Tell Me my Forture Read online

  With one exception, all the members of the impoverished Greeve family built their futures round the name of Great-Aunt Tabitha and the fortune she was expected to leave them. The exception was Leslie Greeve, for whom the future meant only Oliver Bendick a man she had loved for longer than she could remember and who she would one day marry. But when Great-Aunt Tabitha died, a stranger burst into their lives: Reid Carthay, self-confident, cynical, thirty-eight a disturbing stranger within whose power it lay to affect all their futures.

  OTHER Harlequin Romances by MARY. BURCHELL

  87 SWEET ADVENTURE 1214 THE MARSHALL FAMILY 1270 THOUGH WORLDS APART 1298 MISSING FROM HOME 1330 A HOME FOR JOY 1354 WHEN LOVE'S BEGINNING 1382 TO JOURNEY TOGETHER 1405 THE CURTAIN RISES 1431 THE OTHER LINDING GIRL 1455 GIRL WITH A CHALLENGE 1474 MY SISTER CELIA 1508 CHILD OF MUSIC 1543 BUT NOT FOR ME 1567 DO NOT GO, MY LOVE 1587 MUSIC OF THE HEART 1632 ONE MAN'S HEART 1655 IT'S RUMOURED IN THE VILLAGE 1704 EXCEPT MY LOVE 1733 CALL AND I'LL COME ]767 UNBIDDEN MELODY 1792 PAY ME TOMORROW 1811 STRANGERS MAY MARRY 1871 THE BRAVE IN HEART

  CHAPTER ONE

  "SOMETIMES," remarked Katherine, regarding herself in the drawing-room mirror with something between satisfaction and regret, "sometimes I can't help reflectinghow extraordinarily useless I am, and it depresses me. Then I think how decorative I am, and it seems to even things up a bit, so I suppose it's all right." "Extraordinarily illogical reasoning," replied herbrother Moriey, from the wheeled chair to which he hadbeen condemned ever since a car crash some time before. "But, in any case, there is always Great-Aunt Tabitha. Why, after all, should you toil usefully but revoltingly when, by the thoughtful dispensation ofProvidence, we have a Great-Aunt Tabitha whose largeand solid fortune will inevitably come to us round about the time our papa has finished living on his owndiminishing capital?" "But we can't be absolutely sure about Great-AuntTabitha dying at the right moment," put in Alma, with all the cheerful and unmalicious callousness of twelve years. "Someone in the reign of James the First livedto be a hundred and twenty." "This," Moriey pointed out unanswerably, "is notthe reign of James the First." And Alma sucked her under-lip and thought again. "Still " Leslie, the second daughter, spoke rathersoberly. "I know what Kate and Alma mean. It doesn't seem quite decent to plan one's life entirely on the prospect of someone else dying. Even," she addedapologetically, "if one has never seen that person."Her brother, however, brushed that aside easily."Decency, my pet, is a question of geography andhistory," he reminded her. "Transport someone in the normal beachwear of Honolulu to the drawing-roomof Queen Victoria, and you have a case of gross indecency. But by the same token or, probably, a rather different one, now I come to think of it among certain savage tribes, I don't doubt that to bank on Great-Aunt Tabitha's decease, or even to hasten it, would be considered not only perfectly decent, but even desirable." "We aren't a savage tribe, though," objected Alma,who liked to bear her part in any family discussion. "There have been times," Moriey replied, "not unconnected with your own activities, when that has been open to doubt."The others laughed, and Katherine, bunking her goldtipped lashes, and running an absent hand over her fantastically beautiful chestnut hair, said reflectively, "I don't know quite what started me on such an uncomfortable topic."Moriey grinned at her."I do. You probably heard Father telling Mother thatthe quarterly bills, like all other quarterly bills before them, were larger than ever, and that starvation stared us in the face and we should all have to retire to the two rooms over the stables if we continued to live at our present rate. Or whatever new flight of fancy his immediate annoyance prompted mm to." "What do you mean by flights of fancy?" demandedAlma, regarding her brother severely, though sheadored him. "Don't you believe what Father says? D'you think he tells ties about his money?" "What have we ever done," enquired Moriey resignedly, of no one in particular, "to have this dreadfully literal-minded child thrust into the bosom of our unrealistic family? No, Ahna, of course I don't thinkFather tells lies. Or, if I do, I didn't mean to conveythat impression. But, like most people who live beyond their incomes, he frequently indulges in financial prophecy of the most sanguine where his own wishes are concerned, and of the gloomiest when it comes tosupplying the wants of someone else." "I don't know what you're talking about, and I don'tbelieve you do either," asserted Ahna. "And, anyway, I hope Katherine's only speaking for herself when shetalks about being useless. work hard enough at school, goodness knows!" "But with what result?" enquired her brother unfairly. "With what result?""And Leslie isn't useless either," pursued Alma, refusing to be drawn on the awkward subject of school results. "No." Moriey cast a half-humorous, half-affectionate