The Cat Next Door Read Free

and almost fled from the room.
    Margot followed more slowly, uneasily aware of some sort of warning signal still flickering in Wilfred’s eyes. Aunt Milly had opened her book and was reading avidly. Henry and Christabel were too intent on their
raspberry fool to look up and meet any other eyes. Nan had disappeared. The bell kept ringing.
    â€˜Coming …’ Emmeline called out. ‘All right , Lynette, we’re coming. Don’t be so impatient!’ She hurried up the stairs and paused before the open door, waiting for Margot to catch up.
    â€˜Who’s there?’ The thin voice crackled with sudden panic. ‘Who’s out there?’
    Emmeline closed her eyes briefly and her lips tightened before she forced them into a calming smile. She motioned to Margot to follow and advanced into the room.
    â€˜Now, Lynette, I told you we were coming, you heard us climbing the stairs. Who else could it be?’ If the sweet reasonableness of Emmeline’s tone was a trifle strained, the child did not appear to realise it.
    â€˜Oh, yes.’ There was a fragile welcoming smile to greet them. ‘Hello, Cousin Margot. Did you have a good flight over?’
    â€˜I’ve had worse.’ Margot stooped to kiss the pale cheek, slightly puzzled. Lynette was sitting up in bed, looking perfectly healthy, with no trace of a fever or a cold. Why wasn’t she dressed and downstairs with the rest of the family? ‘What about you? Aren’t you feeling well?’
    â€˜No. I’m not well.’ Lynette turned her head away. ‘I feel very, very poorly.’
    There was a tray on the bedside table. From the look of the empty plates, there was nothing wrong with Lynette’s appetite, at any rate. Another table, on the far side of the king-sized bed, was piled with games and hobby equipment: beadwork, embroidery, petit-point, a painting set and drawing tablet, everything the bedridden invalid might desire. Behind the piled-up pillows propping her up, the shelves that formed the bedhead held books, a transistor radio, the TV remote control, a couple of fluffy animals, comfort toys not quite outgrown.
Everything well within reach without Lynette having to leave the bed.
    Was there something wrong with her legs?
    Emmeline was not meeting any questioning eyes. She busied herself with stacking the dishes on the tray into a neat little pile, then carried the tray across the room to set it down beside the door leading into the hall. At the other end of the room, another door stood ajar, opening into the en-suite bathroom.
    â€˜Now then.’ Emmeline briskly pulled a book and exercise notebook from the shelf immediately behind Lynette. ‘Have you finished your English assignment?’
    â€˜Almost.’ Lynette twitched defensively. ‘I was going to, but …’ Her eyes closed and she leaned back against the pillows. ‘I was too tired.’
    Tired, yes, tired . Margot fought back a yawn. Aren’t we all?
    Margot looked again at the hobby table and saw that the embroidery ring held a pattern with just a few flowers filled in, the tapestry in its frame was only two inches wide, a band of beadwork curled despondently on top of tubes of loose beads in a plastic bag, a threaded needle was jabbed into what was intended to be a petit-point cushion cover, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle were in a tumbled heap beside a few fitted-together sections of a cuddly-pets domestic scene.
    Everything started and nothing completed.
    She noticed, too, a small cluster of sports books and political biographies flanking the school books and novels on the bookshelves. Uncle Wilfred was maintaining a foothold in the quarters that had belonged to him and Aunt Milly His attitude was now explained, although it looked as though there was scant chance of his reclaiming the master suite at any time in the immediate future.
    â€˜Isn’t Fenella here yet?’ There was a querulous, faintly accusing note