Jewel of the Thames (A Portia Adams Adventure) Read Online Free PDF Page A

miss her a tiny bit less, and a tiny bit less,” she continued, tilting her head to the side as she spoke, the low tremor in her voice still apparent, “but if you think you are doing her memory justice by feeling guilty about pursuing a path she would have chosen…” Mrs. Jones shrugged daintily, allowing me to finish the logical argument she had made without any words at all.
    “ Who is it you have lost, Mrs. Jones?” I asked, swallowing down the lump in my throat.
    She jerked away from me at the question, her eyes on her lap as she struggled to regain her composure.
    “I can only assume that your advice comes from experience,” I explained, watching her take a deep breath.
    “ Yes, well, my dear girl, when you get to my advanced age,” she answered finally, carefully taking up her teacup, “a great many of your friends and family will have passed. And it is sad every single time.”
    I still believed her to be talking about a specific loss, but in a moment of sensitivity that I usually ignored, I let it pass.
    Our conversations on that long trip grew when we boarded the ocean liner that would take us across the Atlantic. I had never traveled by ship before and was understandably excited by every aspect of this new adventure. Mrs. Jones had booked us into first-class suites along the outside of the ship, so that my small porthole looked out over beautiful views no matter what time of day. Not that I spent much time in my suite, preferring to walk the decks and explore everything from bow to stern. Waiters followed first-class passengers everywhere, an aspect of the journey my guardian enjoyed more than I. I became quite impatient with being continually asked about my comfort but found that if I explored below decks, in the second- and third-class areas of the ship, I was left to my own devices. I also had to admit (if only to myself) that I felt more comfortable amongst these folks, with their simple chipped teacups and sandwich-dominated meals, than at the extravagance of the buffet table in the first class dining room.
    I discovered early on that Mrs. Jones had a remarkable singing voice, which she carefully managed, not over-stressing it and gargling every night with salt water. She had spent some time on stage, that much was clear from her regal bearing, the way she projected her voice and even the professional way she applied her makeup.
    The details of her relationship with my grandmother were still rather unexplained, a situation that annoyed me to no end, though I did manage to glean a most interesting fact: she had also known my grandfather! He was a source of great mystery in my family, especially to my late mother, who had grown up without him. The circumstances of my mother’s birth were, it seemed, a closely guarded secret — so much so that my grandmother had refused to speak of them, saying only that “he” was gone.
    When my own father died in the war, my mother confessed that she had expected my grandmother to finally share her own loss of a husband, if only to comfort her daughter. But she was wrong; no clarity was ever given to my poor mother as to her filial heritage.
    “But then you knew my grandfather, really?” I repeated to Mrs. Jones as the sea pitched beneath us.
    “ Oh, heavens, yes, I knew your grandfather,” she chuckled, puffing on a tiny clay pipe, an affectation that seemed wholly out of place in so dignified and feminine a person.
    “ What was he like?” I demanded, rapt with attention despite my uneasy belly.
    “ Like?” she repeated thoughtfully. “He was, well, John was just so remarkably kind and human. Without ego or avarice, sympathetic and caring…”
    I nodded, forming in my mind’s eye this paragon of a man.
    She leaned back, closing her eyes and blowing out a thin wisp of smoke. “He was always a good-looking man. Your eyes are from him, the same blue, but you are slimmer of build and have your grandmother’s exotic face rather than his rounder, friendly