“Are you feeling irritable?”
“No, not particularly.”
“Good.” Lady Papendeik sniffed over the word. “I had a letter this afternoon from Emily.”
“From Mother?” There is nothing like surprise to ease emotional tension and Val moved over to the desk with her natural step.
Lady Papendeik spread her small hands over the blotter.
“It is annoying.”
“I can imagine it.”
“I wonder. I hope not.” Tante Marthe shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, read it,” she said. “It must be true or she could never have heard of it. No one can do anything.”
Val took up the thick cream double sheet with the well-known crimson heading, the single arrogant house name and county which had once been so familiar and which even now brought a far-off memory of a peach tree of all things, a sprawling peach tree on a rosy wall
