Outrageous Fortune by Patricia Wentworth Page A

Vicious Circle.
    It was half past seven when she ran her car into the shed which did duty as a garage and went up the flagged path with the red standard rose-trees on either side of it.
    The cottage was really two cottages thrown together. The front door opened directly into a sitting-room, out of the corner of which a steep curly stair went up to the bedrooms.
    Caroline stood on the door-step and said, “Golly!”
    All the furniture had been pushed back, and there was laid out upon the floor a short length of brightly flowered chintz, a longer piece of sage-green serge, and a remnant of navy-blue crepe de chine with a pattern of green and yellow daisies. Some strangely shaped pieces of newspaper were disposed like islands and peninsulas upon the serge, whilst, kneeling with her back to the door and holding a pair of cutting-out scissors in a hesitating, hovering manner, was Miss Pansy Arbuthnot.
    â€œPansy Ann—what are you doing?” said Caroline.
    Miss Arbuthnot sat back upon her heels and slewed round. She had very pretty dark hair, and it was obvious that she had been running her fingers through it. She was about ten years older than Caroline, and she had just missed being as pretty as her own romantic picture of herself. She had melting dark eyes and enormously long lashes; she had arched eyebrows, a straight nose, and a fine if rather colourless skin; she also had a tiny mouth, rabbity teeth, and a lisp. She wore a rather tired crimson smock stuck dangerously full of pins, and a yard-measure trailing round her neck like a scarf.
    â€œOh, I’m so glad you’ve come!” she said.
    â€œDid you think I’d been abducted?”
    â€œThis won’t come out.” Caroline came nearer and surveyed the mess.
    â€œWhat are you trying to do?”
    â€œIt’s those three remnants that I got. There isn’t enough of any of them, but I thought if I could cut out the chintz flowers and appliqué them on to the serge—”
    Caroline gurgled.
    â€œIt’d look exactly like boiled greens served up with asters.”
    Pansy gazed at her with a worried frown.
    â€œDo you think it would? And even then there wouldn’t be enough, with these long skirts. And I don’t see how I can work in the crepe de chine whatever I do.”
    â€œYou can’t,” said Caroline with great firmness. “And, darling if we don’t have some food soon, I shall probably swoon. I’ve got a feeling that I shall see those asters going round and round in about half a minute. What are we having?”
    â€œScrambled eggs.”
    â€œGo and scramble them. I’ll put the mush away. You can make a knitting-bag out of the chintz, and a tablecloth for Mrs Vickers out of the serge—if you keep it here, I’ll leave home. I daresay I’ll have a brain-wave about the crepe de chine some other time. Now go and cook. I simply must wash.”
    When Caroline came down again she had taken off her hat. She laid the table, and presently Miss Arbuthnot came in with a flushed face and a smoking dish of eggs. As she put it down, she shot a hesitating questioning glance at Caroline—
    â€œIt wasn’t Jim?”
    â€œI don’t know?”
    â€œYou don’t know?”
    â€œHe’s gone to Ledlington. I’m going there tomorrow. He’s lost his memory. I don’t awfully want to talk about it, Pansy Ann.”
    Pansy looked a little offended. She loved Caroline dearly, but she thought her odd. It was odd of Caroline to be so reserved about Jim Randal. Pansy could have talked about him all day. It had always been her cherished belief that when Jim Randal went abroad he had taken with him a romantic passion for herself. She would have simply loved to hint at this to Caroline; she had in fact done so once, but somehow or other she had not felt as if she could do it again. Perhaps she was too sensitive. But there it was—Caroline had not responded, and