“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.”
Ruth glanced up at him. He certainly looked sorry for her, she thought, and he was hardly responsible for the Squire’s decision. Peg Emery had once said that Alric Veycourt was a hard man to deal with, and he had even disinherited his own son. What Ruth could not understand was why he had permitted her to turn Conningscliff into a Guest House in the first place.
“My uncle drives a hard bargain,” Hersheil was saying. “He seemingly thinks your place might become a good paying proposition.”
“Oh—!”
So this was the truth! Alric Veycourt could see that the Guest House was likely to become a success and he had decided to make his own profit out of the venture! What a mean, paltry trick! Ruth could not control the anger which shook her. What right had he to
do such a thing? Surely he had no need of money. There was plenty from other sources. How unfair it all was, she thought bitterly, and the Guest House had seemed her salvation! She had thought to save for the day when John Travayne would tell her to bring her father to London to see his surgeon friend. There was money already put aside to give her father his chance ...
“He means to make changes, of course,” Edmund went on. “He’ll add to the amenities of the place—more accommodation, a few bathing huts at the bay—perhaps even a swimming pool here in time, and the Carbay stables will be at the disposal of the guests. There are several good riding hacks eating their heads off up there and nobody to use them.”
“I see.”
Ruth had a mental picture of the Guest House that would emerge from the suggestions Edmund Hersheil and his uncle seemed to have been discussing at great length, and it was so unlike the simple
idea of farm life which she had wished to convey that she could only vision Conningscliff as a modern Road House. The type of people she had thought to bring to the farm would not find such elaborate surroundings very congenial.
“When will your uncle take over?” she asked.
“Immediately.”
A swift look of pain passed in Ruth’s eyes.
“I thought—perhaps we might have a month to look round for—something else.”
Her voice was scarcely more than a whisper.
“There is no need for you to look round for another place,” Hersheil said. “You needn’t leave Conningscliff.”
“Needn’t leave?” Ruth echoed. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. You have just said that—the Squire intends to run Conningscliff
“ I know.” Hersheil came a little nearer, looking down directly into her troubled eyes. “There’s a place for you here, too, Ruth,” he said. “Will you stay on as hostess?” He was offering her a job at Conningscliff! For a moment, the idea seemed so ludicrous that she wanted to laugh. She had been mistress here so long! Then she thought of her father and what was to become of him. She realised that the question had been at the back of her mind since Edmund Hersheil had first told her of his uncle’s intention. As if Hersheil had read her troubled thoughts, he continued:
“There would be room for your father as well. Things wouldn’t be so very different. You would carry on much as you have been doing, with the added attraction that you would have less—shall we say menial work, and more leisure hours.”
Lack of work to take up her time was no great attraction to Ruth, but Edmund Hersheil was offering her something which she dare not refuse. A home for her father—the old, red-tiled roof of his beloved Conningscliff still over his head!
If there was a struggle with pride within her, it was momentary. She turned to Hersheil almost at once and said:
“Has your uncle offered me the—position of hostess?”
Hersheil hesitated.
“Well, not exactly,” he smiled, “but I can assure you it is a bona fide offer from the manager of the new Guest House!”
“The manager?”
“Yes. If we mean to run the place on business-like lines there must be a manager,” he told her. “I have persuaded my uncle that it is just the position for me.”
“For you?”
Ruth could not hide her amazement.
“Does the idea strike you as being so very funny?” he asked.
“I suppose anyone can—make themselves useful if their heart is in the work,” she said in a not very convincing tone.
“Oh, my heart’s in it all right!” Hersheil replied, with a strange smile which she was utterly at a loss to fathom. “Are you taking on the job as hostess?”
“I—yes, I suppose so.”
He threw the reins over his horse’s head and vaulted into the saddle.
“A sensible decision,” he remarked lightly, curbing the Firebrand’s attempts to leave the cinder track behind in favour of the shady tracery of leaves on the avenue road. “We will be seeing quite a lot of each other, Ruth, when the formalities are all settled.”
Ruth did not bid him good-bye. She stood on the old cinder track and watched him go as if she had been turned to stone. She saw his horse plunge down between the trees and heard its hoofs echoing on the hard road long after it had passed from sight. She waited dumbly until the silence descended upon her once more, and, as she turned back towards the farm, two great tears gathered in her eyes and welled over to course down her cheeks.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
So many things can happen in the shortest space of time. In less than two weeks Edmund Hersheil was changing Ruth’s original conception of the Guest House. His innovations were all of the most modern type, and the annex, which he was having built to accommodate the overflow guests at weekends, looked oddly grotesque against the mellowed old buildings of the farm. It was a sectional affair, and had come from Newcastle on a lorry to be hurled into position in the course of a day. How new and crude it looked, Ruth thought, as she stood looking across at it from the porch.
