Claudia stared at the prim little face for a moment, and then she commenced laughing. Gilbert jealous! Why, he had never troubled a scrap about Frank Hamilton, he had never noticed Charles Littleton’s devotion, nor any of the other men who were always making love to her. He had chosen to be jealous of the one man—almost the only one—who had never whispered amorously in her ear. It was too ludicrous! Yes, a sick man’s fancies are odd.
“Poor Gilbert!” sighed Lady Currey. “But he is much better now. Dr. Neeburg—I wish he had been an Englishman—said last week that he was doing splendidly, and it is only a question of time. We shall soon have dear Gilbert restored to health. By the by, what is this rumour I hear that Lynch House at Rockingham has been taken by your brother?”
Rockingham was some four miles away across the downs, and Lynch House was a big, rambling old house, with a huge, neglected garden. It had been empty for some years.
“Yes, it is true. Jack has rented it for a time, and my sister-in-law is being moved down for the rest of the summer.”
Lady Currey looked her strong disapproval. “What can a—a paralysed woman and your brother want with such a big house? Why, it has quantities of bedrooms! Surely, most unsuitable.”
“Fay has a little scheme in her head,” returned Claudia quietly. “She wanted to be near me, that’s why she came to Rockingham, and she wants a big house for her scheme.”
“Is she going to turn it into an hotel?” said her mother-in-law sharply, looking her dislike of any scheme The Girlie Girl might have.
“Yes, a first-class hotel, where the guests have no bills to pay. She’s got the idea of having some of her old hard-working friends in the profession down for a good holiday.”
She and Fay corresponded regularly. Sometimes it was rather difficult to make out Fay’s scrawls, with their extraordinary phonetic spelling and enormous dashes, but they had grown into the habit of talking their thoughts aloud to one another. Claudia was often surprised how much Fay comprehended of what she wrote her. There were things she said and wrote to Fay that she would never have communicated to any other woman, not even Pat, so that a strong link had been forged between them, a curious bond which made life more possible for both of them. Claudia often forced herself to be gay and cheery when she wrote to Fay, and she read between the lines when Fay’s jokes rang a little false. Jack wrote and told her that Fay was too stunning for words—high praise for him—and that she didn’t often cry now, and since she had got the idea of being moved—it was pathetically easy, seeing how small she was—and having some of her pals down for a week or two at a time, to give them a good spree, she chirped away like a sparrow about it all day long.
“H’m.” Lady Currey pursed up her small mouth. “Most unsuitable neighbourhood for such people.”