Free Lonesome Road by Patricia Wentworth Page A

He didn’t really need me at all. He knew exactly what he wanted.”
    They went in to lunch. Cosmo as usual monopolized the conversation, a good deal to the annoyance of the Wadlows and Miss Comperton. Maurice and Cherry having departed, their parents wished to talk about them. Ella wished to talk about slums. She had come primed from Mrs. Barber, and she wished to pose as an expert. But there was no talking against Cosmo. He told anecdotes, and laughed at them heartily in a deep, rollicking voice. He narrated the inner history of the Guffington divorce. He gave them the reasons which had led the ultra-particular Lady Walbrook to give her consent to her daughter’s marriage to a very notorious gentleman, Mr. Demosthenes Ryland. He had inside information as to the exact circumstances in which that rising star Seraphine had broken her Hollywood contract. Not that he neglected the excellent food with which he was served. He appeared to be able to eat and talk at the same time.
    Rachel was quite pleased to listen. She could laugh at Cosmo, but she was very fond of him, and she was very glad to have an alternative to the Wadlows and their young, or Ella on slums.
    The evil hour was, however, only postponed. As soon as lunch was over Mabel demanded an interview, and a very long, tearful and trying interview it proved to be, under such headings as a Mother’s Love, a Mother’s Anxieties, a Sister’s Heart, and, by implication, a Sister’s Purse.
    Rachel did her best to endure the Mother’s Love, to soothe the Mother’s Anxieties, and to display the Sister’s Heart, whilst keeping a reasonably firm hand upon the Sister’s Purse. It was all very difficult and very, very exhausting.
    When Mabel had at last been induced to lie down, there was Ernest, with a Father’s Anxieties and a Father’s Responsibilities.
    Retiring to her room after this encounter, Rachel found herself pursued by her cousin Ella, tall, raw-boned, and purposeful, with a small attaché-case full of pamphlets and photographs.
    “Most disappointing that you should have missed Mrs. Barber. I am a very poor substitute, but I promised her faithfully that I would do my very best to interest you.”
    She was still there when Louisa Barnet came in to draw the curtains. She rose regretfully and began to pack the attaché-case.
    “The time has simply flown—hasn’t it? I must go and wash my hands for tea, but I’ll leave you those pamphlets. Dear me, Rachel, you look quite tired. I hope you didn’t do too much this morning. Most inconsiderate of Mr. Brandon, I call it.” The door closed behind her.
    Louisa rattled the curtain rings.
    “Fair wore out is what you look, Miss Rachel, And it’s not what you did this morning that’s to blame neither.”
    She got rather a wan smile as she turned.
    “Well, I don’t think it is, Louie. You know what Miss Ella is. She’d got those papers on her mind, and she was bound to show them to me.”
    Louisa looked angrily at the pamphlets.
    “What’s it now? She doesn’t stick to nothing, does she? Last time it was lepers, and the time before that it was naked heathen cannibals. And what I say is, if they was made that way, then it was for some good purpose, and it’s not for us nor yet for Miss Ella to go flying in the face of Providence. Interferingness—that’s what it is, and you can’t get from it!”
    Rachel bit her lip.
    “But, Louie, Providence didn’t make lepers or cannibals, and He certainly didn’t make slums.”
    Louisa gloomed.
    “That’s what you say, Miss Rachel. I’ve got my own ideas, and I’m not the only one. And it’s no good talking about lepers and cannibals to me when I see you looking as white as a sheet, and saucers under your eyes for all the world as if they were full of ink. You’ll never be going over to see Mrs. Capper tonight?”
    “Oh, yes—she counts on it. And I like going, you know. She’ll be a pleasant change, because she always tells me what a nice little girl I