glance at his second sister, who was sitting in a lowchair, sewing, with an industry which certainly lent colour to Alma's claim for her. "No, Leslie really isn'ta useless person although, according to Katherine's argument, she is sufficiently decorative to warrant herbeing so. If we were all cast away on a desert island which Heaven and Great-Aunt Tabitha forbid Leslie is, of course, the one who would discover edible and nourishing shell-fish nestling among the rocks, a springof fresh water conveniently near at hand, and some method of weaving the surrounding vegetation into shelter for the night.""All of which simply means," Leslie said, smiling but not looking up, "that a passion for home comforts isstronger in me than in the rest of you, and I shouldtherefore hustle around in search of them while you were still lying on the beach thinking things over." Though few might have recognized the fact, probablythe most unfortunate thing ever to happen to Richard Greeve was to be left, on his father's death, with a comfortable fortune over which he had complete control. He was already married at the time to the pretty, affectionate wife who had passed on her dark eyes andher flawless complexion to each one of her four children, and she had certainly not been the one to providehim with a sensible purpose in life, still less to curb hisextravagant tendencies.Indeed, she belonged to that fast disappearing race of women the attractively helpless. And, like the chameleon, she took her "colour" and character from her surroundings.If her husband had happened to be a big, commonsense, practical creature, she would probably have clung to him, but been a reasonably practical and commonsense partner. As it was, however, her husband was a big, handsome, unpractical creature, with flamboyant ideas and extravagant notions. And she fluttered happily in the bright, ephemeral world which he created for her, adoring him for his often spectacular follies, and encouraging him just when he needed a little tactful restraint. Whenever Leslie queried their position which she had done occasionally since she had come to understand the essential insecurity of it her mother would assume a sweet, vague, but curiously obstinate expression, and say, "It's difficult for women to understand these things, dear. Your father must know best. It stands to reason." She would also add, like Moriey indeed like all of them in moments of crisis over the years,"And there's always Great-Aunt Tabitha."For as long as the younger Greeves could remember anything, Great-Aunt Tabitha had been an almostlegendary figure in their lives. Incredibly, she had survived to the age of ninety-six, living in a magnificent villa near Biarritz, from which, it appeared, neither invader nor liberator had been able to eject her.Indisputably, she was one of the few really wealthy people left in that part of Europe, for her husband a fabulously shrewd merchant who had died at least fiftyyears before had invested his fortune so cleverly and in such various concerns that not famine, pestilence norwars appeared to alter Great-Aunt Tatritha's income to any appreciable degree. Or, at least, so the family legend went.Richard Greeve was her heir, for he and his children were her sole blood relations. And on his own diminishing capital and the golden prospects of hers had he existed for the last twenty-five years.On this particular afternoon, when the young Greeves were all gathered in the long drawing-room, lazily pursuing the discussion which Kather
ine's remark had 10 prompted, it was hard to imagine that drama could hover anywhere near their lives. The room in which they were, with its gracious proportions, its mellow tints of brown and soft gold and green, its long, beautiful windows, looking on a flowergarden and lawn, at the foot of which a little stream bubbled this was hardly the setting for drama. And the young things idling there, in their youth and their beauty and their confidence, might have seemed to the fanciful like beings who inhabited some tranquil world where it was always afternoon, and where one was completely and safely insulated from the shocks and trials of everyday life. Katherine was, perhaps, the supremely beautiful one of the family, with her chestnut hair, her velvety brown eyes and her almost apricot-hued complexion. But Moriey was extraordinarily handspme in his thin way, and Alma, though given to ruminating in a slightly cowlike manner when any thought possessed her completely, was a good-looking child. Leslie was the least obviously beautiful. She had the same velvet brown eyes as the others, with the same curious gold-tipped lashes. But her hair, which was soft and fair and cut rather long, lacked the dramatic colouring of the others, and her complexion, though palely beautiful, was almost colourless beside the gorgeous tints of Katherine's. She had, however, an admirably proportioned forehead and very beautifully set eyes, which combined to give her glance an essential candour and openness that was sweet and endearing, and, at the same time, carried with it