Roddy’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
“Aunt Laura?”
He took the letter, read it, gave a frown of distaste, and handed it back.
“Yes,” he said. “Definitely to be burnt! How extraordinary people are!”
Elinor said:
“One of the servants, do you think?”
“I suppose so.” He hesitated. “I wonder who—who the person is—the one they mention?”
Elinor said thoughtfully:
“It must be Mary Gerrard, I think.”
Roddy frowned in an effort of remembrance.
“Mary Gerrard? Who’s she?”
“The daughter of the people at the lodge. You must remember her as a child? Aunt Laura was always fond of the girl, and took an interest in her. She paid for her schooling and for various extras—piano lessons and French and things.”
Roddy said:
“Oh, yes, I remember her now: scrawny kid, all legs and arms, with a lot of messy fair hair.”
Elinor nodded.
“Yes, you probably haven’t seen her since those summer holidays when Mum and Dad were abroad. You’ve not been down at Hunterbury as often as I have, of course, and she’s been abroad au pair in Germany lately, but we used to rout her out and play with her when we were all kids.”
“What’s she like now?” asked Roddy.
Elinor said:
“She’s turned out very nice looking. Good manners and all that. As a result of her education, you’d never take her for old Gerrard’s daughter.”
“Gone all ladylike, has she?”
“Yes. I think, as a result of that, she doesn’t get on very well at the lodge. Mrs. Gerrard died some years ago, you know, and Mary and her father don’t get on. He jeers at her schooling and her ‘fine ways.’”
Roddy said irritably:
“People never dream what harm they may do by ‘educating’ someone! Often it’s cruelty, not kindness!”
Elinor said:
“I suppose she is up at the house a good deal… She reads aloud to Aunt Laura, I know, since she had her stroke.”
Roddy said:
“Why can’t the nurse read to her?”
Elinor said with a smile:
“Nurse O’Brien’s got a brogue you can cut with a knife! I don’t wonder Aunt Laura prefers Mary.”
Roddy walked rapidly and nervously up and down the room for a minute or two. Then he said: