Return to Spring (10 page)

Monset raised interrogatory eyebrows, although inwardly he was disinclined to listen to Edmund discussing his uncle.

“Oh yes!” Edmund gave a short, unpleasant laugh as he swung into the saddle. “He keeps the key turned in her sitting-room door. Savours of a Victorian romance, doesn't it? Not even the servants are permitted in that holy of holies!”

There was a touch of resentment in his tone which was not wholly hidden by the sarcasm. The curiosity which lay behind it sounded cheap to Monset. The locked room at Carbay Hall was another side of the Squire’s nature which the artist found it easy to understand.

“Your uncle seems to have been fortunate in his marriage,” he observed, “but unfortunate in his wife’s untimely death.”

“Yes. Carbay Hall needs a mistress,” Edmund said reflectively. “Perhaps I’ll see to that need one of these days!”

Monset looked up from his contemplation of his horse’s ears.

“You mean that you are thinking of marrying?” he asked.

“Up till a month ago it was the last thing I was thinking of doing,” Hersheil confessed. “Now—well, maybe I am thinking that way!”

“Does that mean you’ve found the right woman at last?" Monset asked, without much interest.

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I have!” Edmund laughed.

“Do I know the lady?”

“You’ve met her,” Edmund replied evasively.

Monset decided that he was not sufficiently interested to press the point further. He was aware of the other’s scrutiny as they rode under the four giant sycamores which guarded the entrance to the main street of the village.

“You’re not the marrying kind,” Edmund said, at last.

“Probably not,” the artist replied dryly.

The conversation languished a little as they drew away from the leafy canopy of trees and rode out on to the moors.

“Who was the lady who gave you the lift up to the farm last week?” Hersheil asked suddenly, as if the thought had just occurred to him following upon their conversation. “The woman in the white car?”

Monset continued to gaze straight ahead, a noncommittal smile playing round his firm mouth.

“You’ve met her,” he said, “but I don’t think you know her very well. Valerie Grenton is the name.

“Valerie Grenton!” Edmund’s grip tightened momentarily on the reins. “I had the beginnings of an affair with her less than a year ago!”

'“Valerie is impressionable,” Monset said, with a faint smile. “She has had several of these affairs which invariably amount to nothing. She is in the throes of one now, I believe.”

Edmund shot a quick glance at him.

“I could have sworn you were keen enough yourself at one time,” he said.

“I was,” the artist acknowledged frankly. “I still am.”

“Then—what are you doing about it?”

Monset smiled.

“Nothing—at the moment.”

“You mean you’ll sit back and watch the course of this present affair?”

“Until it peters out—yes!”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“They generally do, and I am confident that this one is no different from the rest.”

Hersheil spurred his horse forward to keep up with his companion.

“You’re a queer specimen, Monset,” he observed. “I don’t know why I’ve taken to you. We’ve got very little in common.”

“Absolutely nothing!” Monset agreed.

“Except, perhaps, a chronic need for money,” Edmund pointed

out.

“I’m not in the position to be able to get into debt very deeply,” the artist replied. “I’ve generally got to pay cash for all I receive.” He looked across at his companion and smiled. “That’s why I am so genuinely grateful to your uncle for extending his invitation to stay at the Hall.”

Edmund turned in his saddle.

“He’s asked you to stay on?” he said.

“For the time being—yes.”

“I see!” Edmund bit his lower lip thoughtfully. “I’m possibly going south—on business—before the end of the week,” he went on. “I had thought you might want to go back to town with me then.”

“London holds no attraction for me at the moment,” Monset replied easily.

“Just as you please,” Edmund said, in a strained tone.

“When do you leave?” Monset asked.

Edmund rode forward a few paces before he answered.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I may not—find it necessary to go when the time comes, after all.”

Probably the reply to the telegram Hersheil had just dispatched might settle that, Victor Monset thought.

They had come to the end of the natural avenue of trees which led to Conningscliff Farm, and Hersheil drew in his horse.

“I’ve some business here,” he said slowly. “Will you carry on to the Hall, and tell them I may be late for lunch?”

He did not invite Monset to accompany him to the farm, and the artist was quite content to be alone again. He turned the mare’s head in the direction of Carbay Hall.

“Oh—Monset!”

Edmund had turned in his saddle.

“Yes?” Monset asked.

“About that trip to London I spoke of just now,” Hersheil said, without meeting the other’s gaze. “There’s no need to mention it at the Hall. I—my uncle might think I’m careering about too much and—well, I might not go in any case.”

“There’s no need to be alarmed!” Monset grinned.

A look of relief spread over Edmund’s face as he turned towards Conningscliff.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ruth was in a decidedly unsettled mood. Conningscliff was empty—more empty than it had ever seemed before. She tried to convince herself that it was the natural reaction after the past few weeks of bustle and excitement, but self-deception did not come easily to her. She knew that she was missing John Travayne.

She glanced into the kitchen on her way across to the dairy. Her father was busy with the accounts he was taking such a pride in, and he was marking off the list of new guests for the coming week. Ruth tried to think with enthusiasm of the new people who would be gathered under the roof at Conningscliff, but try as she might, it was impossible to recapture all her first delighted anticipation. She was still enthusiastic about her job, still determined that Conningscliff should be the success she had dreamed of, and still sure that she could command that success by continued hard work and perseverance, but the contact with new people had lost its zest, somehow, since John Travayne had come and gone.

She tried not to think of him, and succeeded for an hour while she gave all her attention to her first churnful of butter.

