"Oh, Mummy!" she exclaimed.
"How silly of me, darling. I didn't mean to--but I don't understand, and I can't bear to be--well--outside with you children--we've always got on so well, and had no secrets. This----"
There was a tense silence.
Adrian, having spoken no word up till now, had been growing more and more angry with the world in general.
"It's a jolly old muddle," he declared suddenly. "Honestly, Mother, it's not reasonable to suppose Pamela would be such a silly ass as to march up to Crown Hill and publicly say you sent her for a diamond brooch, and then swear she hadn't been! I ask you now, is it feasible? It's sheer blazing idiocy. If she did she's mad and ought to be put in an asylum. It isn't even criminal, it's drivelling. As for Auntie A.--now she is mad. Always has been. Well, I should say she'd dreamed the whole business if Farr was out of it. You say Farr saw Pamela; did Farr tell you, or did Auntie A. speak for Farr?"
"Oh, Miss Ashington told me what Farr remarked about Pam's----"
"There you are then. Bet you the whole thing is some mad vision of Auntie A.'s! Sure of it. She was asleep on the verandah and when you asked for the brooch, having lost it, she says this----"
"But, darling boy, she wouldn't invent----"
"Not intentionally, Mother, but she's got a roving imagination, we see that every week. One time she's teaching pigs to kill themselves in order to save the butcher's feelings! Another time she wants to train calves to drive the sheep to market in order that land girls need never get up! Don't believe her, Mother dear, and for any sake don't sorrow about her rotten fairy tales. They'll find that brooch in Charles' stomach when he dies of over-eating--if she hasn't been wearing it all the while herself. Oh, I say, do let's shut up all this misery, Mum. An atmosphere of crime and sorrow is enough to make one ache to be back. Let's cut it out, and cease persecuting wretched Pamela, because Auntie A. is a lunatic."
If it did nothing else, this speech made Mrs. Romilly "sit up and take notice", as her son said cheerfully a few minutes later. Presently she went upstairs; and fortified by a "nice cup o' tea" made and brought up, and administered by Mrs. Jeep herself, really did begin to think there might be something in what Adrian said.