The New Sonia Wayward (24 page)

‘For servants. We can’t go on doing all our own skivvying, dearie.’

‘I suppose we could – for the fortnight or three weeks that it looked as if you would have to remain here. But, as it is, your engagement’ – Petticate advanced this word boldly – ‘is really at an end already. Come to think of it, you haven’t been necessary at all.’ He laughed an insincere and hideous laugh. ‘As things have fallen out – first about the Hennwifes, and then about this whole Gialletti and San Giorgio business – I need never have invented you.’

She was looking at him with amusement.

‘But you have, dearie. And here I am.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Petticate contrived some grotesque travesty of genial response. ‘And you did well, and you’d have continued to do well, I’m sure. But it’s all over. And I’ll get you that £500 tomorrow.’

For a moment Susie seemed to consider this seriously. Then she took up her knitting again.

‘Of course that was the arrangement, dearie. But it wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do for
me
. I couldn’t bear to leave you – not now. And it isn’t just that things look like being very comfortable here.’ Susie paused in her knitting to look appreciatively round the room. ‘It’s certainly very nice. There’s a touch of class to it that comes natural to me, as you can see. And I’ll like that room upstairs – the one next to yours, that is – once we get the new window thrown out. But that’s all on the side, as I say. The real thing is that I don’t want to leave
you
.’ Susie paused again – this time to gaze at Petticate with perfect sincerity. ‘Of course you’re a bit of a low hound. There’s no denying it. But I’ve taken a fancy to you.’

During most of this speech, Petticate had stood as if petrified before an approaching doom. But now he did manage to begin to speak.

‘If you think that
I
’
ve
taken–’

‘And it wouldn’t do for you, dearie. You may think it would but it wouldn’t. Ffolliot Petticate without Sonia Wayward – a real live Sonia Wayward, at bed and board, as they say – just wouldn’t work. You’d begin to slip at once, my boy. And you’d be far down the hill within a year.’

There was a long moment’s silence. Petticate’s absolute dismay before what he had heard was only deepened by a lurking knowledge that this fatal woman’s words held some grain of horrible truth.

‘You really imagine,’ he asked with feeble sarcasm, ‘that you can take Sonia’s place
for
good
? I suppose you think you can even write her novels?’

Susie laughed easily.

‘We know who can do
that
, dearie. And I think, by the way, you should be able to manage two a year. At least for a good time ahead, that is. It’s just a matter – isn’t it? – of regular hours. And it will be worth it. We might have that Aston Martin in no time. And now I’ll go and ring up Augusta.’

And Susie got up and left the room. Petticate watched her go. It was her mere way of moving, somehow, that set the seal on the thing as inevitable. She was – nobody could question it for a moment – the long-established mistress of the house. Weakly, unprotestingly, Petticate sank into a chair. The rest of his life, he saw, was to be lived, in more sense than one, under the shadow of the new Sonia Wayward.

Published by House of Stratus

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