Free The Riddle of the River by Catherine Shaw Page A

minuscule feet. I found Mrs Burke-Jones enjoying a peaceful afternoon by herself, school having let out for the holidays some days ago. She was cutting the heads off the dead roses and piling the withered flowers in a basket on the grass at her side. I paused, admiring her upright carriage and well-tailored dress. I do find that the modern fashion of skirts closely fitted near the waist and sweeping into a gentle flare as they descend to the ground becomes her better than the stiff bustles we used to wear when I first met her ten years ago, which seemed to underscore rather than soften her somewhat stern and authoritarian style.
    ‘Why, Mrs Weatherburn,’ she said – our friendship, although warm, having begun on too unequal a footing to ever admit of the use of Christian names between us – ‘how unexpected and what a pleasure. Do join me in the garden. Would the child like a biscuit?’
    Cecily registered due enthusiasm at the suggestion of a biscuit, and holding it tightly, went to stand in front of a largeflower-bed which was buzzing with an astonishing number of busy bees.
    ‘Bzzz, bzzz, bzzzz,’ she said to herself, quietly, observing them.
    ‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Burke-Jones, ‘aren’t you afraid she’ll get stung?’
    ‘No,’ I said. ‘She won’t disturb them. She likes to watch. She looks at things very carefully, and can tell you quite a lot about them afterwards.’
    ‘She’ll be a good pupil, then,’ she said, ‘if you mean to send her to school.’
    ‘Well, naturally I’ll send her to your school,
and
her brother,’ I laughed, recalling a time when her school used to be my little school and the audacious idea of including small boys in its composition came to us together. That idea of ten years ago seems almost banal now, as schools of its kind have sprung up all over the country. What had seemed so daring, so original to us, had apparently struck the mind of an entire country all at once.
    ‘But it won’t be for a long time yet,’ I went on. ‘They’re only just three – they’re practically babies still. They need far too much sleep and love and play to even think about learning anything yet!’
    ‘Why the bees say bzzz?’ said Cecily suddenly, turning around.
    ‘It’s the sound of their little wings,’ Mrs Burke-Jones told her, agitating her hand quickly in illustration of her words, ‘going back and forth very very fast, like this: bzzzzzzzzz.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Cecily seriously, and turned back to her observations. Mrs Burke-Jones laughed.
    ‘They may be readier than you think!’ she said.
    The maid brought out a tray containing tall glasses and a pitcher of fresh lemonade, which she placed on a little iron table. Mrs Burke-Jones poured out a drink and handed it to me. I settled myself to perform a certain number of indispensable social tasks before proceeding to my true purpose.
    ‘How is Emily coming along with her studies?’ I asked.
    ‘Very well indeed,’ she said, with a satisfaction that contrasted sharply with the consternation I well remembered when Emily had first declared her intention of attending university to study mathematics. ‘She says that her dissertation is advancing, and she expects to finish it within the next two years. Unfortunately, it seems out of the question for her marriage to take place then, for Roland is only just beginning his own dissertation now.’
    ‘Of course,’ I said, ‘Arthur told me that he was Senior Wrangler this year. Emily must be extremely proud.’
    ‘Oh, it was not much of a surprise,’ she said. ‘Hudson of King’s has been the best mathematics student in his year since he arrived. His sister Phoebe – Hudson of Girton, they call her – is in her second year now, and favoured to achieve Wrangler status as well, and there is a third sister who will begin at Newnham in September.’
    ‘I met the Hudson family in London once,’ I recalled. ‘They seem quite astonishing.’
    ‘Emily says that Roland will