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“You exaggerate, Mother.” Alastair shook his head. “Judge Campbell is a bit dour, his wife is more than a little self-important, Judge Ross tends to fall asleep, but most of them are well enough.”
“Mrs. Campbell?” Mary raised silver eyebrows and her expression assumed a sour severity. “Ayv’e never heeard anything layke it in all may born days!” she said in heavily affected accent. “When aye was a geerl, we didn’t …”
Eilish giggled and glanced at Hester. It was apparently something of a family joke.
“When she was a girl, her grandfather was selling fish on the Leith docks and her mother was running errands for old McVeigh,” Hector said with a twist of his lips.
“Never!” Oonagh was incredulous. “Mrs. Campbell?”
“Aye—Jeannie Robertson, as she was then,” he assured her. “Two brown pigtails down her back, she had, and holes in her boots.”
Deirdra looked at him with new appreciation. “I shall remember that, next time she looks me up and down with a sneer on her face.”
“The old man was drowned,” Hector went on, enjoying his audience. “Took a dram too much, and fell off the docks one night in December. Twenty-seven, I think it was. Yes, eighteen twenty-seven.”
Kenneth’s impatience finally overcame his caution and he told McTeer to bring his dessert ahead of the others. Mary frowned; Alastair opened his mouth as if to say something, then caught Mary’s eye and changed his mind.
Oonagh made some remark about a play that was on in the city. Quinlan agreed with her, and Baird immediately contradicted him. The matter was totally trivial, and yet Hester was startled to hear in their voices an animosity which sounded acutely personal, as if the subject were one of intense importance. She glanced at Quinlan’s face and saw his eyes hard, his lips tight as he stared across the table. Opposite him Baird was brooding, his brows drawn down, his hands clenched. He looked as if he nursed within himself some deep pain.
Eilish did not look at either of them, but down at her plate, her fork idle, food ignored.
No one else appeared to notice anything unusual.
Mary turned to Alastair. “Deirdra says they are going to reopen the Galbraith case. Is that true?”
Alastair raised his head very slowly, his face set in a hard, wary expression. “Gossip,” he said between his teeth. He looked down the table at his wife. “It is repeating such things that gives ignorant people to start speculating, and reputations are ruined. I’m sorry you did not know better than to do such a thing.”
Mary’s face darkened at the insult, but she did not speak.
The col
or rushed up Deirdra’s cheeks and the muscles in her throat tightened. “I mentioned it to no one outside this room,” she said angrily. “Miss Latterly is hardly going to rush out around London telling people. They’ve never heard of Galbraith! Anyway, is it true? Are they going to reopen it?”
“No, of course not,” Alastair said angrily. “There is no evidence. If there had been, I would not have dismissed it in the first place.”
“There is no new evidence?” Mary pressed.
“There is no evidence at all, old or new,” Alastair replied, meeting her gaze squarely, finality in his voice.
Kenneth rose from the table. “Excuse me. I must go, or I shall be late.” He bent over and kissed his mother lightly on the cheek. “Have a good journey, Mother, and give Griselda my love. I’ll come to meet you at the station when you get home again.” He looked across at Hester. “Good-bye, Miss Latterly. I’m happy to have made your acquaintance, and that Mother will be in such able hands. Good night.” And with a wave he went out of the room and closed the door.
“Where is he going?” Alastair said irritably. He looked around the table. “Oonagh?”
“I’ve no idea,” Oonagh said.
“A woman, I imagine,” Quinlan suggested with a shadow of a smile. “It is to be expected.”
“Well why don’t we know about her?” Alastair asked. “If he is courting her, we should know who she is!” He glared at his brother-in-law. “Do you know, Quin?”
Quinlan’s eyes widened in surprise.
“No. Certainly not! It is merely an educated guess. Maybe I am wrong. Perhaps he is gambling, or going to a theater?”
“It’s late for a theater,” Baird said quickly.
“He said he was late!” Quinlan said.
“He didn’t. He said he would be late if he waited for us to finish,” Baird contradicted him.
