Touch and Go by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page B

again.
    â€œIt’s—friendly—” Some houses weren’t friendly, especially empty houses. They made you feel as if you were pushing in upon their private affairs. Holme Fallow was friendly.
    â€œYes,” said Lucilla. Her hand dropped from Sarah’s arm. “Some day I shall live here.” And with that she went on across the hall and opened the door which had been open when Sarah came that way before.
    The room beyond was quite dark now, but Lucilla crossed it without having to grope her way. The next moment a long streak of light broke the dark and widened there. The middle shutter went back with a creaking sound and the daylight came in. There was bright, warm sun outside. Lucilla opened all the other shutters, and dusted her hands on her skirt.
    â€œSnagge’s a lazy hound,” she said. “He ought to have all the windows open on a day like this.” Then she turned back to the room and waved a grimy hand. “Family portraits—” They hung round three sides of the room in heavy tarnished frames.
    A tall fair youth in the riding-clothes of the eighteen-fifties, and opposite to him something very fair and fragile in ringlets and a crinoline.
    â€œGreat-grandfather and great-grandmother at the time of their marriage.” Lucilla’s voice was quiet and serious. “She didn’t live very long. He only died the year I was born.… That’s my grandfather. He was their only child, and he was killed out hunting before he was thirty. That was done when he was twenty-one.”
    Sarah looked and saw another fair young man with a scarlet coat, and breeches which looked as if they must have been too tight to ride in.
    â€œThat’s my father and his brothers, when they were all children.”
    This picture was the last on the wall facing the windows. It showed John Hildred’s three children. Lucilla named them in order of age.
    â€œThat’s Uncle Henry. He was about five. And that’s my father next to him. He was three and a half. And the baby is Uncle Maurice.”
    Henry Hildred had his hand on his little brother’s shoulder. He stared haughtily out of the picture—a very fair, handsome child with an air of having bought the earth. Jack, in a linen smock, had an apple at which he seemed to look longingly, whilst the baby Maurice, in an embroidered muslin dress, sat placidly on the grass at their feet. They were all fair and rosy, with the same grey-blue eyes. Jack and Maurice were round and chubby of face.
    Sarah was looking at the baby.
    â€œI didn’t know you had an Uncle Maurice. Your aunt didn’t mention him. She talked about Henry and Jack.”
    â€œJack’s my father,” said Lucilla. “She doesn’t talk about Maurice much, because it makes her cry, and she wouldn’t want to cry when she was interviewing you. She was most awfully fond of him.”
    â€œIs he dead?”
    â€œThey don’t think so, but of course he must be.”
    â€œWho’s they , and why don’t they know?”
    â€œWell, he was missing in 1918, but Aunt Marina always swore he wasn’t dead.”
    â€œBut why?”
    â€œOh, because she just couldn’t bear it, I suppose. She thinks he’s alive, and what’s more Uncle Geoffrey thinks so too.”
    â€œBut why? I mean why doesn’t he come home if he’s alive?”
    Lucilla frowned.
    â€œThey think he’s wandering about in the States, or Canada, or somewhere like that. You know, Uncle Henry kept wandering and wouldn’t come back, so that makes it seem more likely. And then a client of Uncle Geoffrey’s told him he’d met someone who was most awfully like the Hildreds, and he and Aunt Marina made up their minds it was Maurice. But I’m sure he’s dead.”
    Dead .… The word echoed in Sarah’s mind as she looked at the picture. What a damnable thing war was. There was Henry, who had been a