‘Back from Cathedral already, Thomas?’ she said.
‘Yes, my dear, and you from church. I sat in the nave, if you want to know, and came out before the sermon.’
He paused a moment.
‘Probably you met Miss Propert at the door,’ he said. ‘She has been working at the catalogue, I find. How is Alice this morning? Have you seen her?’
The pearl-pendant gently wagged at Mrs Keeling’s throat: Mrs Fyson’s comment gently stirred in her head. She would have said this was clever too, this introduction of Miss Propert’s name without waiting for his wife to mention it. Clever or not, it served its immediate purpose, for she gave him news of Alice.
‘The sooner you take her off to the seaside the better,’ he said. ‘Change of air will do her good. I should go this week, if I were you.’
It seemed to Mrs Keeling that this was not being clever but stupid. She felt that it was a designed diversion to distract her thoughts. She was being ‘pearl-pendanted’ again without the pearl, and was not going to be put off like that.
‘Oh, I have too many engagements to think of that,’ she said, ‘and you would not be able to come with me!’
‘There is little chance of that whenever you go,’ said he.
An awful, an ill-inspired notion came into poor Mrs Keeling’s head. She determined on light good-humoured banter. Her intentions were excellent, her performance deplorable.