Free Wicked Uncle by Patricia Wentworth Page B

added reason for being grateful.
    Dorinda felt very glad indeed that she hadn’t let Justin drag her out of what promised to be a comfortable job. Even in her short experience it had occurred to her that an aloof and silent employer might be worth his weight in gold. So many of them seemed to be afflicted with a coming-on disposition. She told herself that she was in luck’s way, and that it wasn’t any good Justin saying things, because there were a lot of girls wanting jobs just now, and if you had got a reasonably good one you would be a fool not to stick to it.
    Her fingers went up to Justin’s brooch. When she had taken it off and looked at it, and put it on again, she felt all warm and glowing. It was wonderful of him to give it to her. She hadn’t thanked him a bit properly, because she had had a dreadful feeling that she might be going to burst into tears. She couldn’t imagine anything that Justin would mind more than having you burst into tears in a public restaurant—it was the sort of thing you would simply never live down. So she hadn’t really dared to speak. She began to plan a letter to write to him after tea.
    When she came to write it she didn’t seem able to get it down the way she had planned it. She wasted quite a lot of paper and quite a lot of time. In the end she wrote slap-dash fashion without stopping to think:
    “Justin, I wasn’t ungrateful. I do hope you didn’t think I was. I’ve never had such a lovely present. I truly love it. I was afraid I was going to cry because it was so lovely, and if I had you wouldn’t ever have wanted to speak to me again.
    Your loving Dorinda.
    P.S.—Mrs. Oakley likes the dress.
    P.P.S.—Mr. Oakley isn’t a bit like the Wicked Uncle. So far the only thing he has said to me is ‘How do you do, Miss Brown?’ But that’s better than being the other sort.
    P.P.P.S.—I do love my brooch.”
    When she had finished she changed into her blue dress, but with an uncertain feeling, because she didn’t know whether she was to dine with the Oakleys when Martin Oakley was there or not. She had asked of course, but Mrs. Oakley had merely looked vague and said it would depend on Martin. There was an uncomfortable sense of being on approval, and she felt a passionate preference for a tray in her sitting-room. That was something she hadn’t told Justin. She turned back to the letter and added a fourth postscript:
    “I’ve got a sitting-room of my own.”
    It was across the passage from her bedroom, next to the nursery on the third floor. Except that the ceiling was lower, it was the same size and shape as Mrs. Oakley’s boudoir, and it was quite comfortably furnished, with an electric fire which she could turn on when she wanted to. It was glowing red now and the room was beautifully warm. She thought it must be immediately over the boudoir, but strange houses were difficult until you got your bearings. She began to try and make them out. The boudoir was at the end of a passage on the left, and so was this. She went to the window, dividing the curtains and letting them fall to behind her so as to cut off the light.
    At first she couldn’t see anything at all. Like another curtain, the darkness hung close up to the other side of the glass, but after a little it seemed to get thinner, to melt away, to dissolve into a sort of glimmering dusk. The sky was cloudy, as it had been all day, but somewhere behind the cloud she thought the moon must be up, because now that her eyes had got accustomed to the changed light she could see where the trees cut the sky, and the dark line of the drive, and the gravelled square on which the house stood. This window looked out to the side. Yes, that was the boudoir window just below, and the study underneath that again. Mrs. Oakley had told her she could go there and get herself a book if she wanted to, and that is how she had described it— “At the end of the passage, right underneath this room.” And “this room” was the