Tea, at the guest-house, was a formal meal, and the guests sat down at table, but Mrs. Bradley had a working arrangement with Annie, Bessie, Kitty and Maggie for having hers served in the kitchen. The girls liked the arrangement and enjoyed her company, and even Mother Ambrose, concealing her real feelings, allowed the two orphans who were not on duty in the guesthouse to sneak off on slight excuse from their other tasks to make a cheerful party of five in the guest-house kitchen. Mother Jude did not have any feelings to conceal, but, if she could fit it in with her other duties, she joined the party, eating nothing, but enjoying the conversation. A firm friendship, in fact, was growing and flourishing between Mrs. Bradley and the saintly, tubby little Hospitaller.
“I don’t reckon,” said Bessie, speaking first, for Mother Jude was not present, on this occasion, to be deferred to in the matter of beginning a conversation, “as you’ll ever find out who done it.”
“Why not, young Bessie?” enquired Maggie.
“Less of the young,” said Bessie. “You ain’t the the only one got a boy friend. She won’t, and she knows she won’t, because there isn’t anything whatever to go on, without the sisters tells her a damn sight more than they have.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Mrs. Bradley, startled. Bessie turned up her eyes and folded her hands in scandalous imitation of Mother Ambrose.
“What makes me? Ah, well, I’ll tell you. Look here, stands to reason. Young Maggie, turn down the gas under that there kettle and shove in a couple more spoonfuls. Seems to me they got everything to gain and nothing to lose by that kid being done in.”
“But she wasn’t done in! It was accident!” interpolated Maggie, going off to do as she was bid, for they all took orders from Bessie, Mrs. Bradley had noticed.
“Oh, was it? Well, then, what’s Mrs. Bradley still here for? Can’t you put two and two together? She wouldn’t still be here if it was accident! And who ’it that poor old kite on the ’ead with an ’ammer? And what’s that ferret- faced Maslin bitch still hanging about for round ’ere? You mark my words, and you, too, Annie, for all I suppose you’ll split on me later on to Mother Saint Ambrose, there’s more in this ’ere dope than meets the eye.”
“Go on, Bessie,” said Mrs. Bradley, calmly, watching her very closely.
“Garn!” said Bessie, suddenly on the defensive. “Like me to give meself away?”
“Why not, in the interests of justice?”
“Justice nothing! What’s justice! Seven years ’ard for taking what ought to be yours! Don’t talk to
“Bessie,” said Mrs. Bradley, “don’t be idiotic. You’ve said too much to begin to sidetrack now. Out with it, there’s a good girl.”
“You won’t tell Mother Saint Ambrose?”
“Why not?”
“Oh, have it your own way. What I says is this: this kid got a fortune, hadn’t she?”
“If she had survived her grandfather she would have had one, yes.”
“Same thing, for all I see. She conks. Who gets the dough?”
“Well, who?”
“The other gal Doyle, the cousin.”
“How do you know, young Bessie?” demanded Maggie, whose last Little Penance had been for smuggling forbidden twopenny printed matter of the Cinderella type into Religious Instruction, where it almost immediately caught the eye of Mother Timothy, who sometimes taught the orphans, and was confiscated.
“Talked to the Maslin nipper when she come over here to tea.”
“Oh, dear!” said Mrs. Bradley. “And I brought her!”
“Well, shan’t give her fleas or nothing, shall I?” Bessie enquired, wilfully misunderstanding the purport of the interjection.
“I am not in a position to determine,” Mrs. Bradley gravely replied. As it was by remarks of this character that she had won Bessie’s good opinion, Bessie greeted the reply as a sally of the ripest wit, grinned amiably, and continued:
“Garn! You win! Anyway, had a little chat, and gets quite an earful of the dope. Seems this other Doyle goes batty on being a nun. That being that, the dough all goes to the convent. Well, got two ears and a nose each, ’aven’t us? Or ’aven’t us?” she demanded triumphantly of the others.
Annie looked shocked, and Maggie mystified but impressed. Kitty looked disapproving, and remarked:
“And you to be after thinking the holy Reverend Mother Superior no better than a thief and a murderer? Bad cess to you, Bessie Lampeter, and the back of my hand to you now!”
“Course not,” said Bessie, uneasily. “Who brought Reverend Mother Superior into it? Never said nothing, did I?”
At this point Mother Jude arrived, and room was made for her at the table between Kitty and Annie, Bessie moving up closer to Mrs. Bradley, and the good-natured, rather vulgarly pretty Maggie taking, as usual, the path of least resistance, and moving in the direction in which she was pushed.
“There is rain in the air,” said Mother Jude.
“We have been discussing the Maslin money,” said Mrs. Bradley.
“The Doyle money, surely? Mrs. Maslin is in very great distress. Have you heard the news? Old Mr. Doyle is thinking of leaving all the money to endow a hospital.”
