A Mansion and its Murder Read Online Free

sob, and walkfaster than was her wont in the direction of the East Door to the house.
    My father watched his unloved and unloving wife for a moment or two, then shrugged. Her departure seemed to lift a weight off his shoulders. The furrowed expression went from his face, and he started toward me with a smile.
    ‘And what are you up to, Sarah Jane?’
    ‘Hopping … Papa.’
    ‘So I see. And what is the idea of it?’
    I adopted a bored, explaining-the-obvious-to-adults tone.
    ‘Well, you hop on these squares, then you come down with both feet on these squares, and you mustn’t let your shoes touch the lines of the squares.’
    ‘I see. Like this?’ And he poised himself at the starting point and went through a rough approximation of my game. ‘Was that right?’
    ‘More or less,’ I conceded gracelessly. ‘But your feet touched the line lots of times.’
    ‘That’s because my feet are bigger than yours. These squares are for delicate little girls’ feet.’
    If he had been Uncle Frank I would have offered to draw a bigger set of squares beside mine, but as he was my father I didn’t. We stood looking awkwardly at each other for a moment,at a loss for words with each other, as we always were. I was preparing to start hopping again when Papa unexpectedly said, ‘What would you say, Sarah Jane, if one day all this were yours?’
    ‘All what?’
    He waved grandly around.
    ‘All this – house – grounds—’
    This, I perceived, was a big matter.
    ‘I’d say it was a very big house for a little girl.’
    My father shook his head.
    ‘Oh, I’m thinking of far into the future. Of when you’re grown up.’
    I considered further. Some faint breeze emanating from the women’s suffrage movement, then still in its infancy, must have found its way into my schoolroom, for eventually I said stoutly, ‘I expect I could run it as well as any boy .’
    My father laughed. ‘Maybe you could, Sarah Jane. Maybe you could.’
    ‘But I would need to be much better taught than I am being at the moment.’
    He looked at me hard, his forehead furrowed again.
    ‘It is a point to be considered. Maybe I should consult with your grandmama.’
    And he resumed his walk back toward the East Door. 
    I now realise that it was on that day that my parents first really accepted the notion that I might be the eventual heir of Blakemere and of Fearing’s Bank. It may even be that, as the family conference was breaking up, Grandpapa revealed the terms of his latest will for the first time. It would be nice to record that from that day my life changed, but it did not. My mother still ignored my existence, and my father still looked as if he couldn’t remember who I was if he came upon me unexpectedly.
    But my governess of the moment was sent packing, and shortly afterward Miss Roxby arrived, and stayed with me until I was seventeen.
    As my father walked away, I resumed my game, and thought no more of the matter. My mind was on Uncle Frank. How wonderful he had been, standing up to the combined weight and might of the rest of the family! ‘Outface’ was a word I had learnt recently, and I was sure he had outfaced them. A thousand pounds a year sounded an awful lot to my young ears, but it was clear that nobody – no young man of family – could be expected to live on it. It must have been not long after this that I informed a young friend that ‘No gentleman could be expected to live on less than five thousand a year.’ He wasthe son of one of the under gardeners, and he reminded me of the remark quite often in later years.
    I was sure my uncle Frank was right not to marry if he didn’t want to marry. Why should such a splendid man take a wife chosen for him by his family? Uncle Frank could have any woman he wanted, any woman in the world. I rather think the idea occurred to me that if he would only wait, say, ten years, he could have me.

C HAPTER T HREE
Edging Toward the Abyss
    My uncle Frank was the centre of my life. Perhaps