The next day, however, Frankie admitted the daylight and expressed a desire for company and her hostess came and sat `with her for some time. They discovered many mutual acquaintances and friends and by the end of the day, Frankie felt, with a guilty qualm, that they had become friends.
Mrs Bassington-ffrench referred several times to her husband and to her small boy. Tommy. She seemed a simple woman, deeply attached to her home, and yet, for some reason or other, Frankie fancied that she was not quite happy. There was an `anxious expression in her eyes sometimes that did not agree with a mind at peace with itself.
On the third day Frankie got up and was introduced to the master of the house.
He was a big man, heavy jowled, with a kindly but rather abstracted air. He seemed to spend a good deal of his time shut up in his study. Yet Frankie judged him to be very fond of his wife, though interesting himself very little in her concerns.
Tommy, the small boy, was seven, and a healthy, mischievous child. Sylvia Bassington-ffrench obviously adored him.
‘It’s so nice down here,’ said Frankie with a sigh.
She was lying out on a long chair in the garden.
‘I don’t know whether it’s the bang on the head, or what it is, but I just don’t feel I want to move. I’d like to lie here for days and days.’ ‘Well, do,’ said Sylvia Bassington-ffrench in her calm, incurious tones. ‘No, really, I mean it. Don’t hurry back to town. You see,’ she went on, ‘it’s a great pleasure to me to have you here. You’re so bright and amusing. It quite cheers me up.’ ‘So she needs cheering up,’ flashed across Frankie’s mind.
At the same time she felt ashamed of herself.
‘I feel we really have become friends,’ continued the other woman.
Frankie felt still more ashamed.
It was a mean thing she was doing – mean – mean – mean.
She would give it up! Go back to town Her hostess went on: ‘It won’t be too dull here. Tomorrow my brother-in-law is coming back. You’ll like him, I’m sure. Everyone likes Roger.’ ‘He lives with you?’ ‘Off and on. He’s a restless creature. He calls himself the ne’er-do-weel of the family, and perhaps it’s true in a way. He never sticks to a job for long – in fact I don’t believe he’s ever done any real work in his life. But some people just are like that – especially in old families. And they’re usually people with a great charm of manner. Roger is wonderfully sympathetic. I don’t know what I should have done without him this spring when Tommy was ill.’ ‘What was the matter with Tommy?’ ‘He had a bad fall from the swing. It must have been tied on to a rotten branch and the branch gave way. Roger was very upset because he was swinging the child at the time – you know, giving him high ones, such as children love. We thought at first Tommy’s spine was hurt, but it turned out to be a very slight injury and he’s quite all right now.’ ‘He certainly looks it,’ said Frankie, smiling, as she heard faint yells and whoops in the distance.
‘I know. He seems in perfect condition. It’s such a relief.
He’s had bad luck in accidents. He was nearly drowned last winter.’ ‘Was he really?’ said Frankie thoughtfully.
She no longer meditated returning to town. The feeling of guilt had abated.
Accidents!
Did Roger Bassington-ffrench specialize in accidents, she wondered.
She said: ‘If you’re sure you mean it, I’d love to stay a little longer. But won’t your husband mind my butting in like this?’ ‘Henry?’ Mrs Bassington-ffrench’s lips curled in a strange expression. ‘No, Henry won’t mind. Henry never minds anything – nowadays.’ Frankie looked at her curiously.
‘If she knew me better she’d tell me something,’ she thought to herself. ‘I believe there are lots of odd things going on in this household.’ Henry Bassington-ffrench joined them for tea and Frankie studied him closely. There was certainly something odd about the man. His type was an obvious one – a jovial, sport-loving, simple country gentleman. But such a man ought not to sit twitching nervously, his nerves obviously on edge, now sunk in an abstraction from which it was impossible to rouse him, now giving out bitter and sarcastic replies to anything said to him.