Crooked House

"So you think they did it?"

Clemency shrugged her shoulders.

She stood for a moment as though listening 5 then she went out of the room, passing Edith de Haviland in the doorway.

Edith came straight over to me. "I want to talk to you," she said.

My father's words leapt into my mind.

Was this -But Edith de Haviland was going on:

"I hope you didn't get the wrong impression," she said. "About Philip, I mean. | Philip is rather difficult to understand. He I may seem to you reserved and cold, but that is not so at all. It's just a ma

"I really hadn't thought -" I began.

But she swept on. I "Just now - about Roger. It isn't really that he's grudging. He's never been mean about money. And he's really a dear - he's always been a dear - but he needs understanding."

I looked at her with the air, I hope, of one who was willing to understand. She went on:

"It's partly, I think, from having been the second of the family. There's often something about a second child - they o^oft konrli ca

I think he suffered - children do suffer

She paused and went on: "What I really mean, I suppose, is that he's always been jealous of Roger. I think perhaps he doesn't know it himself. But I think the fact that Roger has come a cropper - oh, it seems an odious thing to say and really I'm sure he doesn't realise it himself | - but I think perhaps Philip isn't as sorry about it as he ought to be."

"You mean really that he's rather pleased Roger has made a fool of himself."

"Yes," said Miss de Haviland. "I mean just exactly that."

She added, frowning a little:

"It distressed me, you know, that he didn't at once offer help to his brother."

"Why should he?" I said. "After all,

Roger has made a muck of things. He's a grown man. There are no children to consider. If he were ill or in real want, of course his family would help - but I've no doubt Roger would really much prefer to start afresh entirely on his own."

"Oh! he would. It's only Clemency he minds about. And Clemency is an extraordinary creature. She really likes being uncomfortable and having only one utility teacup to drink out of. Modern, I suppose. She's no sense of the past no sense of beauty."

I felt her shrewd eyes looking me up and down.

"This is a dreadful ordeal for Sophia," she said. "I am so sorry her youth should be dimmed by it. I love them all, you know. Roger and Philip, and now Sophia and Eustace and Josephine. All the dear children. Marcia's children. Yes, I love them dearly." She paused and then added sharply: "But, mind you, this side idolatry."

She turned abruptly and went. I had the feeling that she had meant something by her last remark that I did not quite understand.