The Miss Silver Mysteries Volume Three by Patricia Wentworth

Author:Patricia Wentworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 2018-10-27T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

SUNDAY INTERVENED. GARTH accompanied Miss Sophy to church and listened to the new rector’s austere, academic voice with a curious feeling of unreality. Where his grandfather had boomed and thundered – a portly presence with the eagle eye which could detect a napping villager in the farthest pew – this ascetic scholar, whispering the prayers and running through the lesson in a vague, monotonous undertone, sounded unreal.

His thoughts must have communicated themselves to Miss Sophy. She turned and fooffled into his ear.

‘So different from poor Papa.’

When they stood up for the psalms he detected Cyril Bond, singing a piercing quarter of a tone sharp against the native choir who were even flatter than he remembered them. Glancing across the church, his eye lighted upon Mrs Mottram in a flibberty-gibbet hat which matched the very bright blue of her dress. On one side of her a little girl of five with a fuzz of yellow hair and a frilled pink frock. On the other Mr Everton, who looked as if the choir was hurting him quite a lot. The eye roamed farther, and discovered that Janice wasn’t there.

During a dry and practically inaudible sermon Garth searched his mind for reasons why this should be any concern of his. He came to the conclusion that it was not. After which he went on thinking about her until the service was over.

Janice was, and had been for what seemed like a very long time, sitting on the sofa beside Miss Madoc, who passed continuously from self-reproach, through protestations of her brother’s high mindedness and perfect innocence, to the despairing conclusion that everything was against him, and that he would certainly be hanged.

‘If only I hadn’t said anything to them about the key—’

‘But, dear Miss Madoc, he told them about it himself. What you said didn’t make the least bit of difference – it didn’t, truly.’

Two large tears ran down Miss Madoc’s face and dripped miserably upon a peacock-blue scarf which she had put on by accident, and which swore quite horribly at the rather bright purple of her Sunday dress. The skies might fall, Evan might be in prison, she herself far too prostrated to be able to think of going to church, but she had been brought up to wear a different dress on Sunday, and she would have felt quite desperately irreligious in her everyday green serge.

‘That’s what you say, my dear, and I’m sure it’s very kind of you, and I don’t like to feel that I’m keeping you back from church, but really when I think that it was only last Sunday that poor Mr Harsch was with us and the blackberry tart was so particularly good! It isn’t everyone who cares for cold pastry, but Evan never will have any cooking done on Sunday, so what can you do? But last Sunday it really was as light as a feather, and poor Mr Harsch enjoyed it so much, and had a second helping.’ Two more tears ran down, and she wiped them away.

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