‘Joan, perhaps you might like to come back into the house and have some tea, you’re overwrought,’ said Reynolds. Joan Fletcher accepted his arm, almost pushing Phryne aside. Mrs Fletcher was dressed in trailing mauve chiffon, a most unsuitable garment for walking in but a becoming colour for her pale complexion and grey eyes. She leaned languishingly on Tom, and Phryne wished that she had kept hold of Gerald. If anyone was going to lean languishingly on a suitable man she wished it to be herself.
‘Listen!’ Joan said compellingly. Tom and Phryne listened.
From the roof came the sounds of a tennis ball hit fairly and hard, back and forth –
Her mother was right. It was a light, genuine laugh and Phryne for one had never heard the girl laugh like that before.
‘You’re imagining things,’ said Tom, pulling his eyebrows down out of his hair and shooting Phryne a questioning glance. Phryne shrugged. With his high ideas on reputation and female virtue, Lin Chung was no threat to Miss Fletcher’s virgin state, but she could not see a way of telling Tom that without outraging Mrs Fletcher.
‘I’m sure it will be all right,’ she said. They stood for a while, listening as the tennis players finished their game. Feet rang on the stairs.
Miss Cray and Miss Mead joined them on the portico.
‘How nice to see the young people enjoying themselves,’ murmured Miss Mead. ‘I am not an expert, of course, but Mr Lin seems to be a very good tennis player. So graceful! I have been sitting up there watching them.’
Phryne thought that she detected a note of irony in the soft, well-bred voice, but could not be sure. So Miss Fletcher and Lin Chung had been provided with a chaperone. Mrs Fletcher sagged a little with what might have been relief. Equally, Phryne sensed an unwholesome excitement under the mauve chiffon. Was Mrs Fletcher willing her daughter to make a scandal, perhaps, or – no, not as serious as that – to fall in love, tragically, and need a mother’s helping hand and wise counsel, to share the excitement of a love affair? If so, she seemed doomed to disappointment. Judy came clattering down the stairs with Lin Chung behind her, flushed with nothing more sinful than exercise.
‘I say, spiffing game,’ she exclaimed. ‘Play again, Mr Lin?’
‘Certainly.’ Phryne saw that Lin Chung was not even breathing hard, much less sweating, and his cream flannels were unmarked. She caught his eye and he smiled and made a dismissive gesture with one hand – a bagatelle, it seemed to say.
‘Tea,’ said Tom Reynolds, and ushered them into the parlour.
A small table contained a pot of tea and one of coffee, which Phryne decided to avoid, and a plate of homemade ginger biscuits. Mrs Reynolds, apparently quite recovered, dispensed cups and the company sat down.
They were joined by Gerald, who wafted in and leaned on the doorpost.
‘Remarkable library,’ he said. ‘Tom dear, whoever gave you all those books? Have you read them?’
‘Don’t be puckish,’ begged his host. ‘Life is too short to watch young men being puckish, even decorative young men like you. Why, what have you found?’
‘The
‘No, I believe that it was his wife,’ said Tom. ‘She had artistic pretensions. Now, do you want some tea or not?’
‘Gerry, how about a nice game of tennis?’ suggested Miss Fletcher. ‘You don’t want to frowst about in the rotten old library all day.’
‘Yes I do,’ he said sweetly. ‘You’ve got a partner, Judy. Play with him, he’s much better than me. I’m a real duffer at tennis. No tea, thanks, Mrs Reynolds.’
He wafted out again, and Judith declared to the company, ‘I believe he’s jealous!’
There was a dead silence. Lin Chung rescued the situation.
‘You promised me another game, Miss Fletcher,’ he said, putting down his untouched cup and picking up his racket.
Phryne gave him ten out of ten for gentlemanly behaviour.
‘Such a nice day,’ commented Miss Mead. ‘Though it looks like rain, I fear.’