So intent was she upon her task that she failed to notice the man who stood watching her at the open door. Edmund Hersheil had approached across the fields and through the stackyard, dismounting and tethering his horse to the gatepost. His footsteps had passed undetected above the noise of the churn, and when he moved forward and his shadow fell across the bench, Ruth turned with a start.

“Oh—!’

“Good-morning!” Hersheil said, with a smile that did much to erase the habitually sullen expression on his face. “Busy?”

Ruth, feeling that the Squire’s heir was about the last person

she wished to see at the moment, turned back to her task.

“Very,” she said a trifle shortly.

“Making butter?” he asked, coming forward into the dairy. “I had no idea you were so talented.”

“A farmer’s daughter should know how to run the woman’s end of the business,” she told him. “I was brought up to be useful.”

“You’re picturesquely useful,” he said slowly, “but I thought there was some kind of servant to do this sort of thing?”

“Yes,” she said, “there’s Mrs. Emery. She’s on holiday at present, however, and I’m rather busy in consequence.” She crossed to the open door. “If you’ll excuse me now, I must attend to feeding the fowls. You’ll find my father in the kitchen.”

Hersheil frowned, but he turned to walk beside her towards the open door of the kitchen. Ruth left him there and went to the grain store to fill her pails. It was more than an hour before the usual feeding-time, but she felt a distinct urge to escape Edmund Hersheil, an urge which she was forced to obey. This dislike of him went even deeper than the fact that he had been the indirect cause of her father’s accident. It was instinctive—something that made her want to fly at the first sign of his approach.

She saw his horse tethered to the gatepost. Its ears went down against its head as she passed and it snapped out at her, its thick lips curling back viciously from the rows of yellow teeth. She had seen many a vicious horse before and she was not afraid of this one, but the fact that it was Edmund Hersheil’s chosen mount seemed significant to her in some vague way.

Will Finberry had been in the habit of attending to the fowls in the far meadow, but Ruth chose to feed them herself to-day and carried the heavy pails down the lane without seeming to notice their weight. She lingered as long as possible over her task, collecting the few eggs which had been laid that morning, and returning slowly along the lane.

Will Finberry was standing just inside the stackyard gate, and his expression was eloquent of suspicion as he eyed Edmund Hersheil’s restive mount.

“This ’ere horse, Miss Ruth,” he said, “it will be havin’ the whole fence down about our ears an’ it isn’t stopped soon.”

The horse was straining in Will’s direction, baring its teeth and stamping restlessly on the cobbles of the yard.

“All right, Will,” Ruth said, “I’ll ask Mr. Hersheil to come.” She had been hoping that their visitor would have taken his departure by this time. Going towards the house, she found him

standing in the kitchen doorway on the point of saying good-bye to her father. He came forward to meet her.

“Your horse has been rather impatient,” Ruth said, relieved that he seemed about to take his leave.

He turned and began to walk slowly across the yard in the direction of the fractious horse.

“Do you think I came here specially to see your father?” he asked.

Ruth turned towards the horse without making any reply, and Hersheil struck the restive creature across the nose with unnecessary viciousness.

“Of course, I came to inquire about your father,” he said, “but I also came to see you. Where can we talk?”

Ruth halted beside the gate.

“Here,” she said.

He looked round the cobbled yard which was in full view of the kitchen window.

“It’s not exactly the height of privacy, is it?” he said with a shrug. “Could I persuade you to walk with me to the end of the lane?”

Ruth stiffened.

“I’m afraid not,” she said. “It is almost our lunch hour.”

He smiled at her obvious disinclination for his company, but told himself inwardly that he could very soon change all that.

“What have you to say to me?” Ruth asked.

“It’s rather a delicate situation,” Edmund acknowledged. “I’m about to impart some inside information from the Hall.”

“ I’d rather not hear,” she said swiftly.

‘Not even though it may concern yourself?” he queried.

“Is it—about Conningscliff?”

“Yes.”

“Then—what is it?”

“Do we walk to the end of the lane?” he asked.

Ruth turned abruptly as he untied the horse. If Edmund Hersheil had anything unpleasant to impart, she preferred to hear it out of sight of the watcher behind the lace curtains of the kitchen window. Her father must not be worried needlessly. At the end of the cinder track she turned to her visitor. She could not bring herself to speak, however.

“You don’t seem particularly concerned to hear what I have to say,” he told her resentfully.

“I am interested,” Ruth replied, “if what you have to say concerns Conningscliff.”

Hersheil smiled.

“It does,” he said. “Very much so!”

“Then—will you please go on?”

Hersheil studied her for a moment.

“My uncle has decided to take over this place,” he said at last.

“He means to—take back the farm? To—eject us?”

Her voice broke huskily on the last two words, and Edmund Hersheil had it in him to feel sorry for her.

“Not exactly,” he said quickly. “He means to take it over just as it is—the Guest House and everything—as a going concern.”

The familiar green fields of Conningscliff seemed to be rising around Ruth, closing in upon her. She put out her hand to steady herself and felt it caught in Hersheil’s firm grasp.

“I say—Ruth—don’t let it distress you so much! Perhaps I haven’t put it quite discreetly enough ...”

He paused, looking intently at her.

“I don’t see that—anything you have to say can possibly make any difference,” she said at last.

Hersheil frowned impatiently.

“Look here, I haven’t come across here to—be objectionable,” he said. “I know you must consider me the bearer of unpleasant news, but it is hardly my fault that my uncle has made this decision. I have told you about it because I thought it might help you to know beforehand what was going to happen.”