The Chinese Shawl by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page A

meal which Miss Sophy still called dinner had been disposed of. The stately repasts of the eighteenth century, the heavy banquets of the Victorian age, had dwindled to a cup of clear soup and a lightly poached egg surrounded by spinach. The ale, the strong waters, the fine claret, the Madeira which had made the journey round the Cape, the sherry, and the port, were gone away to a flagon of orange-juice and a jug of barley-water. The transition to the dining-room was too risky for an invalid, so there was a comfortable low table drawn to the side of the couch in the drawing-room. But Miss Sophy still dined.
    As soon as Mary had removed the last traces of the meal the business of telephoning began. Miss Sophy superintended. It was the most interesting thing that had happened for a long time. It was a rapprochement—It was the end of the family feud. Oliver’s daughter and Agnes! Miss Sophy’s colour rose and her eyes shone. She fairly fluttered with excitement.
    Laura would much rather have waited until Cousin Sophy had gone to bed. She could have borne to wait for ever. She felt an extreme reluctance to call across that twenty-year gulf and hear Agnes Fane answering her. It was naturally not the slightest use to feel like that. She put through the call whilst Miss Sophy poured out reminiscences, and almost at once, before she was expecting it, there was a voice on the line— what Laura would mentally call a suet-pudding voice.
    “This is the Priory. Miss Adams speaking.”
    Cousin Sophy’s hearing was very acute. She plucked Laura’s sleeve and whispered,
    “Your Cousin Lucy—”
    Laura said, “It is Laura Fane, Cousin Lucy,” and waited.
    There was a sound as if the receiver had been jerked. The voice said “Oh—” just like that, without any expression. Laura found it rather daunting. There was a pause, a murmur of voices too low to be caught. She thought the receiver had been set down or muffled.
    Cousin Sophy whispered, “Don’t take any notice of Lucy, She is a very stupid woman.”
    And then another voice was speaking in a deep, firm tone. If Laura had not known that this was Agnes Fane she would not have been quite sure that it wasn’t a man.
    “Is that Laura?”
    Laura said, “Yes, Cousin Agnes. It is Cousin Agnes?”
    The deep voice said, “Yes.” And then, “I hope you are coming to stay with me.”
    Laura thought, “She knows I’m coming. Tanis must have rung her up.” The voice was dominant and assured, a voice that was accustomed to being obeyed.
    This feeling persisted through her polite thanks and Miss Fane’s reply. The conversation was as short, as formal, as devoid of emotion as if there had never been a passionate Agnes who had sung Infelice, and a reluctant Oliver who had loved somebody else.
    Miss Sophy heaved a sigh as Laura rang off.
    “Well, my dear, that’s over. And a little disappointing, don’t you think? Things so often are, you know. When your father ran away with your mother they were having a fete at the Priory—Primrose Day—no, it couldn’t have been that, because it was in the summer, really a very hot day—but it was something to do with the Primrose League. Very inconsiderate of Oliver and Lilian, but of course they were very much in love, and when young people are in love they don’t think of anyone except themselves. The grounds of the Priory are very beautiful, and Agnes was pouring out tea under the big cedar, when one of the footmen, a very foolish young man, brought her Oliver’s note on a salver. Of course he never meant her to have it like that—it was a most stupid mistake. But she opened it, and read it, and put it away in her bag, and went on talking to the Lord Lieutenant and pouring out tea. No one would have known there was anything wrong. But when everyone had gone she took her horse, Black Turban—such a curious name I always thought—and rode out on him. And when she didn’t come back they sent out a search party, and there she was at