Silence in Court Read Online Free PDF Page A

and a kind Cousin Honoria, because if it were not for these blessings, she would be in the really horrid position of having no more than three pounds to cover the three months during which she had been ordered not to work. Looked at in this way—and it was the only proper way to look at it—No. 13 Maitland Square was very definitely a Haven of Refuge. She must clamp on to that like mad. Suppose she had been coming out of hospital with three pounds in her pocket and nowhere to go.… She could get a job all right, but she wasn’t sure about being able to keep it. She got so dreadfully tired. That was what was the matter with her now—she was tired. She lay down on the bed pulled the blue eider-down up to her chin. Rather to her own surprise, she fell asleep.
    She woke with no idea what time dinner was, scrambled into a dark blue house-gown,’ and went down, to find the rosy-cheeked girl just about to beat upon a gong. At its first notes Honor appeared, and then more slowly, from the stairs, Dennis Harland. He was in evening dress, but Honor had not changed. Carey couldn’t help thinking that if she had tried she couldn’t have found anything less becoming to wear than that brief tight dress of stone-coloured wool.
    Down the stairs Nora came running. She was bare-headed, and the copper curls shone. Under a dark fur coat a dress with bright metallic threads in it shone too. Dennis said,
    â€œAlways in a hurry—aren’t you? Who is it tonight?”
    â€œOh, Jack—”
    â€œRather a lot of Jack just now?”
    Half way to the door Nora whirled round, her colour high.
    â€œIf you’re thinking of making mischief—”
    Standing there leaning upon his crutch, he gave her the most charming smile in the world.
    â€œDarling, you shock me. And what will our cousin Carey think?”
    Nora laughed, a musical laugh with a beat of anger in it.
    â€œI suppose she’ll think that anyone who isn’t dead and buried would like to get out of this old tomb of a house sometimes, and that I don’t much care who I go with—Jack, Reggie, Alan—what’s the odds?”
    Dennis laughed too.
    â€œOh, quite. Have a nice time, darling. Explanations are a mistake, don’t you think? Sparkling indifference is so much more convincing.”
    Then, when the door had banged after her, he turned to Carey.
    â€œCome along and dine. I’m afraid I can’t offer you an arm.”
    They came into a room all bleached oak and vermilion leather, with a bowl of bright glass fruits in the middle of the table. Carey thought, “It’s like a room on the stage, startling and attractive for once, but imagine sitting down to breakfast in it for three hundred and sixty-five days in the year!” Quite frankly, imagination boggled. Anyhow, since they were there, she was thankful to feel that her own deep sapphire blue didn’t go too badly with all that scarlet and buff.
    As they sat down, Magda Brayle slipped into the room and took her seat at the foot of the table, leaving Carey and Honor facing one another at the sides. How she managed to move and sit down without a single rustle was very surprising. She was there as a piece of furniture is there, and as little seemed to be expected of her. As far as Honor and Dennis were concerned, she might not have been there at all. When Carey spoke to her she certainly answered, but in words as few and flat as if she had been an automaton with just such words to say. Having said them, she ate her soup, her fish, her savoury, without interest and more as a matter of business than of appetite. The others continued to ignore her.
    Carey discovered that she was hungry, and that Cousin Honoria had a cook who made war-time food taste like a beautiful dream.
    Over the fish Dennis surveyed the drab figure on his left.
    â€œHonor, my sweet, does that distressing garment indicate that you are going out tonight? Am I right in