Free One Sunday by Joy Dettman Page B

Willama, that’s all,’ Helen replied, placing Arthur’s letter on the desk then drawing her hair back from her face. The ribbon had slipped off her plait in the night and her hair now hung loose. She stood twisting a hank of it around her hand, thinking of Rachael, and what she always did when caught out by Mrs Johnson. She didn’t stand twisting her hair and looking guilty; she put on Nicholas’s imperious voice, waved her hand and said, ‘On your way now, Johnson.’ Mentally Helen practised it, visualising the wave of her hand – except, if she said that, she’d sound nasty. Rachael sounded funny.
    â€˜It’s to be hoped all goes well for her then, Miss. Now, put that letter back where you found it. We don’t want to go causing any more fusses, do we?’ she said.
    Helen slid it back into its chronologically correct place, closed the drawer and stood waiting.
    â€˜Will you have some breakfast then, Miss Helen?’
    â€˜No thank you.’
    â€˜Tea and toast, perhaps?’
    â€˜No thank you.’ If she ate now, she’d eat again when her parents came home and that Willama dressmaker didn’t appreciate having to let seams out.
    â€˜Do you want me to fix that hair up for you then? We’ll hear the hall telephone bell from your room.’
    â€˜Not always, and no thank you.’
    â€˜You know how it snarls up when you leave it hanging like that. I’ll put it up for you, nice and tidy.’
    â€˜No thank you, Mrs Johnson,’ she said, tossing her hair back as she walked from the room.
    â€˜The doctor didn’t wake Mr Arthur up then, with that telephone bell?’ No reply, just a shake of her head. ‘You might give me a call when he wants his breakfast, Miss Helen. We don’t always hear him from the kitchen – not when I’m tossing the pans around, we don’t.’
    Sound didn’t carry well in Nicholas Squire’s house. It was too large, too long. The L-shaped passage was wide at the front of the house, then it went through an arch near Nicholas’s library, turned a sharp corner and became narrow, the second half of the passage a poor relation of the first. Built over a period of ten years by Molly Squire, Nicholas’s grandmother, she had either run short of money, or come into money. The front rooms were opulent, each ceiling ornate, the walls ‘papered’ with imported printed hessian. There were six bedrooms in that north-facing section, each one unique. Only Nicholas’s guests slept in them.
    The family lived and slept in the second half of the building, down the long and narrow passage. Arthur’s room was opposite Nicholas’s, Helen’s mother, Olivia’s, was opposite the girls’. There was the blue room, where Father Ryan slept when he stayed, and he frequently stayed, then the gold room opposite his. They had a family dining room and sitting room, a wall of folding doors between them so the two could be opened into one long room. A wall of glass doors led out to a raised terrace and an enclosed courtyard on the eastern side of the house. A rear passage also led to that courtyard. It was used as the family entrance. Nicholas parked his car behind the courtyard wall.
    The kitchen – a necessity, but not the sort of place those within the house generally concerned themselves with – was in a separate construction approached via that rear passage. An enclosed walkway protected those coming and going with the meals prepared there by Mrs Johnson and her daughters. Mrs Johnson’s sneaking shoes were whispering down that rear passage towards the walkway when the telephone rang.
    Helen ran to answer it, eager for news of Rachael. Mrs Johnson, as eager, was not many steps behind her.
    Joan Hunter didn’t want to speak to Helen. She asked for Mrs Johnson.
    â€˜Good morning,’ the housekeeper said, holding the telephone as if it were a viper poised to