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"That's a wicked thing to suggest! And it's not true! We've never said a word of that kind to each other. I've just been sorry for him and tried to cheer him up. We've been friends, that's all. You do believe me, don't you?"
I did believe her. That is, I believed that she and Laurence were, as she put it, only friends. But I also believed that, possibly unknown to herself, she was actually in love with the young man.
It was with that thought in my mind that I went downstairs in search of Sophia.
As I was about to go into the drawing room, Sophia poked her head out of a door further along the passage.
"Hullo," she said, "I'm helping Nannie with lunch."
I would have joined her, but she came out into the passage, shut the door behind her, and taking my arm led me into the drawing room which was empty.
"Well," she said, "did you see Brenda? What did you think of her?"
"Frankly," I said, "I was sorry for her."
Sophia looked amused.
"I see," she said. "So she got you."
I felt slightly irritated.
"The point is," I said, "that I can see her side of it. Apparently you can't."
"Her side of what?"
"Honestly, Sophia, have any of the family ever been nice to her, or even fairly decent to her, since she came here?"
"No, we haven't been nice to her. Why should we be?"
"Just ordinary Christian kindliness, if nothing else."
"What a very high moral tone you're taking, Charles. Brenda must have done her stuff pretty well."
"Really, Sophia, you seem - I don't know what's come over you."
"I'm just being honest and not pretending. You've seen Brenda's side of it, so you say. Now take a look at my side. I don't like the type of young woman who makes up a hard luck story and marries a very rich old man on the strength of it. I've a perfect right not to like that type of young woman, and there is no earthly reason why I should pretend I do. And if the facts were written down in cold blood on paper, you wouldn't like that young woman either."
"Was it a made up story?" I asked.
"About the child? I don't know. Personally, I think so."
"And you resent the fact that your grandfather was taken in by it?"
"Oh, grandfather wasn't taken in." Sophia laughed. "Grandfather was never taken in by anybody. He wanted Brenda. He wanted to play Cophetua to her beggarmaid. He knew just what he was doing and it worked out beautifully according to plan. From grandfather's point of view the marriage was a complete success - like all his other operations."
"Was engaging Laurence Brown as tutor another of your grandfather's successes?" I asked ironically.
Sophia frowned.
"Do you know, I'm not sure that it wasn't. He wanted to keep Brenda happy and amused. He may have thought that jewels and clothes weren't enough. He may have thought she wanted a mild romance in her life. He may have calculated that someone like Laurence Brown, somebody really tame, if you know what I mean, would just do the trick. A beautiful soulful friendship tinged with melancholy that would stop Brenda from having a real affair with someone outside. I wouldn't put it past grandfather to have worked out something on those lines. He was rather an old devil, you know."
"He must have been," I said.
"He couldn't, of course, have visualised that it would lead to murder... And that," said Sophia, speaking with sudden vehemence, "is really why I don't, much as I would like to, really believe that she did it. If she'd planned to murder him - or if she and Laurence had planned it together - grandfather would have known about it. I daresay that seems a bit farfetched to you -"
"I must confess it does," I said.
"But then you didn't know grandfather. He certainly wouldn't have connived at his own murder! So there you are! Up against a blank wall."
"She's frightened, Sophia," I said. "She's very frightened."
"Chief Inspector Taverner and his merry merry men? Yes, I daresay they are rather alarming. Laurence, I suppose, is in hysterics?"
"Practically. He made, I thought, a disgusting exhibition of himself. I don't understand what a woman can see in a man like that."
"Don't you, Charles? Actually Laurence has a lot of sex appeal."
"A weakling like that," I said incredulously.
"Why do men always think that a caveman must necessarily be the only type of person attractive to the opposite sex? Laurence has got sex appeal all right - but I wouldn't expect you to be aware of it." She looked at me. "Brenda got her hooks into you all right."
"Don't be absurd. She's not even really good looking. And she certainly didn't -"
"Display allure? No, she just made you sorry for her. She's not actually beautiful, she's not in the least clever - but she's got one very outstanding characteristic. She can make trouble. She's made trouble, already, between you and me."
"Sophia," I cried aghast.
Sophia went to the door.
"Forget it, Charles. I must get on with lunch."
"I'll come and help."
"No, you stay here. It will rattle Nannie to have 'a gentleman in the kitchen'."
"Sophia," I called as she went out.
"Yes, what is it?"
"Just a servant problem. Why haven't you got any servants down here and upstairs something in an apron and a cap opened the door to us?"
"Grandfather had a cook, housemaid, parlourmaid and valet-attendant. He liked servants. He paid them the earth, of course, and he got them. Clemency and Roger just have a daily woman who comes in and cleans. They don't like servants - or rather Clemency doesn't. If Roger didn't get a square meal in the City every day, he'd starve. Clemency's idea of a meal is lettuce, tomatoes and raw carrot. We sometimes have servants, and then mother throws one of her temperaments and they leave, and we have dailies for a bit and then start again. We're in the daily period. Nannie is the permanency and copes in emergencies. Now you know."
Sophia went out. I sank down in one of the large brocaded chairs and gave myself up to speculation.
Upstairs I had seen Brenda's side of it.
Here and now I had been shown Sophia's side of it. I realised completely the justice of Sophia's point of view - what might be called the Leonides family's point of view. They resented a stranger within the gates who had obtained admission by what they regarded as ignoble means. They were entirely within their rights. As Sophia had said: On paper it wouldn't look well...
