feeling of discomfort it came to Carey that she had never been in a house where people made so little noise. Cousin Honoria’s deep voice and the jarring tap of Dennis’s crutch stood out against a curiously muffled background. Of course curtains and carpets being so thick had something to do with it. No, not something—everything. And then she remembered Nora calling the house a tomb the night before and flinging out of it with a banged door to break the silence.
    Honoria Maquisten put a hand in a fur-trimmed pocket and held it out with something on the palm.
    â€œThat’s a hideous garment you’ve got on—as much like a dressing-gown as makes no difference. All the clothes are hideous nowadays, but at any rate it’s long. I can’t get used to things above the knee in the evening. And I won’t say the colour doesn’t suit you. I suppose you matched your eyes. You’d better have this to cheer it up. I took a fancy to it in a second-hand shop and bought it to give to Julia on her twenty-first birthday—a week before she died. It’s been put away for fifty