“No, darling, but I always knew he must have done that, and in any case it didn't come to me till Granny died. Not that I should have said anything so silly.”
“Yes, but that's just the kind of thing one would expect Mavis to say!” Abby pointed out. “There was a girl at school awfully like her, always saying "Oh, I don't think we ought to!" and being kind and forgiving to everyone, and saying improving things. She was the most ghastly type! And the worst thing about people like that is that they actually believe in their own acts. I wouldn't mind half as much if they were doing it deliberately, and stayed honest inside, but they don't. Geoffrey Silloth says hypocrisy is a deadly drug which finally permeates the whole system. And, in any case,” she added, struck by a powerful thought, “can you see Mavis firing a gun!”
“I didn't see it,” said Charles, with emphasis. “All I know about her is that she chose to come down here and act as a sort of unpaid drudge for an out-and-out swine, who wasn't able to call decently polite to her, rather than get a job and be able to call her soul her own. And I never knew why till yesterday!”
“Well, dear, until yesterday you never really thought about it at all, did you?” interpolated his mother mildly.
“She said she felt it was her duty to look after Dear Uncle,” said Abby.
“Boloney!” said Charles scornfully. “I may not have thought much about it, but I do recall that in one of her expansive moments she disclosed that it was such a surprise to her when Dear Uncle wrote to offer her a home, because she had never even met him. So if you're nourishing a vision of Warrenby being the prop of his sister-in-law's declining years, can it! He offered Mavis a home because, for one thing he needed a hostess in his big social climb, and, for another, he thought it would be grand to have a housekeeper and general dog's-body he wouldn't have to pay, and could bully!”
“Yes, that's perfectly true,” conceded Abby. “But I still say she didn't do it. Do you know what I did when you were all at Church this morning? I walked down to Mr. Drybeck's house, and then cut back to Fox House, across the common, timing myself, and I found he could have done it easily! It took me exactly six minutes to reach the gorse bushes. What's more, there's plenty of cover, because there are lots of bushes and things on that part of the common.”
“I don't say Drybeck couldn't have done it in the time, but I don't suppose he'd walk as fast as you did. He's too old.”
“What rot!” said Abby scornfully. “He's as thin as a herring, and look at him on the tennis-court!”
At this moment, Mr. Haswell walked into the room, saying, as he shut the door, that if Charles must borrow his clothes he did wish he would sometimes put them back where they belonged, instead of leaving them all over the house. He said this without ill-will, and certainly without any hope that his words would bear fruit; and his son replied, as he invariably did: “Sorry, Dad!” and then dismissed the matter from his mind.