Return to Spring (7 page)

Travayne, from his seat at the wheel of Valerie Grenton’s car, saw the crowd in the porch. He turned to his silent companion.

“You’ve caused quite a stir,” he said, conscious, as he spoke, of a strange tension in the atmosphere.

Suddenly Valerie moved along the seat and relaxed against him.

“Oh!” she said, “I don’t want a fuss! Don’t let them make a fuss, will you, John?”

Travayne had brought the car to a standstill and eager hands opened the door. Amid the babble of voices he was aware of Ruth standing there, a little apart and silent, her deep, grave eyes upon him. He moved Valerie’s head gently but firmly from his shoulder and got out.

Ruth came forward then, slowly, as if she was not quite sure whether she would be needed or not.

“Is Miss Grenton ill?” she asked.

“No. Just shaken up a bit.”

If John Travayne’s tone was curt it was because he was annoyed with Valerie, but Ruth, keenly sensitive, saw in it anxiety and perhaps a measure of reproof because it had been her suggestion that the party could return by the shorter route which Valerie had chosen. She turned away, hurt by his manner, and led the way into the dining-room, where a meal had been prepared and set out near the blazing log fire. Miss Strayte, drowsy with the effects of the brandy and the warmth, settled down in a chair before the fire. Valerie, however, elected to go up to her room, and Ruth prepared a tray and carried it up there.

Miss Grenton had changed into a pink negligee and was reclining on the bed, staring rather absently at the ceiling.

“You’ll feel better when you’ve had something to eat,” Ruth said kindly. “I’m sorry you had all that trouble. I should have warned you not to attempt to come that way without the other cars.”

Valerie, whose one idea had been to get back to Conningscliff to discover what Travayne found to do there when the others were away, smiled up at her.

“I know you warned us, and it must be a great satisfaction to you to be able to say, ‘I told you so! ’ ”

Ruth flushed. It was hard not to be able to reply, but, after all, Valerie Grenton was a guest under her roof, and perhaps it was just the effect of her adventure that made her speak like this. She ignored the taunt in Valerie’s words.

“Well,” she said, “I’m glad you’re back safely now.”

“Thanks to John!”

“Yes,” Ruth said, turning to re-arrange the tray. “ It was good of him to volunteer. We were all so anxious.”

John was so kind,” Valerie mused, as if to herself. “Perhaps the

accident to the car wasn’t such an unfortunate occurrence after

all!”

There was a wealth of meaning in the well-thought-out words

which Ruth was not slow to detect. She turned towards the door.

“If there’s anything else you require, Miss Grenton, perhaps you will ring?”

Her voice had a flat note in it which she could not conceal, and, as she went slowly down to the kitchen, there was a heavy feeling at her heart. Perhaps it was only natural that John Travayne should be attracted by Valerie.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Good morning!”

Squire Veycourt looked over the edge of his newspaper at the speaker.

“Ah! it’s you, Monset,” he said, as the artist helped himself to bacon and grilled kidney at the long sideboard. “Been out early this morning?”

Monset set his plate down on the table and seated himself.

“Yes. I took your advice and had one of the horses harnessed for me. I quite enjoyed the ride.”

“The beasts need exercising,” the Squire said. “They don’t get half enough. Did you find any further subjects for your brush?”

He had never felt any interest in Edmund’s friends before, he confessed inwardly, even as he asked the question. Somehow, though, this fellow was different.

“Quite a few,” Monset admitted, with his quaint one-sided smile. “Enough to keep me here long after I should be gone!”

Alric Veycourt laid down his paper and bent forward across the table.

“You’re welcome to stay here just as long as you like, my dear fellow,” he told the other man. “I’m glad to have you.”

The invitation was straightforward and sincere. Monset met it with a truthfulness characteristic of him, a truthfulness which had gained him friends and made him enemies.

“I’ll be glad to stay,” he said. “I’m on my beam ends at the moment, but I’ve found subject-matter around here that I feel I can make something of, so I’ll accept your hospitality—and thank you!”

The Squire’s lips twitched under the clipped grey moustache, and there was almost a twinkle in his eyes. Yes, dash it! he liked the fellow!

He watched Victor Monset making a hearty breakfast, and something about the artist’s bent dark head made him think of his son. He had thought of that son with increasing persistency of late, and it was becoming much harder to remember the anger of those bygone days and the grievous disappointment which he had suffered at the lad’s hands. Half imaginary that disappointment, he had acknowledged in a recent moment of enlightenment, and with each passing day he began to see that he had made one of the greatest mistakes of his life when he had let the boy go in anger. He was his own flesh and blood ...

Yet, confound it! the young cub had defied him! Wanted to be a farmer, indeed! Alric Veycourt wondered where his son’s farming tendencies had led him. There were worse things than farming, maybe. Idleness, for instance. He thought of his nephew and frowned.

Monset rose and offered the Squire his cigarette-case as Edmund made his first appearance of the day.

“ ’Morning!” the Squire’s nephew said none too brightly, as he approached the sideboard and lifted the lid of one of the silver entree dishes. “What is there apart from cooling bacon and kidney?”

“Cold coffee and rolls!” his uncle informed him acidly. “Breakfast is served here at eight-thirty.”

The corners of Monset’s mouth went down as he moved out into the hall. He had no desire to be a witness of one of the frequent scenes between uncle and nephew.

In the morning-room Edmund was helping himself to coffee with a bad grace. He would have liked to answer that last remark of his uncle’s, but there was too much at stake at present to risk an open quarrel or even an argument. When he had disposed of several rolls and two cups of coffee, he lit a cigarette and turned to the Squire.

