There's been a frightful accident there this morning.”
Jenny Abdul Akbar spun round on the leather stool; her eyes were wide with alarm, her hand pressed to her heart.
“Quick,” she whispered.
“Tell me.
I can't bear it.
Is itdeath?”
John nodded.
“Their little boy … kicked by a horse.”
“Little Jimmy.”
“John.”
“John … dead.
It's too horrible.”
“It wasn't anybody's fault.”
“Oh yes,” said Jenny.
“It was.
It was my fault.
I ought never to have gone there … a terrible curse hangs over me.
Wherever I go I bring nothing but sorrow … if only it was I that was dead … I shall never be able to face them again.
I feel like a murderess … that brave little life snuffed out.”
“I say you know, really, I shouldn't take that line about it.”
“It isn't the first time it's happened … always, anywhere, I am hunted down … without remorse. O God,” said Jenny Abdul Akbar. “What have I done to deserve it?”
She rose to leave him; there was nowhere she could go except the bathroom. Jock said, through the door,
“Well I must go along to Polly's and see Brenda.”
“Wait a minute and I'll come too.”
She had brightened a little when she emerged.
“Have you got a car here,” she asked, “or shall I ring up a taxi?”
After tea Mr. Tendril called.
Tony saw him in his study and was away half an hour.
When he returned he went to the tray, which, on Mrs. Rattery's instructions, had been left in the library, and poured himself out whisky and ginger ale.
Mrs. Rattery had resumed her patience.
“Bad interview?” she asked without looking up.
“Awful.”
He drank the whisky quickly and poured out some more.
“Bring me one too, will you?”
Tony. said,
“I only wanted to see him about arrangements.
He tried to be comforting.
It was very painful … after all the last thing one wants to talk about at a time like this is religion.”
“Some like it,” said Mrs. Rattery.
“Of course,” Tony began, after a pause, “when you haven't got children yourself — ”
“I've got two sons,” said Mrs. Rattery.
“Have you?
I'm so sorry. I didn't realize … we know each other so little.
How very impertinent of me.”
“That's all right, People are always surprised.
I don't see them often.
They're at school somewhere.
I took them to the cinema last summer.
They're getting quite big.
One's going to be good looking I think. His father is.”