I was even more surprised.
“What do you mean – finance?”
“Just that. I want to go into the city.”
“But, my dear boy, I am sure you would not like the life. Even if I obtained a post for you in a bank.”
Dennis said that wasn’t what he meant. He didn’t want to go into a bank. I asked him what exactly he did mean, and of course, as I suspected, the boy didn’t really know.
By “going into finance,” he simply meant getting rich quickly, which with the optimism of youth he imagined was a certainty if one “went into the city.” I disabused him of this notion as gently as I could.
“What’s put it into your head?” I asked. “You were so satisfied with the idea of going to sea.”
“I know, Uncle Len, but I’ve been thinking. I shall want to marry some day – and, I mean, you’ve got to be rich to marry a girl.”
“Facts disprove your theory,” I said.
“I know – but a real girl. I mean, a girl who’s used to things.”
It was very vague, but I thought I knew what he meant.
“You know,” I said gently, “all girls aren’t like Lettice Protheroe.”
He fired up at once.
“You’re awfully unfair to her. You don’t like her. Griselda doesn’t either. She says she’s tiresome.”
From the feminine point of view Griselda is quite right. Lettice is tiresome. I could quite realise, however, that a boy would resent the adjective.
“If only people made a few allowances. Why even the Hartley Napiers are going about grousing about her at a time like this! Just because she left their old tennis party a bit early. Why should she stay if she was bored? Jolly decent of her to go at all, I think.”
“Quite a favour,” I said, but Dennis suspected no malice. He was full of his own grievance on Lettice’s behalf.
“She’s awfully unselfish really. Just to show you, she made me stay. Naturally I wanted to go too. But she wouldn’t hear of it. Said it was too bad on the Napiers. So, just to please her, I stopped on a quarter of an hour.”
The young have very curious views on unselfishness.
“And now I hear Susan Hartley Napier is going about everywhere saying Lettice has rotten manners.”
“If I were you,” I said, “I shouldn’t worry.”
“It’s all very well, but -”
He broke off.
“I’d – I’d do anything for Lettice.”
“Very few of us can do anything for any one else,” I said. “However much we wish it, we are powerless.”
“I wish I were dead,” said Dennis.
Poor lad. Calf love is a virulent disease. I forebore to say any of the obvious and probably irritating things which come so easily to one’s lips. Instead, I said good-night, and went up to bed.
I took the eight o’clock service the following morning and when I returned found Griselda sitting at the breakfast table with an open note in her hand. It was from Anne Protheroe.
“DEAR GRISELDA – If you and the vicar could come up and lunch here quietly to-day, I should be so very grateful. Something very strange has occurred, and I should like Mr. Clement’s advice.
Please don’t mention this when you come, as I have said nothing to any one.
With love, Yours affectionately,
ANNE PROTHEROE.”
“We must go, of course,” said Griselda.
I agreed.
“I wonder what can have happened?”
I wondered too.
“You know,” I said to Griselda, “I don’t feel we are really at the end of this case yet.”
“You mean not till someone has really been arrested?”
“No,” I said, “I didn’t mean that. I mean that there are ramifications, under-currents, that we know nothing about. There are a whole lot of things to clear up before we get at the truth.”
“You mean things that don’t really matter, but that get in the way?”
“Yes, I think that expresses my meaning very well.”
“I think we’re all making a great fuss,” said Dennis, helping himself to marmalade. “It’s a jolly good thing old Protheroe is dead. Nobody liked him. Oh! I know the police have got to worry – it’s their job. But I rather hope myself they’ll never find out. I should hate to see Slack promoted going about swelling with importance over his cleverness.”