The Innocents by Margery Sharp

died, I could only imagine it somehow cast up from the detritus of his effects. Honoria had made a very clean sweep. I didn’t blame her, after years of polishing Benares brass trays when all she really enjoyed polishing was a stirrup. No one could blame Honoria, especially when I add that her father also kept Persian cats needing to be as regularly brushed as the trays to be polished. Though I cannot say I like Honoria, her punctual performance of all daughterly duties, in addition to running a riding stable, commanded my respect, and had I been a tycoon indeed I would have had no hesitation in hiring her.
    To return to the caftan.—As I have said, nothing in our Jumble ever fetches more than shillings; but the garment was in itself so pretty, and could so easily do duty as a summer dressing-gown, I mentally determined to bid if necessary up to a guinea for it. In fact I was trying it on when I heard behind me the swish of Paul Amory’s rubber-tired wheelchair.
    He manages it with such wonderful skill one scarcely thinks of him as incapacitated at all, but rather as preferring a special, personal form of locomotion.—“Just as well!” observed Mrs. Brewer darkly: her implication, which indeed she did not hesitate to put into words, being that otherwise not a young woman in the place would be safe from him. This I am sure was unjust; Paul Amory is devoted to Betty; but at the same time he is very good-looking. Just before his hair needs cutting I am myself sometimes reminded of Byron. However what I even more admired about him was the courage and resolution with which he painted almost the worst water-colour landscapes I have ever seen.
    â€œAh!” said Paul, looking at me (and the caftan).
    â€œIt’s agreeable, isn’t it?” said I.
    â€œActually I’d an eye on it for Betty,” said he. “She saw it this morning.”
    Of course everyone sees everything beforehand, but for a moment I was put out. Then I reflected how far more suitable the pretty, thin, voluminous garment to a pregnant young wife, especially with the summer coming; and said I’d just been trying it on in memory of Colonel Packett—there is nothing so foolish the young won’t believe of the old—and had no intention to bid.
    â€œThough you may have to go up to a pound,” I warned (judging by my own impulse).
    â€œI’ll go up to thirty bob,” declared Paul. “Betty’s taken a fancy to it.”
    â€œDon’t be too eager,” I warned again, “and you may get it for ten!”
    A moral dilemma ever attendant on our Jumble sales is whether to push the bidding up (so benefiting the Women’s Institute) or let knock-down prices benefit one’s neighbours. Mrs. Cook, for example, should never have got away with an electric kettle for seven-and-six. The proper Estate Agent sales are of course different—at one of which, I am happy to recall, in one of my tycoonish moods I outbid a London dealer for a Georgian silver sugar-bowl, and Georgian silver has gone up ever since. However I had no fear of Paul’s being outbidden, if prepared to go above a pound; and didn’t even bother to be there—see one Jumble, see all!—but stayed at home in the garden with Antoinette.
    We were still at peace. The day intervening, Cecilia, after first her journey and then so much emotion, had to spend recuperating absolutely in bed; as I learned not only from Jessie (Mrs. Brewer’s niece) but also from a note in Cecilia’s own hand— “Darlings both, forgive me, I’m just so tired!” —pushed through my letter-box at mid-morning. Obviously it wasn’t delivered by our postman, whose deliveries are strictly at eight-thirty and then at one. Mrs. Brewer said she’d seen the Admiral about.
    2
    Not that the Thursday had been entirely tranquil so far as I myself was concerned. We all knew Mrs. Bragg was failing, because for several