Anna, Where Are You? by Patricia Wentworth Page A

shoulder.
    “Darling, what a frightful bathing-dress!”
    “If you call it a dress! I shouldn’t! I wonder how much more she could leave off without getting arrested!”
    She kissed the top of his head.
    “I don’t know, darling—I’ve never thought it out. I do hope Michael isn’t being late for school. Betty will cut it too fine.”
    Mrs. Moray’s postcard was duly delivered by Mr. Hawke next day. He was naturally aware that the new governess up at Deepe House was an indefatigable knitter, but he found himself unable to take a passionate interest in whether she could or could not get some particular kind of wool. And why write to London about it? Miss Weekes at the Fancy Stores in Dedham had a very good selection.
    Meeting Miss Silver on his way up to the house, he imparted this information, adding,
    “And Mrs. Hawke says it’s the best she’s seen for ever so long —quite pre-war, as you might say.”
    He bicycled on to Deep End, pleased with his own kind thought and with Miss Silver’s pleasant response. And no harm in doing Miss Weekes a good turn neither, her sister Grace being married to a cousin of his own at Ledstow.
    Miss Silver went rather thoughtfully back to the house with her postcard, which she made a point of showing to Mrs. Craddock.
    “This special shade of pink is sometimes a little difficult, and it must be an exact match. Mrs. Moray was so kind as to say that she would do her best to get it for me.”
    It was a little later that Jennifer came into the room. Since this was considered to be holiday time, Miss Silver had not attempted regular lessons, but was endeavouring to find things that would interest the children to hear about or to do. Maurice was working on a model engine, and what Maurice did Benjy of course must copy. In Jennifer she discovered a quick and sensitive response to poetry and drama. Some short one-act plays had been obtained, and all three children were rehearsing one of them. Already some pattern had been introduced into their days, and the first beginnings of order and punctuality instilled.
    Jennifer came in now, said briefly, “Mrs. Masters wants to see you before she goes,” and then stood staring out of the window as Mrs. Craddock put down her mending and hurried out of the room.
    Jennifer did not speak. She looked out at a graceful leafless tree, tracing its outline on the glass with the tip of her finger. Miss Silver, watching, was aware of the moment when she stopped thinking about the tree and the pattern which it made against the sky. Until that moment Jennifer’s thoughts had been lifted into an atmosphere of pure enjoyment—this lovely line and that, the way they crossed!, the way through all the crossing and turning that they sprang upward towards the light. And then all at once she didn’t see the tree or the sky any more. She saw her own hand spread out against the glass—a long, thin hand with the shape of the bones just showing through because a gleam of wintry sun was on the pane and its light made the flesh translucent.
    It was when the sun came out that Jennifer stopped seeing the tree and began to stare at her hand. Looking on with interest and concern, Miss Silver was aware of a stiffening, a tension, an extraordinary concentration of the child’s whole being. She might have been looking at something repulsive, something horrible.
    Miss Silver laid her knitting down upon her knee and said in her most matter-of-fact tone,
    “Is there anything wrong with your hand, my dear?”
    Jennifer whipped round, startled, angry.
    “Why should there be?”
    “I thought perhaps—you looked as if you were not very comfortable.”
    “It’s just a hand, isn’t it? It’s just my own hand. Why shouldn’t I look at it if I like? There’s nothing wrong about looking at your own hand, is there?”
    Miss Silver had taken up her knitting again. She said with a smile,
    “Sometimes if you look too long at a thing it gets out of focus. It may even look like