‘I just thought,’ said Helena. ‘One tries to be charitable. I thought. She said a miracle seemed to have brought her back to me. I thought, “Perhaps she has changed.” One never knows, in our Faith. Any-thing can happen to anyone.
‘Well, Georgina hasn’t changed apparently. Still the same psychological thug as she always was. I think honestly she’s to blame for Caroline’s relapse. She must have touched a raw nerve.
Helena said, ‘Pour me a drink, Laurence.’
‘What will you have?’
‘Same as you.
Laurence gave her a drink as strong as his own, which she didn’t object to on this occasion.
‘What’s on your mind, darling? What does Georgina want now?’
‘I don’t know. She came to tell me something.’
‘Felt it was her duty, as usual? What did she say about Caroline?’
‘That’s right, that’s what she said, about it being her duty. She didn’t say much about Caroline but she told me an extraordinary story about my mother going in for some terribly illegal business. She suggested that Mother was a receiver of stolen property.’
‘My dear, what made her say that?’
Helena was apologetic. She didn’t quite know how to tell Laurence what her protected servant had done.
‘I don’t quite know how to tell you, Laurence. I thought Georgina had changed. And of course she’s got a justification, an excuse. Caroline didn’t leave her address. She says a letter came for Caroline the day after she left. Georgina took upon herself to open it, just to see the address of the writer, she said, meaning to return it. Then she found the letter came from you. She read it, as she felt that was her duty to me. You see, Laurence, she has an excuse for everything.’
‘But that’s illegal. No one has any right to open a letter addressed to someone else. Only the Post Office can do that, when the person it’s addressed to can’t be traced. And even then, officially they only look at the signature and the address on the letter. No one
‘I told her that, Laurence. I’m worried, dear.’
‘What did she mean, she felt it was her duty to you to read my letter to Caroline?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps she thought there was something between you of which I wasn’t aware. I put her right on that score.
‘Did you tell her it’s a serious crime to do what she’s done?’ Laurence was on his third whisky.
‘Hush, dear,’ said his mother, forgetting his size, ‘I don’t know if we’re in a position to talk about crime to Georgina Hogg. You must tell me all you know about Grandmother. You should have told me right away.’
‘Did the Hogg show you my letter, or did she only tell you what I wrote?’
‘She offered to let me read it. I refused.’
‘Good,’ said Laurence. ‘That keeps our own standards up.’
His mother smiled a little and looked at him. But she returned to her anxiety. ‘Georgina was very high-minded about what you wrote about
‘She didn’t offer to return my letter to me, I suppose? It’s my property.’
‘No, she refused,’ said Helena.
‘And what’s her excuse for
‘Feels it’s her duty. She says that these things are too often hushed up.
‘Blackmail?’ Laurence said.
‘She didn’t ask for anything,’ said Helena. Then, as if these exchanges were so many tedious preliminaries, she said, as one getting down to business, ‘Laurence, that was true wasn’t it — what you wrote to Caroline about Grandmother?’
‘Yes. But I don’t think Grandmother’s a criminal. I didn’t say that. Possibly she’s being used by a gang of criminals.’ He did not sound very convinced of this.
Helena said, ‘I’ve been blind. I’ve been simply inattentive these past four years since my father’s death. I should have made it my business to look after my mother. I should have forced her to accept —’Where’s Georgina now? Has she gone back?’ ‘No. She has given notice. I don’t know where she’s staying. I was too stunned to ask.’
‘What is she going to do about the letter?’ ‘She said she would keep it, that’s all.’
‘What is she going to do about Grandmother?’
‘She wouldn’t say. Oh Laurence, I’m so worried about your grandmother. Tell me all about it. Tell me everything.’
‘I don’t know everything.’
‘This about diamonds in the bread. I can’t believe it and yet Georgina was so serious. I like to know where I am. Tell me what you discovered.’
‘All right,’ Laurence said. He knew that his mother had a peculiar faith that no evil could touch her. It made her adaptable to new ideas. Laurence had seen her coming round to one after another acceptance where his own vagaries were concerned. Especially now, when she sat worried in her shabby drawing-room, wearing her well-worn blue with the quite expensive pearls, a ladder in her stocking, Laurence thought, ‘She could get through a jungle
