CHAPTER 31
“A phone call from Templedean Place, madam. They want to get in touch with Miss Vanstead—very urgent, they said, and Lady Allinger has called, madam.”
Miss Alicia Hobart got up from the sofa where she had been resting so peacefully, and sneezed violently as she replied to her aged parlourmaid:
“Oh dear…of course I’ll go to the phone. I do hope it doesn’t mean—— Oh, this wretched hay fever of mine, it’s so upsetting. Ask Lady Allinger to wait, Fenton. Am I very untidy?”
“If you’ll come back here after you’ve answered the phone, madam, I’ll see to you.… Very urgent, they said.”
“Oh dear. I’m afraid that can only mean one thing,” said Miss Hobart, making ineffectual adjustments to her grey hair net as she sneezed her way across the hall and hurried to the telephone.
It was se
