The boys were making a habit of behaving rashly and then leaving Sophia to face Mr Pell and the Vale, Uncle Preston and Mrs Kellett, and soothe them, and make explanations. It was too sickening, and even at the risk of behaving like Uncle Preston, she would have to tell them that it must stop.

CHAPTER XXI

There was no one at home when she finally got back after her journey and some household shopping and she was glad. She felt that she must have peace and quiet immediately or she would have a nerve storm instead.

It was seven o’clock on a mild autumnal evening whose shadows filled the Vale and the cottage with peace and a faint sense of chill. Hardly a leaf had fallen, but a long way off the breath of winter could be felt. Sophia stood at her window for some time, thinking dreamily about the cold that was coming from the mysterious plains of the North, swinging snow and bare trees across Europe, and gradually her mood grew more tranquil and even hopeful.

With immense relief she decided that she would not leave her brothers. She would stand by them in this difficult period, and help them to weather the storm, as the three had weathered their father’s storms of rage when they were children. If she left them now, it was likely that they would get into serious trouble. The existing wildish parties and drinking could not be called serious trouble. They were foolish, and they set up tastes which later might cause misery, but so far no real harm had been done. And it was her business and responsibility to see that it was not done.

Nothing mattered, she decided, so long as they did not all stop loving one another and liking to be together. While she still had her brothers’ love she was not powerless, and if she remembered to be tactful she could do much to influence them.

So, resolved to be very tactful and to do her duty, however nasty it might be, and to stand by the erring Harry and Francis unto the last ditch, she went soberly but cheerfully downstairs to prepare her supper, and looked round the cottage with a disapproving eye. It was dusty. A film appeared to have settled over it; a sort of Tessitt-film, languid, and just not quite clean. She would have to speak to Miss Tessitt.

As usual she felt at once braced and soothed because she had made a decision; and she hummed a tune as she set out her supper. She turned on the light, neatly stacked three copies of the Daily Express and one of Razzle, threw away dead flowers, wound the silent clock, made some tea, took down the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, opened it at the excessively dull bit about the system of governing the Empire under Constantine, and began to eat an egg and to read sternly.

This peaceful scene was interrupted by Harry and Francis, who arrived in the taxi in which Harry had fetched Francis from the offices of the long-suffering Graby & Bryant.