“Have you a minute or two to spare this morning, sir?” he asked in a deferential tone that did not quite ring true. “There are one or two things I’d like to discuss with you.”

The Squire had risen to his feet and was leaning heavily on his stick. He turned back towards the table.

“To say to me?” he questioned. “Well, let’s hear what they are.”

He expected a request for money, he reflected, as he waited for Edmund to come to the point, but he wasn’t going to bowl the boy out before he actually asked for it. Edmund took a deep breath.

“If you remember, we were discussing the prospect of my finding a job the other night,” he began, and was gratified by the

immediate look of interest which spread over his uncle’s face.

“Yes, I believe you mentioned something of the kind,” the Squire said cautiously. “Have you anything in mind?”

Edmund blew a series of smoke rings ceilingwards before he replied.

“As a matter of fact, I have.”

“Well?”

“It’s like this,” Edmund went on. “I’ve a feeling that I’d like to find something to do near the Hall—I’ve become quite attached to the old place recently, you know!”

The Squire raised his eyebrows, but he made no comment. His nephew continued: “People are going in for all kinds of unusual jobs nowadays, and there’s been a venture started near here that, with expansion, might prove a paying proposition.”

“Before you go any further, Edmund,” the Squire interrupted evenly, “I think you’d better know that I’m not in a position— financially—to put up a great deal of money for your—er— venture at present.”

Edmund waved his cigarette in a gesture of confidence.

“That’s just the attractive part of this scheme of mine,” he explained. “There’s no demand for any great capital. It’s more or less a going concern now.”

“What exactly is this gold-mine of yours?”

“Conningscliff Guest House.”

“Guest House?” he echoed. “Oh—the farm!”

“Exactly!” Edmund came over to seat himself on the edge of the heavy table. “You’ll remember that you gave the Fardays permission to run it as a holiday Guest House?”

“I remember some such idea,” Veycourt admitted. “Hollow and Gilling dealt with the matter, though. Everything was done through the two solicitors, and I must confess I took very little interest in the matter. I believe in conducting all such business through my solicitors.”

“Well,” Edmund said, rising to crush the end of his cigarette in the ash-tray, “that’s my idea. The place is being run at a profit already, I believe, and with a few extra inducements to the right type of guest, it could yield a much more substantial one.”

“You mean—the original idea could be enlarged—improved upon?”

“Yes—under the right management!” Edmund agreed.

The Squire rose to his feet.

“I take it,” he said, in a measured tone, “that you propose to be that new management?”

“Exactly!”

Edmund’s smile held satisfaction and a certain amount of relief.

“What about the Fardays?”

The question was abrupt—almost a demand. Edmund, however, was ready for it.

“I’ve thought all that out,” he said. “Of course, they’d remain where they are. The—women folk are running the place admirably as it is, but you’ll admit that a concern like that needs a man around. Since the farmer’s accident there’s been nobody to see to things but a half-witted yokel called Finberry.”

“Do you suggest that one of my tenants should pay you a wage to manage a boarding-house?”

Edmund shrugged impatiently at the question.

“If you don’t mean to take me seriously—” he began.

“I am trying to do just that,” the Squire replied, “but I must confess it is most difficult. You don’t intend to—farm the land, I suppose?”

There was a strange note in the older man’s voice as he asked the last question, but Edmund had little time to notice the intonations of his uncle’s voice.

“Not to any great extent,” he replied. “May I put forward my original idea?”

“You may.”

Edmund lit another cigarette.

“In the first place,” he began, “the land is yours. The rent you get from it is only a fraction of my allowance.”

“Definitely!” the Squire agreed dryly.

“Then I suggest that you take over Conningscliff, make the few alterations necessary for my plans, and let me run it. If it is a success and I make money out of it, the whole thing has cost you little more than the yearly rent of the farm. If it pays very little, that is my funeral!”

“And if it fails?”

Edmund shrugged.

“If it fails it is still a good farming proposition as far as you are concerned and can be let again.”

“What about the farmer and his daughter?” the Squire asked, only half convinced that the proposition was a good one, but loath to turn down his nephew’s first desire to work for a living. “I’ll see them all right,” Edmund promised. “Miss Farday can

make a good thing out of this if she is only sensible, and when Farday himself is better he can farm the land without interfering with our Guest House.”

Alric Veycourt felt that he had no great faith in the suggested venture, yet he knew that he had no right to condemn it untried. All the same, he wished that Edmund had found some other field of activity. Conningscliff Farm, the Squire reflected, was fated to figure in his life! His mind went back to the past, and his thoughts merged into the scene of eight years ago when Conningscliff had been vacant and his only son had pleaded to be made its tenant. If he had given in then, as he knew he was about to give in now ... He heaved a deep sigh and looked across at his nephew.

“Well, I suppose we can give it a trial,” he acknowledged. “Let me know what you think it will cost—and don’t let it be more than a couple of thousand pounds.”

“I don’t anticipate it being even that,” Edmund replied, as he moved towards the door, his eyes bright with the elation he felt.

He went out and down the long passage to the gunroom, where he stood looking through the window to the rooftops of Conningscliff. He remembered that it was here that the idea had first come to him.

Meanwhile, half a mile from Conningscliff, in the shade of the leafy avenue of beeches, an unexpected meeting had taken place.

Victor Monset, with some idea of painting the vista down the tree-lined corridor, was standing in the centre of the narrow track when a large white touring car swung round the corner and drew up with a loud screeching of brakes.

“Of all the fools—!” a feminine voice cried angrily.

Monset turned to behold the driver of the car standing up and regarding him resentfully over the low windscreen.