Free A Death in Two Parts by Jane Aiken Hodge Page A

police.”
    â€œBut you wouldn’t …” Patience’s voice shook.
    â€œOh, wouldn’t I? You ask the others; they know. But don’t you worry.” She leaned forward and patted Patience’s hand as it lay limply on the arm of her chair. “I won’t do it. I likeyou, Patience; you’ve got a will of your own and I respect you for it. Don’t forget; I’ve left you all my money, and I mean it. Just you be reasonable with me, and I’ll be fair with you, but I want you to know you’ve got to treat me with respect. I’ve lived for ninety years and always had my way, and I’m not going to be crossed now. I just wanted to make you see that. And now you run away and change your dress. Priss’s and Mary’s young men are both going to be here for dinner, and you want to look your best for them – not to mention Mark.” She gleamed up at Patience from under exquisitely plucked eyebrows. “And mind you, not a word about this afternoon’s jaunt or I’ll have the police on you.” She laughed as she spoke, but the words still rang uncomfortably in Patience’s head as she changed into one of her two evening dresses. How far was Mrs Ffeathers serious? Surely not at all? But she found it hard to convince herself of this. Suddenly, overwhelmingly, she longed to leave Featherstone Hall that night. No matter where she went, so long as it was away.
    There was a light tap on her door. “And remember” – Mrs Ffeathers was resplendent in black velvet – “if you run away, I’ll call the police the minute you’re out of the house.”
    Afterwards, Patience wondered why she had not left the house on the spot, but at the time it seemed, for some reason, cowardly. She grinned at old Mrs Ffeathers. “I’m not running away,” she said. “Why should I?”
    The long glass table in the white dining room was decorated with holly and red ribbon bows. It did not, Patience thought, make the room any less blankly funereal. It merely looked as if someone had decided to send redflowers to a corpse. She said so to Mark, who sat next to her.
    â€œYes,” he said. “Karl Marx, no doubt. I don’t know what induced Gran to let Mother and Uncle Joseph loose on this house. It was quite inhabitable before they laid on all the chromium. Another of her experiments, I suppose. Which reminds me; where on earth did you disappear to this afternoon? I looked all over for you; Mar and I went into Brighton to sit on Father Christmas’s knee. I even bearded the lion in her den and asked Gran where you were, and she cackled just like the witch in the gingerbread house and said, ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’. I was really afraid she’d turned you into a white mouse or something. Not that she could,” he hastened to add. “A white deer, perhaps, but never a mouse.”
    Patience laughed, relieved that he had talked himself away from the question of where she had been. She was not sure she wanted to talk about that. She looked up the long table, searching for a new subject. “Full house tonight.” Hardly brilliant, but it would do.
    â€œYes, Christmas Eve in the workhouse, and the paupers lined up with their basins and spoons.” There was a bitter note in Mark’s voice than she did not like to hear. “What do you think of our young men on approval?” he went on, glancing at the other side of the table, where Mary was voluble beside her Tony, and Priss silent misery beside Brian Duguid.
    â€œPriss doesn’t seem to think much of hers.”
    â€œNo, I’m afraid Aunt Emily’s missed the bus this time – not that she doesn’t always, poor old duck. And Gran’s revelling in it; just look at her. She’s having such a goodtime she’s forgotten all about shocking Tony Wetherall. It’s her favourite indoor sport, you know, frightening poor