Return to Spring (4 page)

So John Travayne had made more than one conquest! Ruth wondered if Valerie Grenton was to be present at the egg-bowling ceremony, too, and then told herself half angrily that, even if John Travayne had invited Valerie, it was certainly no concern of hers.

“That will be splendid,” she acknowledged to the children. “Have you made up your minds where you are going to go?” “No,” Peter said gravely. “We will probably have to ask your advice about that, Miss Farday. Perhaps you could suggest somewhere—really steep?”

“I’ll do my best,” Ruth said with a smile, as she turned to the door with a tray of empty plates.

In the hall she met John Travayne, studying the barometer on the far wall.

“I didn’t think you would know how to bowl paste eggs!” she remarked, when she had returned his morning greeting. “Is it a custom in India, too?”

“It’s one of the things I remember from my youth. Can I persuade you to join us in such childish frivolity?” he asked.

Ruth hesitated.

Somewhere, in the numerous books she had studied on the subject, Ruth had read that the successful hostess never made personal friendships with any one guest more than another—and she most certainly wished to be the successful hostess. Yet, she reflected, perhaps it was different where children were concerned, and she told herself that she was still young enough to remember the joys of egg-bowling!

“It isn’t a great distance to Windmill Hill,” he persuaded. “Windmill Hill?” Ruth looked across at him, faintly surprised. “You’ll come?”

“I can’t promise,” Ruth said.

Nevertheless, she thought of the proposed trip to Windmill Hill for the remainder of the morning. She had put forward a suggestion at supper the night before that her guests might like to see something of the surrounding countryside, and her idea of a trip down the coast as far as Druridge Bay had been accepted with much enthusiasm. The three children, however, refused to postpone the egg-bowling, and Mrs. Finchley agreed to leave Peter and Brenda behind in Ruth’s care. Young Mrs. Wilton, a selfish, self-centred woman, showed very little interest in her offspring, and readily agreed that Ernestine should also remain at Conningscliff.

Valerie Grenton, the only guest to breakfast in bed, came down to lunch when all the arrangements had been made.

“We’ve decided to take the cars and have a short run round the countryside,” George Finchley told her in his breezy way. “Care to come along? Miss Farday has suggested that we might like to go as far as Druridge Bay.”

Valerie glanced round the group which had gathered in the lounge.

“I dare say I might come along,” she answered languidly. “I’ll take my own car, of course, and I can find room for two people. Mr. Travayne and someone else.”

Ruth wondered if John Travayne had already accepted a former invitation to go for a run in the big white car which Valerie drove so recklessly. Surely, she reasoned, Valerie would not have adopted that assured, possessive attitude if he had not already accepted?

With a little stab of disappointment finding her heart in spite of her resolve to remain impartial to her guests’ affairs, Ruth turned away.

Lunch passed in an atmosphere of light-hearted chatter, the main topic of conversation being the coming run down the coast. Ruth, passing in and out with each course to help Sally with the heavy trays, was aware that Valerie alone among her guests was unusually quiet.

“We want to get started as soon as possible,” George Finchley said, when the sweet had been served. “We’ll make a good afternoon of it.”

The three larger cars were soon at the front of the house and the guests began to pile in. Valerie drove round in the big white tourer and got out when she had brought it to a standstill at the rear of the Wiltons’ car. At that moment the two Finchley children came running from the direction of the stackyard to say good-bye, followed by Ernestine walking demurely by John Travayne’s side.

“Mr. Travayne’s really going to stay behind with us, Gran!”

Peter cried, glancing back enthusiastically at Travayne.

Ruth, standing back in the shadow of the porch, saw Valerie Grenton’s perfectly arched eyebrows draw together in a frown of annoyance.

“You mean—you’re not coming?” she demanded, turning to Travayne.

“No, not to-day,” he said evenly. “I made an earlier promise.”

“To a couple of children!” Valerie said.

“I’m afraid so!”

Ruth was conscious of Valerie’s hesitation for a moment, and then, because she could not do otherwise in the face of the remainder of the party, Valerie let in her clutch and drove slowly down the cinder track behind the Wiltons.

Travayne turned to Ruth.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Ruth ran indoors to get her coat, feeling as eager now as the three children who were grouped expectantly round Travayne.

William Farday was sitting in his favourite corner of the big kitchen reading a novel one of the guests had given him. He looked up from the book when Ruth came in.

“I’m going to help the children roll their paste eggs, Dad,” she explained. “We’ll be back in plenty of time for tea ”

“Right, lass,” the farmer replied. “It’s time you had a breath o’ fresh air an’ a minute or two to yourself.”

He watched her go with a fond smile, and when her footsteps had died away on the cobbles of the yard, he turned back to his book with a sigh that was not solely for his helpless state.

It was a perfect day, and the whole wide vista of hills and moors seemed to be expressing their joy at the return of spring. The sky was marled with little clouds, like the marks left on sand by the retreating tide, and the wind came gently in from the sea. Ruth walked beside John Travayne and thought that she had never known the grass as green or the birds to sing as sweetly. There was something in the air that made her want to cry out for the sheer joy of being alive. Yet she had walked these same moorland paths on other spring days!

The three children had run on in front and their merry cries echoed in the still air. Ruth saw Travayne smile as the boy outpaced the two girls in a race to the gate at the end of the lane.

They began to climb as they reached Windmill Hill. Peter Finchley, running back from the summit, expressed his disappointment over the missing windmill.

“Why do they call it Windmill Hill if there
isn’t
a windmill?”

he demanded.

“I don’t know,” Ruth confessed.