a promise of extreme reliability. They made a charming picture, scattered about the gracious, faintly shabby room. But, as the door opened and their father came in, they immediately became, not a picture in themselves, but merely the background to a portrait. Richard Greeve, now nearing sixty, was still goodlooking in a rather florid, obvious way, but that was not the quality about him which arrested immediate atten11 tion. What made him the unquestioned centre of the scene any scene, was his absolute and unshakable conviction that this was his position by right. He was a big man, with a splendid, organ-like speaking voice, on which he played with a shameless, but .most effective, virtuosity. In a selfish way, he was extremely fond of his, family who, in looks at least, did him great credit. But it is doubtful if he would have been either a kind or an understanding parent to any child who could not add some distinction to his own role as head of the house. He was being very much head of the house at the moment. Indeed, he addressed them commandingly, and in a manner which gathered everyone's attention to him instantaneously as "Children." It was a term which could hardly be applied with accuracy to any of them except Alma, but it was uttered with such conviction that no one could have dreamed of querying it."Children," Richard Greeve said, in the tone of one opemng Parliament at a solemn moment in the country's history, "I have news for you." "Good or bad?" interjected Ahna quickly, instinctively sensing a peroration and anxious to settle that point before her father embarked on what he had to say. She received a quelling glance which told even her that her intrusion was ill-judged. "In one sense it is sad news," her father conceded, and Moriey declared afterwards that he bowed his head as he said this, "for death, though splendid, is always sad. But it is news for which we have been prepared a long time, and which will make a great difference in the lives of all of us. It is, I might say, momentous news. Your Great-Aunt Tabitha is dead." "At last? I mean, oh, dear!" Katherine flushed at her unfortunate choice of exclamation. "Wo we were just talking about her when you came in," she added, obviously with some faint feeling of guilt. "Then we're all rich now," said Ahna crudely and with no saving expression of regret. 12 "That, my dear, is not the most suitable comment to make upon your Great-Aunt's death," her father told her reprovingly. But Moriey said indulgently, "Well, Father, we've been expecting this most of our lives, you know, and it isn't as though we've ever seen the old lady. Besides,", he added reflectively, "I dare say, come to that, one isn't unwilling to go, at ninetysix." "Are you going over to France for the funeral, Father?" enquired Leslie hastily, hoping to distract his attention from Morley's ill-chosen remarks. But her choice of distraction was not a happy one, it seemed, for her father frowned. "Unfortunately, no. Although I should certainly have wished to pay my last respects to Tabitha, the opportunity has been denied me. I learn, to my extreme annoyance, that the funeral has already taken place before I had even been informed of her, death. An extremely disrespectful and high-handed way of doing things, and one for which I hold her legal advisers greatly to blame." "But they couldn't have advised her about her own funeral," protested Alma, who had been following all this very closely. "It'd be too late, you know." Richard Greeve looked at his youngest child with a certain lack of favour. "I am assuming that, in accordance with the usual custom when no immediate relative of the deceased is available, her legal advisers took over the duties" his voice dropped a couple of notes "the sad duties of arranging the funeral and informing the relations. My quarrel with them is that they should have attended to these matters in the wrong order. should have been informed immediately, and I should then have flown over to make suitable arrangements," "But don't forget the cousin, dear." Mrs. Greeve, who had slipped into the room almost unnoticed and now stood rather like a beautiful wraith beside her husbandf softly entered the discussion. "The cousin probably attended to everything." 13 "Then he greatly exceeded his rights and position," retorted her husband firmly. "What is he, anyway?" The question was evidently rhetorical as well as contemptuous, because he proceeded to answer it himself immediately. "Merely a third, fourth or fifth cousin by marriage. Some hanger-on some remote connection of poor Tabitha's late husband. My Uncle Leopold," headded, in case anyone was getting mixed about relationships."But I didn't know there was any cousin," exclaimedLeslie, with interest. "I didn't know Great-Aunt Tabitha had any relations except us.""One would hardly count so remote a connection asa relation, my dear," her father said, smiling faintly and scornfully. "And by marriage, too," he added, as though marriage were a dishonourable state.. Though, in pointof fact, he had a groat and solemn regard for the bond. "He must