Fortunately for Kitty, Aunt Grace was not attending. She was reading a letter which seemed to contain bad news, for her expression grew more and more distressed. She read it over twice, as though hoping against hope that she might have made some mistake, and when she laid it down Emmeline saw that her hands were shaking.
‘I’ve just had a piece of very bad news,’ she said quietly. ‘Mary King—the very dear friend I used to live with in London—is dangerously ill—dying, I’m afraid. I shall have to go to her to-day or—— Kitty, would you mind fetching Bradshaw? It’s on the drawing-room writing-table.’
Kitty bustled off, awestruck and yet pleased with the importance of being able to help at such a crisis, if only by fetching Bradshaw.
‘Oh dear, it’s last month’s—I was forgetting,’ said Aunt Grace wearily, as Kitty came running back with it. ‘I suppose it wouldn’t be safe to trust to it—so many trains change in September.’
‘Suppose I go out and buy another?’ suggested Kitty, eagerly. To be sent out shopping in the middle of breakfast would be a delightful break in the ordinary routine of life.
‘You wouldn’t get one at any of the village shops,’ said Aunt Grace, putting her hand to her forehead. ‘Stay! the Robinsons might possibly have one.’
‘I’ll run round to the Vicarage and ask them,’ broke in Kitty, rushing off almost before Aunt Grace had time for the absent ‘Very well,’ which was all she answered.
‘I’ll just go and see that she puts on a hat,’ murmured Emmeline, more to herself than to Aunt Grace who had no ears for such things just then. The precaution proved a necessary one. Emmeline was only just in time to stop Kitty from running out at the front door hatless, gloveless, and still in her morning pinafore, a garment which had seen much active service in the course of its career.
Micky was coming downstairs by way of the banisters when Emmeline made her way back to the dining-room. ‘I say, is Aunt Grace in a wax?’ he inquired.