Dorothy Eden by Sinister Weddings

teacup. Nita had been up looking for Timmy, Dove had come over early, probably borrowing, and Lily, of course, would have been down making the tea. Lily would know which her tray was, but either of the other two could easily have found out which it was.
    It was unimportant, it was trifling, it was just another prank in keeping with the anonymous letters. It was to show her she was not wanted.
    “Don’t be so upset over a silly mistake,” Paul said chidingly.
    “But you see it wasn’t really a mistake,” Julia told him quietly. “Because I don’t take sugar in my tea either.”
    Nevertheless, she wanted nothing more said about the matter, and was distressed when Paul raised the subject after breakfast. Davey had just carried Georgina down, and settled her in her chair, and Paul’s words were accompanied by the small snuffling from the white-rabbit bundle in the big armchair.
    “Oh, Lily,” he said to that young woman who was just leaving the room after giving Georgina her cup of hot chocolate, “did you remember that Miss Paget doesn’t take sugar in her tea?”
    Lily’s eyes gave their slight flicker. She didn’t look directly at anybody, her eyes always had a sidelong look.
    “Yes, sir. I think so. Didn’t I?”
    “All too well,” said Paul who had obviously decided that the episode was no longer a joke. “You substituted salt, which doesn’t make a cup of tea exactly a refreshing beverage.”
    Lily’s hand went to her mouth.
    “But I’m sure”—she hesitated—“I’m sure I didn’t do that. I mean, the salt box wouldn’t be near the sugar basin. Anyway, I think I remembered about no sugar. I’m sure I didn’t do it.”
    “What an extraordinary thing!” exclaimed Kate, her little ripe mouth open. “It sounds like a college-boy joke.”
    Nita gave the smallest giggle. Her look of tension had increased, as if she were full of secret excitement.
    “Has someone got a down on you, Julia? Perhaps it was Dove Robinson. Do you remember, we saw her going home?”
    “Yes, what was she over here for?” Paul asked.
    “To borrow some milk, sir,” Lily answered. “But she was only in the kitchen a minute. Anyway, what could she possibly have wanted to do a thing like that for?”
    “I wish you’d say no more about it,” said Julia lightly. “It doesn’t matter in the least. If someone finds it amusing, that’s all right. It didn’t kill me, as I was afraid it was going to.” She laughed, and all at once she was aware that Davey was still in the room watching her with his dark enigmatic eyes. What does he know about it? she wondered suddenly.
    Paul banged his fist on the table. “Well, I won’t have it. If it was a mistake, well and good. But I won’t have that sort of joke played in this house.”
    He was directing that speech at somebody, Julia divined. Before she could decide who it was a surprising thing happened. The little bundle in the big chair spoke.
    “It would be Harry,” Said Georgina in her piping voice. “I heard him talking last night. He kept me awake. He always loved practical jokes. Didn’t he, Kate? Ah yes, there’s no doubt it would be Harry.”
    For a moment there was complete silence in the room. Then Nita made a sound halfway between a gasp and a cry. It ended in a laugh, and laughing in that high cracked way she ran out of the room.

8
    N ITA WAS DISENCHANTED. THAT was the vague thing about her that Julia had tried to identify. Now it came to her with certainty. That was the reason for her dry forced composure, her sad mouth, the way her black eyes surveyed everyone with cynical amusement. Something had happened to her, but it wasn’t, Julia was sure, grief for the death of a young husband. Grief would have left her soft, tragic-eyed. She was neither of those things. Her thin body was full of some tense emotion that certainly wasn’t grief. Even her hysterical laughter now, as she rushed from the room, was from a distress unrelated to grief.
    It could have