“There was a mill at one time,” Travayne said absently, “but it was at the foot of the hill—over there.”

“How do you know?” Brenda asked, unwrapping her brilliantly coloured eggs.

“Well, there are ruins down there, I see,” Travayne replied almost at once. “It pays to notice these details, Brenda, if you want to know the reason for a name.” His explanation was entirely satisfactory, and Brenda and Peter went off to roll their eggs. The shyer Ernestine followed more sedately.

“It’s kind of you to take such an interest in the children,” Ruth said to Travayne, as they stood on the top of the hill. “At first I wondered what I could find for them to do at Conningscliff.”

“I have always found children interesting,” he replied, and then asked abruptly: “Do you still feel as enthusiastic about your Guest House?”

“Oh yes.” Ruth’s reply held no trace of hesitation. “More enthusiastic than ever now that I have received such response to my advertising.”

“You mean to carry on, then?” he asked.

Ruth sat down on a flat boulder and looked out over the rough moorland to the sea.

“Yes,” she said slowly, “I’ll carry on. My father is so fond of Conningscliff that I could not bear to see him forced to leave it. If I continue to be lucky with my guests throughout the summer we will be able to see the winter through. One day—” She paused, looking back down the way they had come. “One day I mean to save enough to make Squire Veycourt a reasonable offer for the house and a few fields immediately surrounding it.”

She was talking to Travayne as she had never spoken to anyone before—confiding in him.

“Will the Squire sell?” he asked.

“I hope so,” Ruth said. “But I needn’t worry about whether he’ll sell or not for some years yet. My only worry just now is that he might sell out to someone else.”

“Your father is not in a position to buy?”

“No.” Ruth’s eyes dimmed a little. “Besides,” she went on, “what little money we have may be needed some day. I will never give up the hope of seeing my father able to walk again.”

Travayne was silent, thinking.

“You’ve taken a chance with Conningscliff,” he said at last.

“I had to do it,” Ruth said. “I think we all must have our

ambitions, and mine is to make a success of my Guest House.”

“And one day to own Conningscliff?”

“Yes—one day!”

“I hope that day won’t be too far distant.” he said. “Meantime, all the luck in the world!”

Ruth got to her feet with a queer feeling of reluctance, and watched as Travayne knocked out the contents of his pipe on the side of the boulder.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to start back now,” she said. They were half-way down the hill, when suddenly Peter exclaimed, pointing downwards:

“Whew! Here comes a man with a gun!”

On the winding path which led across the moors Ruth saw Edmund Hersheil approaching them, a gun slung over his shoulder.

“Do you think he’ll be going to say anything to us for rolling our eggs if Windmill Hill belongs to him?” Peter asked anxiously.

Ruth smiled in spite of herself.

“Windmill Hill belongs to his uncle,” she explained, “but I don’t think he can object to the eggs, Peter!”

They were at the foot of the hill now, and Hersheil was almost level with them.

“How is your father,” he asked. “I haven’t been able to get along to inquire to-day.”

“He is—just the same.” The words seemed to stick in Ruth’s throat.

Hersheil was looking directly at her, unfeigned admiration in his eyes, while he succeeded in pointedly ignoring Travayne and the children.

“I’ll be over to inquire about him again quite soon,” he said.

CHAPTER FIVE

Alric Veycourt sat in his study at Carbay Hall, his grey head bowed on his hands above the letter on his desk. The temper which he had vowed to himself he would control ever since that day, eight years ago, when his only son had left that room for ever, was struggling uppermost.

An explanation? Could there be any explanation of this! He read the letter through again and turned to press the bell at his elbow. While he waited he drummed his fingers impatiently on

the smooth surface of the desk before him.

A soft-footed butler entered and closed the door carefully behind him.

“Yes, sir?”

“Has Mr. Edmund come in yet, Mead?” the Squire inquired, trying to steady his voice.

“Not yet, sir.”

“Then I want him to come here the moment he arrives. You understand?”

“Perfectly, sir. Is there anything I can get you in the meantime, sir?”

The Squire waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal.

“No. You may go.”

The door clicked softly behind the butler, and Veycourt looked down at the letter and re-read it for the fifth time—slowly, as if by such concentration he might find some meaning in the typewritten lines which had escaped him previously. At last he rose and paced about the room, his grey head bent, his long white hands with their sensitive fingers clasped behind his back.

Anger was uppermost in him still, anger against the man he had decided to make his heir in place of his son. More than once lately he had thought of that son, wondering what had become of him. Yet he had sworn that his name should never be mentioned in the Hall and that he would cease to think of him as alive at all. Thoughts, however, are strange, errant things, and the Squire was older and wiser than he had been eight years before when John Veycourt, white-faced and trembling with an anger as great as that of his father, had marched through the study door which was opening now to admit the cousin he had never met.

Edmund Hersheil seemed to sense the Squire’s feelings even before he spoke. He walked over to the fireplace and lit the cigarette without which he never seemed at ease.

“You wanted to see me?” he asked.

The Squire did not reply immediately. He crossed to his desk, and, lifting the letter, held it out to his nephew. It fluttered under Hersheil’s eyes, and he took it into his own hands and read it through slowly. Before he had reached the last paragraph all the colour had drained from his face.

“Well?” he said at last, almost aggressively.

“What explanation have you to offer?”

Veycourt’s voice was low and tense, and Edmund Hersheil tried to avoid the look of contempt in the steady eyes. Deep within himself he was afraid. His position at Carbay Hall was anything but secure, he knew, and this unfortunate situation would hardly improve matters.

“Any investment is a gamble,” he said sullenly. “I’ve lost money on the deal myself, you know.”