“It’s the editor who chooses the headlines!”she protested.“And he added things to the article, as well.The original was better.”
Stephen put down the paper, deadly serious.“Penelope, did you break into my desk?”
“No!Of course not.I used your key.”
He went pale.“I have classified documents in there from the War Office.Haven’t I told you about the Official Secrets Act?”
“Only about a hundred times,” she said impatiently.“And I wouldn’t touch those—I’m not stupid.I knew this had nothing to do with your work!”
Stephen sighed.“Penny, it might not be classified information, but the Worms family are our relations!”
“Your cousin Emily married one of them, yes—it’s not as if we are terribly close,” insisted Penny.“And Edith rather flubbed me off when I asked about being introduced to her editor atThe Strand.”
“Brutal, my dear,” murmured their mother.
“Can’t you see this was a great breach of trust?”their father asked in a pained voice.“They entrusted me with that description so I could make discreet enquiries.”
“What does it matter about discretion?”Penny objected.“If they want to find this fiend, well—all London knows about him now!They should thank me!”
“But—why theDailyMail?“ their mother said plaintively.“Didn’t the Pankhursts’ paper suit you?I thought their offices were simply lovely.Surely theMailoffices are rather hard on the soul?”
“That’s it, isn’t it?”Penny said, looking at her family with cold fury.“You’re all quite happy for me to paddle about in the shallows, it’s the thought of me actually gettingonin the world that sets you off.“ She narrowed her eyes at Crispin, who still obstructed her exit.“I do hope Crispin doesn’t need reminding that I’m fully capable of flipping him over—the only reason I don’t is because I don’t want to bring on one of hisattacks.”
Crispin looked at his parents, who nodded helplessly at him.He stepped aside.
Penny opened the door, then turned for the parting blow.Everyone braced themselves.
“The problem with this family,” she announced, hugging her scrapbook, “is that we’re stuck thirty years in the past!We might as well beVictorians!”
Penny left, and the Fairweather parents exchanged a grimace.
“I don’t know which is worse,” their mother said.“Being called a Victorian or knowing I really am one.”
Crispin sat down.“Oh, I don’t know, I thought the jibe at me was a much better hit.”
But for the first time, Penny’s reminder of her physical superiority had not hurt him.Penny had not been asked to spy for the British Empire, after all.He could afford to be generous.
“In my day, Sylvia, fathers inspired awe,” Stephen said wistfully, sitting down again.“Do you remember?”
“Yes, I do, and it was dreadful.I hardly dared look my father in the eye until I was about thirty, and hardly even then.Are you going to have a crisis of masculinity, darling?”asked Sylvia.“Would you mind just passing that potted liver first?”
“I don’t think Victorians have those, Mother,” said Crispin, passing the coveted item.“Buck up, Father, it’smygeneration that’s full of neurasthenics and neurotics.They can’t build the sanatoriums fast enough for us, I’m told.”
“You’re cheerful enough about it,” Stephen remarked.“I suppose your work is suiting you, then?No fear of you coming down with a nervous disorder?”
Crispin did not let himself pause, but inwardly he wondered if his father knew anything about the Home Secretary’s offer.“None at all.”
Sylvia let out a long sigh.“I do wish…”
“Yes, Mother?”
“That you were a little more mixed, the two of you.”She looked at Stephen almost sadly.“Penny got all the sharp bits, and Crispin all the smooth.”
Crispin just smiled.
“Did I, Mother?”he asked meekly.
Chapter twenty-five
