But it was not until after the second helping of roast beef and Yorkshire that he made any further remark about his daughter to Mrs. Tovey. “I wouldn’t encourage young Ted to hang around Ivy too much, if I was you,” he said, as he pushed aside his plate.
“Encourage? He don’t want no encouraging,” replied Mrs. Tovey briskly. “He just comes in, cheerful like, nods to me, asks after you, says a word or two to Ivy, and away they goes together. Things ain’t the same now as they was when we was their age, Jim.”
“No, it’s a fact they ain’t,” agreed Mr. Tovey darkly.
“But let ’em alone,” continued Mrs. Tovey. “Ivy’s not the girl to make a fool of herself, you ought to know that by this time. Now you can go and sit in your chair by the fire. It’s not the sort of day for the likes of us to be going out.”
Mr. Tovey shook his head, as though unconvinced by his wife’s words, and looked out of the window. Much as he might disagree with her on the subject of their daughter, there was no doubt that she was right about the weather. It was the beginning of November, and the month was doing its best to live up to its reputation. A thin mist, precursor of the fog that must surely follow, filled the narrow streets, and through it filtered a cold raw drizzle, through which a few passing pedestrians hurried, muffled up to their ears.
Mr. Tovey grunted, and drew his chair up closer towards the fire. The weather could do what it liked, as long as it cleared up before the next morning. He certainly was not going out into it. He composed himself for his afternoon nap, from which he arose refreshed and eager for the lurid pages of his favourite Sunday paper. He studied this intently for some minutes, then turned animatedly to Mrs. Tovey.
“That brute what cut up the young woman he was walking out with is committed for trial at the Old Bailey,” he said.
“I reckoned he would be, the dirty brute,” replied Mrs. Tovey, who was almost as keen a criminologist as her husband. “And I’d see he didn’t get off, neither, if I was on the jury.”
Mr. Tovey turned and looked at her gravely. “ ’Tis all very well for you to talk like that,” he said reprovingly. “It’s a terrible thing to be on a jury when a man’s life depends on what you says. Nobody knows that better than I do, I’m sure.”
“Yes, I remember the state you was in that time,” replied Mrs. Tovey. “Dear, dear, best part of a week you was at it, and Ivy just born and all. What was the chap’s name? I remember he was a doctor who’d killed one of his patients by giving him a dose of something.”