"I remember that money," Fay interrupted. "Hugo was so pleased about it, and gave me a diamond chain."
"Fay, where do you keep your jewellery?"
"There isn't any to keep now. He 'realised' it all long before we left Dariawarpur."
"What do you mean, Fay? Has Hugo pawned it? All Mother's things, too?"
"I don't know what he did with it," Fay said, wearily. "He told me it wasn't safe in Dariawarpur, as there were so many robbers about that hot weather, and he took all the things in their cases to send to the bank. And I never saw them again."
Jan said nothing, but she reflected rather ruefully that when Fay married she had let her have nearly all their mother's ornaments, partly be
cause Fay loved jewels as jewels, and Jan cared little for them except as associations. "If I'd kept more," Jan thought, "they'd have come in for little Fay. Now there's nothing except what Daddie gave me."
"Are you sorry, Jan?" Fay asked, presently. "I suppose there again you think I ought to have stood out, to have made inquiries and insisted on getting a receipt from the bank. But I knew very well they were not going to the bank. I don't think they fetched much, but Hugo looked a little less harassed after he'd got them. I've nothing left now but my wedding ring and the little enamel chain like yours, that Daddie gave us the year he had that portrait of Meg in the Salon and took us over to see it. Where is Meg? Has she come back yet?"
"Meg is still in Bremen with an odious German family, but she leaves at the end of the Christmas holidays, as the girl is going to school, and Meg will be utilised to bring her over. Then she's to have a rest for a month or two, and I daresay she'd come to Wren's End and help us with the babies when we get back."
Fay leant forward and said eagerly, "Try to get her, Jan. I'd love to think she was there to help you."