Crooked House

"She's frightened, Sophia," I said. "She's very frightened."
"Chief Inspector Taverner and his merry merry men? Yes, I daresay they are rather alarming. Laurence, I suppose, is in hysterics?"
"Practically. He made, I thought, a disgusting exhibition of himself. I don't understand what a woman can see in a man like that."
"Don't you, Charles? Actually Laurence has a lot of sex appeal."
"A weakling like that," I said incredulously.
"Why do men always think that a caveman must necessarily be the only type of person attractive to the opposite sex? Laurence has got sex appeal all right - but I wouldn't expect you to be aware of it." She looked at me. "Brenda got her hooks into you all right."
"Don't be absurd. She's not even really good looking. And she certainly didn't -"
"Display allure? No, she just made you sorry for her. She's not actually beautiful, she's not in the least clever - but she's got one very outstanding characteristic. She can make trouble. She's made trouble, already, between you and me."
"Sophia," I cried aghast.
Sophia went to the door.
"Forget it, Charles. I must get on with lunch."
"I'll come and help."
"No, you stay here. It will rattle Nannie to have 'a gentleman in the kitchen'."
"Sophia," I called as she went out.
"Yes, what is it?"
"Just a servant problem. Why haven't you got any servants down here and upstairs something in an apron and a cap opened the door to us?"
"Grandfather had a cook, housemaid, parlourmaid and valet-attendant. He liked servants. He paid them the earth, of course, and he got them. Clemency and Roger just have a daily woman who comes in and cleans. They don't like servants - or rather Clemency doesn't. If Roger didn't get a square meal in the City every day, he'd starve. Clemency's idea of a meal is lettuce, tomatoes and raw carrot. We sometimes have servants, and then mother throws one of her temperaments and they leave, and we have dailies for a bit and then start again. We're in the daily period. Nannie is the permanency and copes in emergencies.
Now you know." t
Sophia went out. I sank down in one of the large brocaded chairs and gave myself up to speculation.
Upstairs I had seen Brenda's side of it.
Here and now I had been shown Sophia's side of it. I realised completely the justice of Sophia's point of view - what might be called the Leonides family's point of view. They resented a stranger within the gates who had obtained admission by what they regarded as ignoble means. They were entirely within their rights. As Sophia had said: On paper it wouldn't look well…
But there was the human side of it -the side that I saw and that they didn't.
They were, they always had been, rich and well established. They had no conception of the temptations of the underdog. Brenda Leonides had wanted wealth, and pretty things and safety - and a home. She had claimed that in exchange she had made her old husband happy. I had sympathy with her. Certainly, while I was talking with her, I had had sympathy for her… Had I got as much sympathy now?
Two sides to the question - different angles of vision - which was the true angle .. the true angle…
I had slept very little the night before. I had been up early to accompany Taverner.
Now, in the warm flower-scented atmosphere of Magda Leonides's drawing room, my body relaxed in the cushioned embrace of the big chair and my eyelids dropped…
Thinking of Brenda, of Sophia, of an old man's picture, my thoughts slid together into a pleasant haze.
I slept…