“That’s what they always say! And it’s the sort of thing you can’t check. It might have been for some reason she doesn’t want us to know about.”
“Got into trouble, you mean?”
Angela threw him a warning glance, indicating Laura.
“Do be careful, Arthur. No, I don’t mean that. I mean-”
“What do you mean, darling?”
“I don’t really know,” said Angela slowly. “It’s just-sometimes when I’m talking to her I feel that there’s something she’s anxious we shouldn’t find out.”
“Wanted by the police?”
“Arthur! That’s a very silly joke.”
Laura walked gently away. She was an intelligent child and she perceived quite plainly that they, her father and mother, would like to talk about Nannie unhampered by her presence. She herself was not interested in the new nanny; a pale, dark-haired, soft-spoken girl, who showed herself kindly to Laura, though plainly quite uninterested by her.
Laura was thinking of the Lady with the Blue Cloak.
2
“Come on, Josephine,” said Laura crossly.
Josephine, late Jehoshaphat, though not actively resisting, was displaying all the signs of passive resistance. Disturbed in a delicious sleep against the side of the greenhouse, she had been half dragged, half carried by Laura, out of the kitchen-garden and round the house to the terrace.
“There!” Laura plopped Josephine down. A few feet away, the baby’s pram stood on the gravel.
Laura walked slowly away across the lawn. As she reached the big lime tree, she turned her head.
Josephine, her tail lashing from time to time, in indignant memory, began to wash her stomach, sticking out what seemed a disproportionately long hind leg. That part of her toilet completed, she yawned and looked round her at her surroundings. Then she began half-heartedly to wash behind the ears, thought better of it, yawned again, and finally got up and walked slowly and meditatively away, and round the corner of the house.
Laura followed her, picked her up determinedly, and lugged her back again. Josephine gave Laura s look and sat there lashing her tail. As soon as Laura had got back to the tree, Josephine once more got up, yawned, stretched, and walked off. Laura brought her back again, remonstrating as she did so.
“It’s sunny here, Josephine. It’s nice!”
Nothing could be clearer than that Josephine disagreed with this statement. She was now in a very bad temper indeed, lashing her tail, and flattening back her ears.
“Hullo, young Laura.”
Laura started and turned. Mr. Baldock stood behind her. She had not heard or noticed his slow progress across the lawn. Josephine, profiting by Laura’s momentary inattention, darted to a tree and ran up it, pausing on a branch to look down on them with an air of malicious satisfaction.
“That’s where cats have the advantage over human beings,” said Mr. Baldock. “When they want to get away from people they can climb a tree. The nearest we can get to that is to shut ourselves in the lavatory.”
Laura looked slightly shocked. Lavatories came into the category of things which Nannie (the late Nannie) had said ‘little ladies don’t talk about.’
“But one has to come out,” said Mr. Baldock, “if for no other reason than because other people want to come in. Now that cat of yours will probably stay up that tree for a couple of hours.”
Immediately Josephine demonstrated the general unpredictability of cats by coming down with a rush, crossing towards them, and proceeding to rub herself to and fro against Mr. Baldock’s trousers, purring loudly.
“Here,” she seemed to say, “is exactly what I have been waiting for.”
“Hullo, Baldy.” Angela came out of the window. “Are you paying your respects to the latest arrival? Oh dear, these cats. Laura dear, do take Josephine away. Put her in the kitchen. I haven’t got that netting yet. Arthur laughs at me, but cats do jump up and sleep on babies’ chests and smother them. I don’t want the cats to get the habit of coming round to the terrace.”
As Laura went off carrying Josephine, Mr. Baldock sent a considering gaze after her.
After lunch, Arthur Franklin drew his friend into the study.
“There’s an article here-” he began.