be very, very old, if he's a cousin of Great-Aunt Tabitha," Alma said thoughtfully."He seems to feel young enough to undertake the journey to England," Mrs. Greeve said doubtfully."In any case, cousinships are such queer things when you begin to get into the third and fourth dimension,"Moriey pointed out. "I never can remember if secondcousins are the children of first cousins, or whether the children of one are second cousins to the original cousin and third cousins to the children." "Say that again, slowly," Ahna begged, concentrating almost audibly.But her sisters cried, "Oh, no!" in chorus, and Leslie added,"What did you say about this cousin coming toEngland, Mother? You said he felt young enough to undertake the journey. Here, do you mean?" "Yes." Her mother nodded. "He proposes to come here, to Cranley Magna. He wants to make our acquaintance. I thought" she glanced doubtfully at her husband "it was rather nice and friendly of him.""Did you, my dear?" said her husband with deceptive mildness. "Personally, I asked myself if he were not 14 merely following Tabitha's money to England. But perhaps I am of a nasty, suspicious nature." And he gave a beautiful bass-baritone laugh which invited everyone else to join in mirth over such a preposterous suggestion. "Perhaps," said Alma, and the moment lost much of its value. "When is this old man coming?" enquired Katherine. "Within the next few days, I imagine. I must speak to Mrs. Speers about having a room ready," murmured Mrs. Greeve. And, with a faint, sweet smile round on her family, she drifted out of the room again, in search of her very efficient housekeeper. Almost immediately her husband followed her, forone of the simple and really endearing tidags about himwas that, although he might pontificate and bluster inher presence, he thought her the loveliest thing in the world, and was never happy long away from her. Onecould forgive him much for that, Leslie had oftenthought Left to themselves once more, the young Greevesbroke into animated discussion. All except Moriey, that is to say, who leant back in his chair once more and listened amusedly to what his sisters had to say. "This really is going to make a difference to us, as Father says," Katherine observed. "Being really richis quite a different thing from
merely having prospects, however good. I wonder if Father will let me go toItaly now and study?" For Katherine had singing ambitions, though so far of a rather dilettante quality. "Curb your notions of our probable worth, my pet," Moriey advised her. "The money comes to Father and,by the time he has taken toll of it for what I trust will be a very long life, we shall probably all have to 'turn to and earn our own living in advanced middle-age." "You do think of the most disgusting things," declared Alma, giving her brother a small thump. "And, .anyway, I mean to be married long before I'm middleaged." 15 "Opportunity is a fine thing, as the offensive oldsaying has it," 'Moriey reminded her. At this, however, Ahna looked scornful and said, "I should make an opportunity, stoopid.""I wonder how long this old cousin of.Aunt Tabitha'swill stay," exclaimed Ka,therine, who had been following her own thoughts all this time. "Maybe Father is right, and he just, wants to park himself here.""Then, after a suitable interval, during which all the demands of hospitality will have been scrupulously fulfilled, Father will hang out an unmistakable 'no parking' sign, and he will have to go," Moriey replied."Poor old man," said Alma, with what they all felt to be exaggerated and possibly unnecessary sympathy."Anyway, I've already told you, he won't necessarily be an old man," Moriey declared. "He may be youngand handsome, and fall in love with Kate and marry her." "Why me?" Katherine wanted to know."Because you're the prettiest, I suppose," her brothersaid. "Anyway, I have an idea it wouldn't be any good his falling in love with Leslie, and Ahna is a bit young." "Why wouldn't it " began Ahna.But Leslie tossed aside her needlework and interrupted firmly."I'll leave you to your romantic planning," she said, her colour just a little high. "I'm going to the village toget some ribbon and other odds and ends. Anyone else coming?"No one else was coming, it seemed.. And without bothering to fetch either a hat or coat, for it was abeautiful, golden August, afternoon, Leslie stepped out of one of the long windows, which served, as did mostof the windows in that room, as a garden door, and crossed the lawn to a wicket gate almost hidden in flowering bushes.She was not at all sorry to b& alone. She liked her owncompany, especially on an afternoon of such absorbing loveliness, and her father's news had provided enoughfood for thought inevitably pleasant and speculative 16 thought without the need for conversation. She walked slowly, thinking first of the legendary old lady who had just died with that faintly remorseful, impersonal regret which is all that any of us can achieve for the death of someone we have never seen then of the immense and welcome difference which the newly acquired wealth was