The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay Read Free Book Online

of.”
    â€œBut really, George,” I protested. “I don’t believe Father considers her at all as a woman . She’s a very useful machine. You’ve no idea what a treasure she is, looking after everything and getting things done and keeping Father in a good temper!”
    â€œThat’s just it! She’s got him completely in her toils.”
    â€œRubbish!” I insisted. “It’s not as if he had any difficulty in keeping her here. I believe she really likes being here; she loves running the house and managing. I often think she must be frightfully lonely, but that’s only my idea. She doesn’t seem to mope.”
    â€œLonely?” asked George, horrified.
    â€œYes; she has no friends. She’s rather better class than the servants and she sees very little of anyone else. I really don’t know what she does in her free time. She sits in her room a good deal, I think; and she sometimes goes for walks alone. I took her to the W.I., thinking that might interest her, but she’s too towny; she doesn’t get on with the village people and is awfully afraid of losing her dignity. But it’s a ghastly life for her. After all, she’s under thirty!”
    George guffawed. Of course, he always laughs at the W.I. “By Jove! I’m almost sorry for Miss Portisham! Taking her to a mothers’ meeting to brighten her life! I must say, I’d never thought of it like this. It only makes the situation more dangerous, to my mind. But I suppose the woman can go into Bristol if she likes? Movies and theatres and shops and all that sort of thing.”
    â€œBut she’s all alone, if she does go. Of course, there’s Bingham. You remember it was Miss Portisham who produced him; he comes from her part of the world. At first I thought she was walking out with him, or whatever the equivalent is in Miss Portisham’s station of life. But I don’t think they’ve been about together much lately.”
    â€œBy Jove! If we could marry her off to Bingham, that’d solve the problem. They could live in the coachman’s cottage and she could trot round every day and run the household! But you think that’s off? Looks bad.”
    George really was obsessed with this idea of the danger of Miss Portisham. I thought I might divert his mind by returning to a point I had already mentioned.
    â€œFather isn’t interested in Miss Portisham,” I urged. “Not a bit. All their conversation is frightfully formal. ‘Have this done, Miss Portisham.’ ‘Yes, Sir Osmond.’ Portisham has picked up good manners and all that sort of thing, but she doesn’t talk; not like a human being.”
    â€œYou don’t know how they talk when you’re not there,” George pointed out.
    I was sure it was just the same, whether I was there or not. If you go into a room where people are having an intimate conversation and they have to change the tone of it suddenly because you are there, you can always feel something in the atmosphere. A suspense; and a sort of tingling; as if their personalities had not got back properly into their shells of convention. I tried to explain this to George, but he wasn’t really convinced.
    â€œYou don’t understand these things, Jenny,” he told me in his most fatherly manner. “Girls never do. Some men, especially elderly men, never marry a woman because what you call her personality interests them. They don’t want her to make clever conversation. Miss Portisham is a good-looking girl; you must admit that. You just think of her as an efficient secretary, but any man can see that she’s got a good figure and a good skin and nice hair. She’s not my type, but, mind you, she’d be attractive to some men. You can’t tell me that a girl of her age, with her figure, never thinks of getting married, not to mention marrying a rich man. And you say yourself that she sees no