Sam knew she expected too much. She knew she expected something that couldn't happen, certainly wouldn't, but when she walked away from Mr. Foyle after the brief service at the gravesite and her subsequent announcement (a word which still seemed off, but was more fitting than the alternative that sprang to mind, confession, as if she had been no better than she should be, she and Adam up to no good), she paused, just a moment, to see if he would say something else. Something that wasn't the soul of brevity, she'd hoped for as close to effusive as Christopher Foyle could be, some remarks that were poignant or amused, fond, something that would make it clear they had been friends, a funny sort of friends, for all these years and that he knew it couldn't go on that way and… And what else, a practical, direct voice inside her asked, what else did she want—some operatic gesture when she knew well enough Mr. Foyle was a man who valued nuance and subtlety, a kind of apt sophistication she'd never possess. If it were one of the sickly sweet and poorly written books "for upstanding Christian girls" her Aunt Sybille had bought her by the bucketload, she ought, as the plucky-yet-sensitive heroine, think to herself "It's a new chapter, it's time to close the door on the past and look towards the future and all it holds, a bright, blessed tomorrow." She thought that she was rather plucky and she could be quite sensitive, but the clichés held no appeal at all And frankly, the prospect of nappies and boiling bottles and knitting booties held hardly more. (She'd usually hurled the books across the room by the third chapter and then retrieved them, skipped to the end to make sure it was the same as all the others; she'd never once been surprised).
She supposed it would be easier when the baby had arrived, an actual small, noisy person named Suzanne or Michael (she'd be damned before she'd let Adam get his way with stodgy Ermengarde or posh Cecil) who'd depend on her for everything and was sure to entertaining every now and then, even if it was just wind at first. The event of the birth would likely be exciting enough to carry her through the dullness of the first months at home; she hoped being a mother would be interesting as well as satisfying on a sort of primitive level but she also planned to beg her parents to get her a first-rate pram for their only grandchild so she wouldn't be stuck in the cramped little house every day. It wouldn't be the same as the sleek Wolesley, zipping round to pick up Mr. Foyle as she had in Hastings, but it would be something and it was what she could get. Adam had at least got past his silly, old-fashioned ideals about her being perfectly happy since the conception, but she wasn't special enough to be a woman who returned to her unusual, valuable career after she had a child, not a brilliant scientist or writer, just an ordinary woman who had a taste for detective work, and years of being Mrs. Adam Wainwright, the MP's wife, and mother of Wainwright Junior (possibly plural, though not quiet as plural as she had once declared to Mr. Foyle "oh, a half a dozen at least, sir!") loomed. She'd have to content herself with Sayers as Christie was too formulaic for her, though she had a soft spot for Tuppence Beresford, and she'd have to try not to be that tedious woman who went on and on at a mother's group or a tea for the MP's wives about what Inspectors and criminals were really like, even if she'd been politely asked about what she did during the war.
And she'd have to content herself with the tiny shift she'd seen in Mr. Foyle's face, decoding it with the skill borne of years of study and, she fancied, a natural talent, a recruit for Bletchley Park in the encryption of his expression; the way the corner of his mouth pulled, a movement in his jaw, his blink just a quarter of a second longer, she could read it all and if it wasn't the affectionate exclamation she'd wished for, it was genuine Christopher Foyle and that was nothing to be sneezed at. And he had agreed to be godfather and she'd noticed he never stinted himself when she made his cup of tea or brought him a biscuit, not lately, so perhaps he'd be persuaded to come round at the weekend and have tea while the baby napped or even before, when she was as big as a blimp but far heavier, and if he wouldn't, couldn't tell her anything of his work now, he might relent and reminisce about Hastings, all their old cases and colleagues now recast with a nostalgic color in her recollection; Brookie benefitted greatly from the passage of time, whatever minor annoyance she'd had with his cheek entirely evaporated now. She'd saved all the letters and postcards Edith Milner sent and she could always fall back on showing the snaps Paul's wife had sent of the girls, all in matching, smocked dresses with cardigans, all absurdly like Paul, even the youngest in her highchair, covered with porridge, stem to stern. She couldn't imagine Paul allowed his wife to send Mr. Foyle anything of that nature and she thought in response Mr. Foyle would give her "Inspector Foyle's expression No. 8" from her mental catalogue, one of her favorites, and the general precursor to something approaching convivial leisure, with just a hint of exasperation with her that she just couldn't do without, familiar and comforting and friendly enough she might finally ask to call him Christopher.