going to make in their lives. No more worrying about the essential insecurity of their outwardly comfortable existence. No more dreading the occasional, but violent, outbursts of her father on the subject of any bills other than his own. No more wondering how the family would manage without her when she and Oliver married. Although to anyone as literal-minded as Ahna or even her father it might seem that nothing absolutely definite had been arranged between Oliver and herself, to Leslie it had been obvious for some while that, as soon as he had a practice, or the reasonable prospect of one, they would be married. The rest of the family might build their futures round the name of Great-Aunt Tabitha. To Leslie, the future meant Oliver Bendick, whom she had loved for longer than she could remember.Even in the days when they were schoolchildrea, and Oliver was the Doctor's son who knew Moriey rather well, while Leslie was merely Morley's sister even then there had been a degree of understanding and friendship between them which had not existed between any of the other young people of the district. And more than once, after he had got over the inarticulate teens, Oliver had said, "There's no one like you, Leslie. I just couldn't imagine life without you to talk to and plan with."It was she who had been the recipient of his confidences from the earliest days, she who had sympathized with and encouraged his every ambition. It was to her even before his parents he had come with the news i that he had passed his final examinations as a doctor. And, now that he was working as a locum less than fifty miles away, she saw him most weekends. 17 She hoped he would be home this weekend, so thatshe could tell him the news about Great-Aunt Tabitha. To know that the family's future was so clear and satisfactory could not fail to make their own future seem the more secure.Laslie had several places to visit in the village, andas she entered the little Post Office, which also served as a general haberdashery store, Miss Meeks popped up from behind the counter to enquire personally after the health of the family.Having reported satisfactorily, Leslie was about to go on to the purchase of stamps when Miss Meeks,leaning towards her in as confidential a manner as her rather rigid corsets would permit, asked, "Did thetelegram arrive safely?" as though all sorts of perils might have beset a telegram on its short journey from the Post Office to Cranley Magna. "The telegram?""I sent it up only ten minutes ago, and told Bob togo straight to the house without any loitering." A frownbegan to gather on Miss Meeks' brow and the faintcreaking of her corsets indicated that she was beginning to breathe deeply and with displeasure."He probably passed me while I was in Farmers',Miss Meeks. I called in for a paper," Leslie explained, anxious to shield Bob who was Miss Meeks' rather down-trodden nephew.Miss Meeks suspended judgment for the moment."I didn't know you were expecting a visitor," she said casually, as she flicked over her supply of stamps."Was the telegram about someone arriving to visit us, then?" Leslie spoke with interest, and never questioned Miss Meeks' inalienable village right to digest and discuss the contents of all telegrams which passed through her hands, either outgoing or incoming."I think so. I seem to remember something of the sort." Miss Meeks became falsely reticent all at once. "Who was it from?" Leslie asked. "Well, I did notice the name, as it was a strange one.It struck me quite forcibly," Miss Meeks explained, 18 giving the expression almost a physical meaning. "It was signed Reid Carthay. And it said, 'Arriving Thursday.' Which, of course, is today," Miss Meeks pointed out. "That's why I told.Bob to hurry." "Then he'll be coming by the six-twenty, I suppose." Leslie glanced at her watch. "A friend of the family?" enquired Miss Meeks deli-' cately, as she counted out change. "A more sort of a relation," Leslie said. And then thought how much that would have annoyed her father. "I'll have to see about having him met at the station. He won't know that it's a mile and a half from the village, with no chance of a taxi." And she bade Miss Meeks good-bye and went out into the afternoon, sunshine once more. It was still not more than four o'clock, and Leslie reckoned that she had plenty of time to carry out. her last commission, which was to collect some honey from a small farm half a mile beyond the village, on the other side from Cranley Magna. And as she walked along the dusty road between the sweet-smelling hedges, she thought about Mr. Reid Carthay and his imminent arrival. As Moriey had said, there was no need to assume that he was an elderly man. But, whatever his age, Leslie hoped he would be sufficiently tolerant in outlook not to mind the various foibles of the Greeves, and not so tender of his dignity that he would resent the slightly hectoring manner which her father would undoubtedly adopt towards one whom he considered to have done him out of the duty and privilege of supervising Great-Aunt Tabitha's funeral. Leslie collected her