“Can’t we do it another day?”
“No, I have everything planned. We’re all going together.”
“Aunt Nora, too?”
Nora enjoyed picnics and was unfeasibly gratified by her nephew’s thought to include her, but she was suffering terribly with swollen ankles and light-headedness and didn’t know that she could face a day in the elements—all that direct sunlight. She was considering how best to demur politely when Isabel saved her the effort. “No, not Aunt Nora,” she said, a fresh firmness in her voice. As if realizing that she might have caused offense, Isabel sent a half smile of apology in Nora’s direction. “She’s in no condition to walk anywhere in this heat.”
Matilda, who had been crumbling small morsels of toast into tinier pieces between her fingers and letting them rain onto the white rim of her plate, looked up. “What time do you expect us to be finished?”
“Why?” said John knowingly—a parting shot as he left the room. “Got something else planned?”
“Little worm!” Matilda tossed a corner of toast across the table after him, causing excitable peals of laughter to erupt from her victorious brother.
“Oh, Matilda.”
“Well, Mother?”
“Well?”
“How long will this picnic take?”
“For goodness’ sake! It will be over when it’s over.”
“I have to be back in time for choir rehearsal.” This was Evie, who had appeared from nowhere and was standing now behind her chair. “Kitty and her mum are stopping by for me.”
With her long, straight, fair hair and wide, all-seeing blue eyes, there was something of the Midwich cuckoo about Evie Turner. Mr. Simon Ackroyd, the visiting science teacher, was to say of her later that he’d “rarely met a girl so eager to ask intelligent questions and so apt to make one feel a fool when seeking to give a satisfactory answer.”
“There you are,” said Mrs. Turner. “I’m afraid your brother didn’t leave much breakfast. You’re going to have to make do with the scraps. I’m not able to prepare more now—there’s just too much else for me to do. I need to have things in order.”
“Have things in order?” Sergeant Duke was later to stop Mrs. Turner-Bridges as she recounted the morning’s conversation, leaning forward across the desk to fix her with a curious frown. “What do you think she meant by that?”
“At the time, I thought she meant the picnic. Isabel always did things perfectly. I remember thinking she seemed rather stressed about an activity that should have been a pleasure.”
“And now?”
“Now? Well, I suppose I wonder whether there wasn’t something different on her mind.”
Whatever it was that Mrs. Turner intended by the comment, Evie said only: “Mrs. Landry is picking me up at five.”
Before Isabel could reply, Becky Baker, who had slipped out of the room unnoticed, returned with baby Thea in her arms.
“You’re early this morning, Becky,” said Mrs. Turner.
Becky was smiling down at the baby’s face, a tiny star-shaped hand visible above the hem of the blanket, but dragged her attention away from the child and adopted the manner of a student repeating a lesson learned by rote: “Mrs. Summers said that if you think of anything else you need for Christmas, to give her a bell and let her know. She’s going to send one of the boys up with the grocery delivery at eleven thirty.”
At the mention of the Summers boys, Matilda glanced at her round-faced wristwatch and then brushed a nonexistent crumb from her bottom lip. She appeared to be deep in thought. And then, “Please excuse me,” she said, “I’ve had enough.”
“You haven’t eaten a bite!”
“And Mrs. Summers sent you this,” Becky continued, handing over a small tissue-wrapped item.
Mrs. Turner’s face tensed with the discomfort familiar to all who have been the recipient of a gift without having thought to send one in return.
“It’s for the baby,” Becky added, which improved things somewhat, gifts for new children belonging to a category unto themselves.
Mrs. Turner nodded at the bundle in Becky’s arms and her attitude seemed to shift from uncertainty to decision. “Is she ready for her crib?”
“Yes, ma’am, she’s all settled.”
