So the moment had come, and Bee was faced with breaking the news to the family.
Her instinct was to tell Simon first, privately; but she felt that anything that set him apart from the others in this matter of welcoming back his brother was to be avoided. It would be better to take for granted that for Simon, as for the others, the news would be a matter for unqualified happiness.
It was after lunch on a Sunday that she told them.
"I have something to tell you that will be rather a shock to you. But a nice kind of shock," she said. And went on from there. Patrick had not committed suicide, as they had thought. He had merely run away. And now he had come back. He had been living for a little in London because, of course, he had to prove to the lawyers that he was Patrick. But he had had no difficulty in doing that. And now he was going to come home.
She had avoided looking at their faces as she talked; it was easier just to talk into space, impersonally. But in the startled silence that followed her story she looked across at Simon; and for a moment did not recognise him. The shrunk white face with the blazing eyes had no resemblance to the Simon she knew. She looked away hastily.
"Does it mean that this new brother will get all the money that is Simon's?" asked Jane, with her usual lack of finesse.
"Well, I think it was a horrible thing to do," Eleanor said bluntly.
"What was?"
"Running away and leaving us all thinking he was dead."
"He didn't know that, of course. I mean: that we would take his note to mean that he was going to kill himself."