“No, I didn’t stay to dinner,” Estelle said in answer to Octavia’s question. “There was turnip in the soup; it smelled all over the house.” Estelle was fastidious to a degree, and so, indeed, was Dave, far more so than the rest of us. “But I had some of Rob’s broth, which he wouldn’t touch, and a bit of toast. I don’t want any dinner.”
She spoke absent-mindedly, and she didn’t reply to grandma and Octavia who gently remonstrated, or to Loveday, who first scolded, and then immediately had a piece of yesterday’s plum-pudding warmed for her. Estelle was fond of plum-pudding and Loveday always saved a piece for her, as she had done from the time she was a child.
But when I went to her room, an hour later, the plum-pudding was untouched on the tray where Viola had set it, and Estelle was fiercely setting a patch upon the knee of Dave’s blue overalls. Fiercely may be a trifle too strong an adjective, but I know of no other that so well describes the grim energy of her action. I think Dave’s unaccustomed work must have been as fiercely done, for both pairs that he wore were already worn out at the knees.
“Estelle, if you had found out anything—anything in Dave’s favor from Rob—of course you would tell me,” I said.
“I don’t know but I should tell you, Bathsheba,” she said slowly. “But there is nothing to tell. Rob is very elusive, you know; he is not in the least like his father.”
“Certainly Uncle Horace is about as elusive as a sledge hammer,” said I.
“But I had my suspicions confirmed. He knows all about it, and he had more to do with it than he will tell,” she declared positively.
“I don’t see how he could have had anything to do with it,” I retorted, in my stupidly argumentative way, although I knew argument was useless, even if all argument had not been exhausted on that subject. “He was ill in bed at the time, and if he hadn’t been no one could ever suspect him of having anything to do with horse-races. He never could bear to see horses trained. The only time he and Dave ever quarreled was when Dave broke in the colts. He didn’t send Dave to the races. Rob never was the least bit coarse. I didn’t think Dave was, either——”
“But you lost all faith in him at the first trial!” interrupted Estelle, not reproachfully, but in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Did—did Rob say that he thought that there was any excuse for Dave?” I said. How could I say that he thought Dave didn’t do it, when Dave had virtually owned that he did?