Hand in Glove Read Free Page A

bewhiskered ensign in the Brigade of Guards pointing his sword at some lightning, and a faded photograph of several Edwardian minor royalties grouped in baleful conviviality about a picnic luncheon. In the darkest corner was a framed genealogical tree, sprouting labels, arms and mantling. There were bookcases with uniform editions, novels, and a copy of
Handley Cross.
Standing apart from the others, a
corps d’élite
, were Debrett, Burke, Kelly’s and
Who’s Who.
The desk itself was rich with photographs, framed in silver. Each bore witness to the conservative technique of the studio and the well-bred restraint of the sitter.
    Through the side window, Nicola looked across Mr. Period’s rose garden to a quickset hedge and an iron gate leading into a lane. Beyond this gate was a trench, with planks laid across it, a heap of earth and her old friend the truck — from which, with the aid of its crane, the workmen were unloading drainpipes.
    Distantly and overhead, she heard male voices. Her acquaintance of the train (what had the driver called him?) and his stepfather, Nicola supposed.
    She was thinking of him with amusement when the door opened and Mr. Pyke Period came in.
    He was a tall, elderly man with a marked stoop, silver hair, large brown eyes and a small mouth. He was beautifully dressed, with exactly the correct suggestion of well-worn, scrupulously tended tweed.
    He advanced upon Nicola with curved arm held rather high and bent at the wrist. The Foreign Office, or at the very least Commonwealth Relations, were invoked.
    “This is
really
kind of you,” said Mr. Pyke Period, “and awfully lucky for me.”
    They shook hands.
    “Now, do tell me,” Mr. Period continued, “because I’m the most inquisitive old party, and I’m dying to know — you
are
Basil’s daughter,
aren’t
you?”
    Nicola, astounded, said that she was.
    “Basil Maitland-Mayne?” he gently insisted.
    “Yes, but I don’t make much of a to-do about the ‘Maitland,’ ” said Nicola.
    “Now, that’s naughty of you. A splendid old family. These things matter.”
    “It’s such a mouthful.”
    “Never
mind
! So you’re dear old Basil’s gel! I was sure of it. Such fun for me because, do you know, your grandfather was one of my very dear friends. A bit my senior, but he was one of those soldiers of the old school who never let you
feel
the gap in ages.”
    Nicola, who remembered her grandfather as an arrogant, declamatory old egoist, managed to make a suitable rejoinder. Mr. Period looked at her with his head on one side.
    “Now,” he said gaily, “I’m going to confess. Shall we sit down? Do you know, when I called on those perfectly splendid people to ask about typewriting and they gave me some names from their books, I positively leapt at yours. And do you know why?”
    Nicola had her suspicions and they made her feel uncomfortable. But there was something about Mr. Period — what was it? — something vulnerable and foolish, that aroused her compassion. She knew she was meant to smile and shake her head and she did both.
    Mr. Period said, sitting youthfully on the arm of a leather chair: “It was because I felt that we would be working together on — dear me, too difficult! — on a common ground. Talking the same language.” He waited for a moment and then said cozily: “And now you know
all
about me. I’m the most dreadful old anachronism — a Period piece, in fact.”
    As Nicola responded to this joke she couldn’t help wondering how often Mr. Period had made it.
    He laughed delightedly with her. “So, speaking as one snob to another,” he ended, “I couldn’t be more enchanted that you are
you
. Well, never mind! One’s meant not to say such things in these egalitarian days.”
    He had a conspiratorial way of biting his underlip and lifting his shoulders: it was indescribably arch. “But we mustn’t be naughty,” said Mr. Pyke Period.
    Nicola said: “They didn’t really explain at the agency exactly