‘I hope you will do nothing more about it,’ Georgina said.
‘About what? The letter is burned. What more should I do about it? —’
‘I mean, about your mother. Poor old lady, I’m sure she’s a holy soul,’ Georgina said, adding, as she watched Helena’s face, ‘at heart.’
The interview continued for half an hour before Helena realized how desperately anxious the woman was to put a stop to all investigations. It was barely a month since Mrs Hogg had descended upon her mother at the cottage. Helena was puzzled by this change of attitude and yet her suspicions were allayed by the sight of Mrs Hogg dabbing her tearful eyes.
‘I’m glad you have come to your senses, Georgina.’
‘I meant everything for the best, Lady Manders.’
‘I understand you called to see my mother. Why was that?’
Georgina was startled. Helena was made aware of one of her suspicions being confirmed: something more than she knew had passed between her mother and Mrs Hogg.
‘I thought she might want a companion,’ Mrs Hogg said feebly. ‘You yourself suggested it not long ago.
Helena felt her courage surge up. ‘You mean to say that you offered your services to Mrs Jepp at a time when you believed her to be a criminal?’
‘A Catholic can do a lot of good amongst wicked people.’
‘My mother is not a wicked person, Georgina.
‘Yes, I quite see that.—’
A knock at the door, and ‘Your bottle is in your bed, Lady Manders. —’
‘Thank you, Eileen.’
Mrs Hogg rose. She said, ‘I can take it, then, that the matter is closed.’
‘What on earth are you worrying about? Of course there is no more to be done,’ said Helena.
‘Thank God! Now I shall feel easy in my mind.’
‘Where are you placed now? Have you got a job?’ Helena said as if by habit.
‘No, Lady Manders. ‘‘Have you anything in mind?’ ‘No. It’s a worry.
‘Come and see me tomorrow at five.’ Before she went to bed Helena rang Ernest. ‘Are you up, Ernest?’
‘No, in bed.’
‘Oh, I’ve woken you up, I’m sorry. ‘No, I was awake.’
‘Just to say, Ernest, that Mrs Hogg came here after you left. For some reason she’s highly anxious to stop all inquiries. She apologized for her suspicions.’
‘Well, that’s all to the good, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I know. But don’t you see this sudden change is rather odd, just at this time?’
‘Are you sure she has nothing to do with Hogarth?’ Ernest said in a more wakeful voice.
‘Well, I’ve never heard her mention the name. Is he a Catholic?’
‘Shouldn’t think so.
‘Then definitely she wouldn’t be
‘You don’t think she means to attempt blackmail? These blackmailers beetle round in a curious way, you know.’
‘No. She actually brought me Laurence’s letter. I burned it in front of her. I carried the thing off well, Ernest.’
‘Of course. Well, we ye no thing more to worry about from Mrs Hogg’s direction.’
She was grateful for that ‘we’. ‘Perhaps we haven’t. I told her to come and see me tomorrow about a job . I want to keep my eye on her.’
‘Good idea.’
‘But personally,’ said Helena, ‘I am beginning to think that Georgina is not all there.’
At that hour Mr Webster lay in his bed above the bakery turning over in his mind the satisfaction of the day. In spite of his tiredness on his return from London he had gone straight to Mrs Jepp, had repeated with meticulous fidelity his conversation with the Baron, and together they had reckoned up the payment and their profits as they always did.
‘I am glad I sent herring roes,’ Louisa said. ‘I nearly sent fruit but the herring roes will be a change for Baron Stock. Herrings make brains.’
‘What a day it’s been!’ said Mr Webster, smiling round at the walls before he took his leave.
For Baron Stock it had also been ‘a day’. He hated the business of money-making, but one had to do it. The bookshop, if it had not been a luxurious adjunct to his personality, would have been a liability.
After sweet old Webster had gone the Baron closed his bookshop for the day and, taking with him Louisa Jepp’s tin of herring roes, went home. There he opened the can, and tipping the contents into a dish, surveyed the moist pale layers of embryo fish. He took a knife and lifting them one by one he daintily withdrew from between each layer a small screw of white wax paper; and when he had extracted all of these he placed the paper pellets on a saucer.
