Tell Me My Fortune

by Mary Burchell

  “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,” Morley 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,” Morley declared. “He may be young and handsome, and fall in love with Kate and marry her.”

  “Why me?” Katherine wanted to know.

  “Because you’re the prettiest, I suppose,” her brother said. “Anyway, I have an idea it wouldn’t be any good his falling in love with Leslie, and Alma is a bit young.”

  “Why wouldn’t it” began Alma.

  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 to get 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 a beautiful, golden August, afternoon, Leslie stepped out of one of the long windows, which served, as did most of 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 o’ company, especially on an afternoon of such absorbing loveliness, and her father’s news had provided enough food for thought inevitably pleasant and speculative 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 Alma 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 schoolchildren, and Oliver was the Doctor’s son who knew Morley 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 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. She hoped he would be home this weekend, so that she 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 happier.

  Leslie had several places to visit in the village, and as 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 the telegram 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 to go straight to the house without any loitering.” A frown began to gather on Miss Meeks’ brow and the faint creaking 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, 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 delicately, as she counted out change.

  “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 Morley 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 car of un-English design, and as Leslie came nearer she saw it contained only the driver, a tall, broad-shouldered 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 good-humoured 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, 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. He has 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. You would do well to remember that and go 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 her so easily, and, as they swept round the curve of the 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 Leslie.

  “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 Alma. “You don’t look more than forty.”

  Alma led the way into the drawing-room, where the family 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 Morley 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, sit 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 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 wrist-watch, 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 Morley 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,” Morley 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.”

  “He settled down pretty close to Great-Aunt Tabitha,” remarked Leslie.

  But Morley 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 Morley. “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 Morley’s flippant suggestion. “I remember now. He asked if I were the only daughter.”

  “He hoped it all went with you, dear,” Morley 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 sl
ightly 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 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 something a long way off.

  ‘“What makes your father think he was old Aunt Tabitha’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 after her 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 down her spine.

  “You don’t mean—you can’t mean—that she didn’t leave him her money, after all?”

  Reid Carthay thrust his hands into his pockets and regarded her almost moodily for a moment, like a man who 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.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  LESLIE had never felt faint in her life, but for a moment it seemed to her that the green and gold and blue of that summer afternoon ran together in one blur, and she clutched at Reid Carthay’s arm as though she might fall.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” he began.

  Then she recovered herself and stammered, “No, I’m sorry. I felt rather strange for a moment.”