rather know the worst. I always have the foreboding that he will suddenly turn up at Wren's End and threaten to take the children away ... and get money out of me that way ... and there's none to spare...."
"Jan, you've got into a thoroughly nervous, pessimistic state about Hugo. Why in the world should he want the children? They'd be terribly in his way, and wherever he put them he'd have to pay something. You know very well his people wouldn't keep them for nothing, even if he were fool enough (for the sake of blackmailing you) to threaten to place them there. His sisters wouldn't—not for nothing. What did Fay say about his sisters? I remember one came to the wedding, but she has left no impression on my mind. He has two, hasn't he?"
"Yes, but only one came, the Blackpool one. But Fay met both of them, for she spent a week-end with each, with Hugo, after she was married."
"Well, and what did she say?"
Jan laughed and sighed: "She said—you remember how Fay could say the severest things in the softest, gentlest voice—that 'for social purposes they were impossible, but they were doubtless excellent and worthy of all esteem and that they were exactly suited to the milieu in which they lived.'"
"And where do they live?"
"One lives at Blackpool—she's married to ... I forget exactly what he is—but it's something to do with letting houses. They're quite well off and all her towels had crochet lace at the ends.
Fay was much impressed by this, as it scratched her nose. They also gave you 'doylies' at afternoon tea and no servant ever came into the room without knocking."
"Any children?"
"Yes, three."