Chapter 36

I stepped into my shoes and went to see who was beating at our door.

The man who stood there regarded me in a bored manner. “Warrick Synclaire?” he asked. When I nodded, he handed me a telegramme and waited patiently while I signed for it and then found some coins to tip him.

He touched his cap, sauntered to where he’d left his bicycle, and rode on down the street.

I closed the door and turned the telegramme over and over in my hands.

The last telegramme I had received had been from my brother, John, informing me that our middle brother, Harry, had been killed in the War.

Was this telegramme going to tell me Father had died? It wouldn’t have surprised me, since he’d be eighty on his next birthday. I hadn’t seen him in almost ten years, and there had been no correspondence between us, although Lady Eugenia wrote occasionally keeping me abreast of things in our corner of Kent.