Urn Burial by Kerry Greenwood Page A

indignation,
    ‘my daughter . . .’
    ‘Your daughter?’ asked Tom tonelessly.
    ‘She’s playing tennis with that Chinese person.’
    ‘Yes?’
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    Mrs Fletcher drew in a deep breath and said in a voice loaded with horror, ‘And she’s laughing!’
    ‘Joan, perhaps you might like to come back into the house and have some tea, you’re overwrought,’
    said Reynolds. Joan Fletcher accepted his arm, almost pushing Phryne aside. Mrs Fletcher was dressed in trailing mauve chiffon, a most unsuitable garment for walking in but a becoming colour for her pale complexion and grey eyes. She leaned languishingly on Tom, and Phryne wished that she had kept hold of Gerald. If anyone was going to lean languishingly on a suitable man she wished it to be herself.
    ‘Listen!’ Joan said compellingly. Tom and Phryne listened.
    From the roof came the sounds of a tennis ball hit fairly and hard, back and forth – pock, pock, pock. The rally went on for more than a minute.
    Then they heard puck! as the ball hit the wall behind and Miss Fletcher said, ‘Well played!’ and laughed.
    Her mother was right. It was a light, genuine laugh and Phryne for one had never heard the girl laugh like that before.
    ‘You’re imagining things,’ said Tom, pulling his eyebrows down out of his hair and shooting Phryne a questioning glance. Phryne shrugged.
    With his high ideas on reputation and female virtue, Lin Chung was no threat to Miss Fletcher’s virgin state, but she could not see a way of telling Tom that without outraging Mrs Fletcher.
    ‘I’m sure it will be all right,’ she said. They stood 56
    for a while, listening as the tennis players finished their game. Feet rang on the stairs.
    Miss Cray and Miss Mead joined them on the portico.
    ‘How nice to see the young people enjoying themselves,’ murmured Miss Mead. ‘I am not an expert, of course, but Mr Lin seems to be a very good tennis player. So graceful! I have been sitting up there watching them.’
    Phryne thought that she detected a note of irony in the soft, well-bred voice, but could not be sure.
    So Miss Fletcher and Lin Chung had been provided with a chaperone. Mrs Fletcher sagged a little with what might have been relief. Equally, Phryne sensed an unwholesome excitement under the mauve chiffon. Was Mrs Fletcher willing her daughter to make a scandal, perhaps, or – no, not as serious as that – to fall in love, tragically, and need a mother’s helping hand and wise counsel, to share the excitement of a love affair? If so, she seemed doomed to disappointment. Judy came clattering down the stairs with Lin Chung behind her, flushed with nothing more sinful than exercise.
    ‘I say, spiffing game,’ she exclaimed. ‘Play again, Mr Lin?’
    ‘Certainly.’ Phryne saw that Lin Chung was not even breathing hard, much less sweating, and his cream flannels were unmarked. She caught his eye and he smiled and made a dismissive gesture with one hand – a bagatelle, it seemed to say.
    ‘Tea,’ said Tom Reynolds, and ushered them into the parlour.
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    A small table contained a pot of tea and one of coffee, which Phryne decided to avoid, and a plate of homemade ginger biscuits. Mrs Reynolds, apparently quite recovered, dispensed cups and the company sat down.
    They were joined by Gerald, who wafted in and leaned on the doorpost.
    ‘Remarkable library,’ he said. ‘Tom dear, whoever gave you all those books? Have you read them?’
    ‘Don’t be puckish,’ begged his host. ‘Life is too short to watch young men being puckish, even decorative young men like you. Why, what have you found?’
    ‘The Yellow Book,’ said Gerald. ‘You’ve got a complete collection with Beardsley illustrations.
    Surely old brewer Giles can’t have bought such inflammable literature.’
    ‘No, I believe that it was his wife,’ said Tom.
    ‘She had artistic pretensions. Now, do you want some tea or not?’
    ‘Gerry, how about a nice game of tennis?’ suggested Miss Fletcher. ‘You