‘Yes, and the river is rising. We shall be cut off if it comes up another foot. Nothing to worry about,’ said Mrs Reynolds. ‘We have a large store of food and the water never comes up beyond the knot garden or the stables. Just a matter of waiting it out. I hope that Jack and Cynthia will be all right, though. Sometimes the river cuts the road.’
Phryne spared a few enjoyable moments wondering what Jack Lucas would do with the voluptuous and predatory Miss Medenham if they were cut off by floodwater, decided that he would be equal to the challenge, and drank her tea. Miss Cray who had ostentatiously refused sugar said, ‘I never take sugar. I gave up during Lent some years ago. Austerity is my goal.’
‘Very fitting,’ murmured Miss Mead, getting out her crocheting.
‘Very,’ agreed her host. ‘It does you credit, Sapphira.’
‘How is that poor parlourmaid?’ asked Miss Mead of Miss Cray. ‘You were going to visit her.’
‘Yes, but that Doctor would not let me in. I left her a few tracts. At such times one must think of one’s soul.’
‘Indeed,’ agreed Miss Mead. ‘It was strange that she was attacked so far from the house. Still, I expect that it was a wandering madman, some tramp – poor girl. Do you like this new pattern, Miss Cray? It’s for my cousin’s child and I am a little doubtful about the edging.’ Miss Cray unbent enough to give an opinion on the delicate shell pattern. Mrs Fletcher joined in with reminiscences of Brussels and the lace she had bought there for Judith’s baby frocks, and Phryne drifted to Tom Reynolds’ side.
‘Come on, old thing, let’s escape,’ she murmured, and he put down his cup. They were just approaching the door when the Doctor came in.
Doctor Franklin was a tall, slim man, with fashionably pale skin and slightly long dark hair, brushed straight back from a high forehead. His eyes were of an indeterminate shade between grey and blue and his profile was pure matinee idol; high-nosed, Roman and refined. He gave Phryne a smooth, well-tended hand and said, ‘Ah, Miss Fisher, how delightful to meet you. How do you do?’
‘Very well, thank you.’
Now that she could see him close up, he was not as young as he looked, or as confident. The hand had a slight but definite tremor; the palm was damp. There were fine lines around his eyes, extending into grooves around his finely chiselled mouth. She seemed to remember hearing that he had taken a leave of absence from his booming Collins Street practice with ‘nervous exhaustion’, a portmanteau term which could cover everything from the occasional headache to a full-blown hysterical collapse.
‘Miss Cray, Miss Mead, good morning,’ he said, looking past Phryne and releasing her hand. ‘Yes, thank you, Mrs Reynolds, I would like some tea.’
Phryne and Tom escaped into the reception hall and Tom wiped his brow with a blue handkerchief.
‘Phew! What a collection. Come along, I want to show you the house.’
‘All right, Tom dear, but if you don’t like your guests, why on earth do you invite them?’
‘Reasons,’ said Tom obscurely. He led the way through a green baize door into a dark little hall. He knocked on a closed door which was lettered ‘Butler’s Pantry’ and called, ‘Hinchcliff, I’m taking Miss Fisher on a tour. Can I have the cellar keys?’
Mr Hinchcliff, magnificent even though his waistcoat was unbuttoned and he had been evidently putting his boots up for a rest when his master called. He emerged and detached the keys from his watchchain.
‘Don’t forget the stairs are slippery, Sir,’ he warned.
Phryne was conducted down the corridor and into the servants’ hall, which contained the staff having morning tea. Dot was introducing Li Pen to ginger biscuits. Mrs Croft the cook was listening to his account, in his hesitant, accented English, of the home life of ginger. The rest of the staff were talking amongst themselves and the boy Albert was sitting on the back doorstep playing mumblety-peg with a jackknife. It whizzed past Phryne’s ankle. The boy gaped, grabbed the knife, and fled into the yard a scant inch ahead of Tom’s foot.
