Anna, Where Are You? by Patricia Wentworth Page B

something else.”
    Jennifer tossed back her dark untidy hair.
    “Well then, it didn’t! It looked like a hand. It just looked like my own hand—see?”
    When she turned round she had put her hands out of sight behind her back. Now she thrust them out at Miss Silver, staring not at them but at her.
    “They’re just my hands—they couldn’t be anything else. I don’t know what you are talking about. They’re just my hands.”
    Miss Silver continued to smile.
    “And sadly dirty ones, my dear. It would be much easier for you to keep the nails clean if they were cut a good deal shorter. Your hands are a very nice shape. If you will allow me to cut your nails, you will not only find them much easier to keep clean, but a great deal pleasanter to look at.”
    She thought there was the beginning of a shudder, but it was controlled. With an abrupt movement Jennifer turned away and went over to the bookshelf, where she stood fingering the books, pulling one out a little way and pushing it back again, taking another down and fluttering the pages. Presently she said in a discontented voice,
    “They’re all as old as the hills. They belonged to the house. Did you know that? And the house used to belong to the Everlys. There aren’t any of them left now. Miss Maria Everly was the last of them, and she died before the war. She was ninety-six years old. This was her schoolroom, and these were her books. There aren’t any more Everlys. Old Mr Masters told me about them. He’s Mrs. Masters’ father-in-law— he lives in the cottage with the post-box on the wall. He remembers Miss Maria Everly. He says she was a terror, but a real lady for all that. He says there aren’t any left now—only bits of girls in breeches, and some that are old enough to know better. He’s a very interesting person to talk to—I like going down there and talking to him. Only sometimes—” She frowned and broke off.
    “Sometimes what, my dear?”
    “Oh, nothing, He won’t talk to everyone, you know—not about the Everlys. He says least said, soonest mended. You won’t say I talked about them, will you? Did you know all the furniture in this room belonged to the house? It was the schoolroom, and nobody bothered to have the things taken away. The good things were all sold, but He bought the rest when he bought the house.”
    Since Jennifer never gave Mr. Craddock any name, the pronoun no longer surprised Miss Silver. She let it pass without comment.
    Jennifer pulled out another book. “Ministering Children!” she said in a tone of scorn. “I hate them!”
    Miss Silver, who was familiar with this pious classic, remarked mildly that there were fashions in books just as there were fashions in clothes.
    “They talked differently a hundred years ago, just as they dressed differently, but I do not think that they were at all different in themselves.”
    Jennifer rammed the Ministering Children back into their place.
    “I hate them!” she said with emphasis. Then with a sudden and complete change of manner she turned round and came out with, “I saw Miss Tremlett, and I wasn’t quick enough, so she saw me. She says they’ve got a paying guest coming. And why can’t she just say lodger and have done with it? Paying guest is just nonsense, isn’t it? If you’re a guest you don’t pay, and if you pay you’re not a guest. That’s all there is about it, and I shall just go on saying lodger. Every time I meet them I shall say it— ‘How is your lodger today, Miss Elaine? How do you like your lodger, Miss Gwyneth?’ I wish I had said it to Elaine this morning. The lodger comes this afternoon, and they are going to give a party for her to meet everyone tomorrow. Gwyneth is taking the bus into Dedham this afternoon to buy cakes for it, and Elaine is going to make drop scones. And He will go, and I suppose you will too, but my mother won’t, because I shall make her lie down on her bed and rest. And I think it would be a good plan if I locked