honey two combs of it, dark and of an intoxicating scent and started homewards. But, before she had gone fifty yards, the sound of a high-powered car coming behind her made her move on to the narrow grass verge at the side of the road. The car swung round a bend in the lane, passed her at speed, and then drew to an abrupt standstill a little way beyond her. It was a long, low, shining black 19 car of un-English design, and as Leslie came nearer she saw it contained only the driver, a tall, broadshouldered man, who was obviously waiting for her to come up with him. Indeed, as she drew abreast of the door, he leaned his arm on the ledge of the open window and said, in a deep voice with a faint accent which she could not quite identify, "Pardon me. Can you tell me if I'm anywhere near Cranleymere?""Yes. That's the village straight ahead." She pointed to the small cluster of houses and two or three village shops which made up Cranleymere. "That?" The man half smiled, with a sort of goodhumoured contempt for anything so small. "Is that the whole
of it?" "That's the main part of the village," Leslie said, rather resenting this slight on her home village. "There are a few big houses scattered around as well." "Including one called Cranley Magna?" "Why why, ,yes." Leslie stared at him, surprised doubt crystallizing into not very pleased certainty. "Are you Mr. Carthay?" "Sure. I'm Reid Carthay." He smiled completely then, showing strong, even teeth. "Don't tell me you're one of my cousins?"She had no intention of telling him anything of the sort."I'm Leslie Greeve," she said, much more distantly than she usually spoke to anyone. "But we're hardly cousins, are we?""Near enough," he assured her easily, and opened the door of the car. "Jump in, Leslie, and I'll drive you up home."Leslie was not an unfriendly girl, but she felt herself prickle with resentment at this casual familiarity. However, she could hardly refuse a lift from someone who was going to her own home. So she said, 'Thank you," coolly, and got into the car. "Are you the only girl in the family?" he enquired, 20 as he started the car again, and he spoke as though it were his natural right to ask questions about her. "No. I have two sisters." "Both as pretty as you?" He flashed an appreciative smile at her. Leslie did not take that up. She permitted a slight' pause in the conversation, to indicate her opinion of his line of talk, and then added, "And I have one brother." "A matter of minor interest," he assured her. "Not to me. I happen to be fond of my brother. Hehas nice manners, for one thing," she retorted, surprised to find herself speaking like this.She was no more surprised than her companion, however. He gave her another quick glance an amused one and said,"What's the sting in that? Think I'm being fresh?""I wasn't really thinking about you at all," replied Leslie, with obvious untruth. "Except to wonder, rather apprehensively, about your impact on my father.""Put that in plain English, would you? Do I turn left here?" "No. Straight on. And, in plain English, I mean that my father never heard of you until to-day, so that your very existence was something of a sho-surprise. Youwould do well to remember that and go rather rather tactfully.""Implying that I have not exercised tact with you?" Leslie, who had never before been subjected to the gale of good-humoured candour which seemed to be blowing upon her at the moment, was silent.Whereat Reid Carthay laughed, put out a hand and, to her inexpressible annoyance, patted her as though she had been a kitten, and said,"You shouldn't take offence so easily. Is this the drive?" "Yes." She quickly withdrew her hand from under the strong, warm, brown one which had touched herso easily, and, as they swept round the curve of the 21 drive and came to a stop in front of the house. Alma appeared in the open doorway. An inquisitive and friendly child by nature, she ran down the steps, and addressed the newcomer with all the curiosity and interest that had been lacking in T pclip ' "Hello! Are you Reid Carthay?" "I am." He leant back, smiling a little, with one hand still resting on the wheel of the ear. "Any objections?" "Oh, no. But I thought you were going to be old. "There are times when I think I am." "But I meant really old," explained the literal Ahna. "You don't look more than forty." Alma led the way into the drawing-room, where thefamily was present in force. , Most men, Leslie supposed, would have been slightly intimidated by the spectacle of such a united front, and she would have made the introductions in the friendliest manner possible. But Reid Carthay showed no signs of being put out much less intimidated and, having greeted Mrs. Greeve pleasantly and taken in the rest in one comprehensive glance, he shook hands with his host, and said, "Fortunately, I stopped to ask Leslie the way, so there wasn't much difficulty in finding the place." Leslie, as they all knew, was the rather reserved one of the family, and to have this man talking as though he and she were old acquaintances made Moriey at least glance at her with