After the Ludlows had all gone away, Jane and Patrick sat on by the dying embers of the fire. They were silent for a long time.
“I feel as if I’d swum the channel,” Jane said at last. “Limp, and wrung out.”
“Poor old thing. You had to bear the brunt, today,” said Patrick.
“That wasn’t so bad. I like Helen, and golly, am I sorry for her! What a life she’s had. She adores Gerald, too. Funny, isn’t it? He seems rather dull to me. Andrew liked her. Maybe she’ll have another infant herself, when this blows over.”
“Maybe she will,” said Patrick. “I wonder how they’ll all make out. We shan’t lose touch, if Tim stays up and Cathy comes up later.”
“Will Tim stay? What if his father goes to gaol?”
“I don’t suppose it will come to that in the end. And it will do Tim good to get illicit jobs in term, like driving grocery vans, and spend his vacation working on building sites. Cathy may change her mind, though. Something else may crop up for her before the summer.”
“I think she’ll persevere,” said Jane. “She’d be a plus influence, too, among the dollies.”
Patrick wondered to himself if Oxford would make Cathy, or if it would break her heart.
“What about the bank manager?” Jane added. “Will he come up to scratch? What’s he like?”
“Solid and reliable, as you might expect. Just what Phyllis needs. He’s got a grown-up family and several grandchildren.”
“You’ve been to see him, I suppose? That’s how you know all this?”
“Naturally. What do you expect?” said Patrick. In fact Maurice had boldly telephoned Pantons, demanding to speak to Phyllis, just as she was busy with the nurse getting her unconscious mother into bed. Patrick had thought it wiser not to say too much over the telephone; he had instead visited Maurice Richards and told him just a few of the facts, so that he might appreciate how serious things were, and understand that Phyllis’s own distress might inhibit her from getting in touch. What she chose to tell him in the end was up to her.
“Dr Cupid Grant, eh?” said Jane. “A man of parts.”
“Do you still think I interfered too much?” he asked.
Jane pondered, wrinkling up her nose.
“I don’t know,” she said at last. “As it happens, things seem to have worked out for the best in a case of terrible alternatives. But the police would have got there in the end, wouldn’t they? Or the old girl would have confessed after Helen was arrested?”
“Who’s to know?” said Patrick.
“What will happen now? Will the story all come out?”
“I doubt it,” said Patrick. “The police are satisfied. I expect the verdict on Mrs Mackenzie will be death by misadventure,”
“There won’t be an inquest on Mrs Ludlow?”
“No. At her age, anything could happen, and the doctor saw her regularly.”
“It’s so sad,” said Jane. “Poor old woman, she kept them all on the hop, all her life, and yet she died alone, with only a strange nurse and a policewoman there.”
“I hope they sell that house,” said Patrick, getting up. He knocked his pipe out into the ashes of the fire. “It’s packed with grim associations for them now.”
“What about Alec Mackenzie?”
“He’s going back to Canada. It seems he’s wanted to for years, but his mother was against it. I suppose she thought her past would find her out if she did. He thinks his kids will have more opportunity over there, and there’s his sister, too.”
“Canada’s large enough. I’d have thought Mrs Mackenzie could have started again in another part of it,” said Jane.
“She would have, if she’d known what lay in store for her, no doubt,” said Patrick dryly. “Come on, Jane, time for bed. That nephew of mine will have you up at dawn, if I know him. I don’t want Michael hounding me for letting you get exhausted in his absence.”
“He’ll be back next week,” Jane said. She stood up and stretched, and her eyes darkened as she thought about her husband. Patrick regarded her affectionately. Michael was very nearly worthy of her, in his view, and that was praise indeed.
“Well, it hasn’t been too dull for you, having me to stay, has it?” he said. He plumped up the cushion in his chair, put the guard in front of the fire, and waited for her to leave the room ahead of him.
“Oh no, brother dear,” said Jane. “It has not been dull.”