interest. "Mr. Carthay," Leslie explained, with the very slightest emphasis on the name, "overtook me just as I left Jenkins' Farm. And, as he asked me the way, of course I guessed who he was." "Quite quite," said her father, anxious to monopolize the visitor himself. "Sit down, Carthay, sk down. This is a sad business about poor old Tabitha." Leslie stole another glance at their visitor. He didn't look a sponger, she reflected. Though of 22 course that cool air of self-confidence might well be part of his stock-in-trade. A little more critically, Leslie eyed his admirably tailored dark suit, his unobtrusive but expensive wristwatch, and recalled the undoubted luxury of the car in which he had given her a lift. Great-Aunt Tabitha or no, he did remarkably well out of something. Or someone. He was talking to her mother now, answering the random, conventional questions which one does ask of a stranger who arrives unexpectedly, and seeing him like that, in profile, Leslie was uncomfortably aware of the firmness, even obstinacy, of his jaw and the hard line of his cheek. He was not just an ordinary sponger, she decided suddenly. Not anything on a small scale. He might be a great rogue or he might be a force for good. But whatever his line, he was big" and forceful and probably not a little ruthless. Cranley Magna seemed suddenly rather a delicate, pastel-coloured, unrealistic sort of setting for him, and a vague feeling of apprehension touched Leslie because of it. However, her mother rose just then to escort their visitor to his room, and the others prepared to scatter, to get ready for tea. Leslie lingered for a moment to speak to Moriey and, seeing this, Katherine came back to join them. "What did you make of him, Leslie? You seemed to be great friends in a remarkably short time," she said curiously. "We were nothing of the sort." Leslie spoke with decision. "It was he who made all the advances. I should think he's the kind of man to call you 'honey' the second time he meets you." "There is a slight American accent," Moriey remarked. "I noticed it." "Oh, that's what it is! I didn't identify it, because there's an overlay of something else." "Probably a slightly French intonation. He looks the kind of man who's knocked about a good deal." 23 "He settled down pretty close to Great-Aunt Tabitha," remarked Leslie. But Moriey said, "Miaow!" and ruffled her fair hair. "Why did he come, though?" Katherine said reflectively. "Perhaps he heard that Father had three beautiful daughters, all now richly endowed," suggested Moriey. "And he came to look them over." "Then Kate and Alma can have him between them," Leslie said, with so much energy that her brother 'and sister both laughed. She laughed a little herself then, slightly ashamed of her exaggerated resentment of someone who was, after all, a guest, and had not been guilty of anything more than familiarity. "No, it couldn't have been that," she said, referring back to Moriey's flippant suggestion. "I remember now. He asked if I were the only daughter." "He hoped it all went with you, dear," Moriey declared, and laughed again. "Don't be absurd," Leslie said. Then she remembered that she had left her various purchases in the car, and went out to fetch them. As she came out of the front door, she saw that he was also there, taking his luggage out of the back of the car, and at the sound of her footsteps he looked up. He stopped what he was doing immediately, and came to the bottom of the steps and said, "Look here, I must talk to you. Where can we go?" Leslie's eyebrows rose slightly and her dark eyes widened with surprise and that queer resentment which she could not control. "It's almost teatime," she said rather coldly. "Yes, I know. But there's something I must ask you." He was so urgent and so authoritative about it that she found herself leading the way to the small shrubbery at the side of the house. But they had hardly moved within the shade of the trees, before she turned to face 24 him and asked, not very promisingly, because she suspected some new, smiling advance, "Well, what is it?" He was not smiling, however. He was frowning slightly, and his very keen grey eyes were a little narrowed, as though he were trying to see somethinga long way off."What makes your father think he was old AuntTabitha's heir?" was the extraordinary thing he said. "What makes him think Well, because he is, of course. He always has been. She made a will soon afterher husband died, when Father was still a schoolboy. We've all known it all our lives " Her rapid assurances trailed off suddenly into silence, and the most horrible, premonitory chill crept downher spine. "You don't mean you can't mean that she didn'tleave him her money, after all?" Reid Carthay thrust his hands into his pockets andregarded her almost moodily for a moment, like a manwho very much disliked some task he saw in front of him. "That's exactly what
I do mean," he said at last."She left her money to me. Every damned cent of it. I didn't even know you people existed until I began to look through her correspondence, after she was dead." 25