At that moment Edmund came round the end of the house from the direction of the kitchen. He was a daily visitor at Conningscliff now.
“Well, what do you think of it?” he asked, nodding towards the new erection. “Not so bad for a rush job, eh?”
“I only hope it’s safe enough,” she said, and added frankly: “I don’t think there was any immediate need for extension.”
“There must have been,” he pointed out. “Your father has just been telling me that he had to turn down quite a few requests for accommodation last week-end. We must squeeze in as many as we can—make the place go with a swing!”
“At the price of comfort?’ Ruth asked dryly.
“You’re not expected to coddle guests these days,” Edmund declared. “All they want is something new—an idea they’ve never sampled before. I’ll probably think of something before very long.”
The remark sent Ruth’s thoughts winging to Valerie Grenton. Valerie who was “willing to sample everything once”! Was this the type of guest that Edmund Hersheil was going to cater for? Probably, she thought rather bitterly, since it was the only type he knew. She had thought to encourage people like the Finchleys who wanted a complete rest—a change from the rush and struggle of town life. She had felt that she could provide that at Conningscliff.
“By the way,” Edmund said, tapping his glossy riding- boot with his switch, “while we are on the subject of your father, Ruth, I think it would be best to let you know now that I intend to take over the accounts myself.”
Ruth felt the quick tears of disappointment gathering in her eyes. She knew how much his simple task had meant to her father and what infinite pains he had taken with his book-keeping. It would be like taking the sun out of his sky to deprive him of the task she had thought out for him so lovingly, that he might not be bowed under the burden of his uselessness. She would have died rather than have asked one favour of Edmund Hersheil for herself, but she pleaded with him now for her father.
“I know that the accounts are your job now that you are manager here, but if you’d let my father carry on—give him some little thing to do with the books to take up his time—I’d be more than grateful.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “I might let him carry on with the lists and the household expenses, but I’ll manage the cash myself.”
He gave her the last piece of information with a decision that held absolute finality, but Ruth was too grateful for small mercies to wonder why he should appear so emphatic over the money side of the business.
“That’s only natural,” she said, “since your uncle is putting so much money into Conningscliff. It is kind of you to let my father carry on with the lists. I—thank you.” “That’s nothing!” he said, with a strange, twisted smile. “I’d do much more than that for you, Ruth.” He moved nearer, attempting to put his arm round her as they stood in the shadow of the porch, but she evaded him quickly and passed into the hall where a new group of guests was preparing for an evening ramble along the cliffs.
Someone asked her if she would advise them to take waterproofs, and she answered them quickly without glancing at the weather conditions.
“Yes, I think it would be safest. It—looks like rain.” She passed on to the kitchen where her father was sitting in the ingle beside the fireplace. He was not reading the newspaper that lay across his knees, and there was a troubled look in his tired grey eyes. “Have you a minute to sit down, lass?” he asked.
“Half an hour!” Ruth returned, infusing a gaiety into her voice which she was far from feeling.
William Far day sat for a moment or two, drawing deeply at his pipe before he spoke.
“Young Hersheil was in here a bit ago,” he said at last.
Ruth turned quickly in her chair.
“What has he been saying?” she asked.
“Nothing very definite, lass,” the fa
rmer replied. “It’s what he tells me he’s been doing that sets me wondering.”
“About the annex, you mean?”
“Aye, an’ the cabin that’s to go up at the bay for bathing, an’ his car to meet the folks at the Junction instead of the old trap, an’ all this talk o’ riding the horses from the Hall!” the farmer concluded.
“They’re all—added attractions,” Ruth pointed out with little conviction in her voice.
“They’re not what you planned, lass. ’
“It’s the Squire’s money that’s going into it,” Ruth reminded him.
“And what’s Alric Veycourt going to get out of it? What return is he going to get for his money?”
“Perhaps the satisfaction of seeing his nephew at work,” Ruth suggested.
“Work? He’ll have to work for years to pay back all this initial expenditure if he means to go on as he says he does. Swimming pools, indeed!” The farmer’s laugh was more a grunt of derision.
“He’s not going to do that at the moment,” Ruth explained listlessly. “ I think he has the sense to see that he must wait for some sort of profit before he branches out—especially in the direction of swimming pools.”
“Has he told you that he means to take over the accounts himself?” Farday asked, with an elaborate pretence at indifference.
Ruth flushed and looked away. She could not bear to see the disappointment that she knew was in her father’s eyes.
“Yes,” she said, “but he’s told you he means you to keep on with the lists and all the other secretarial work, hasn’t he?”
“No, he didn’t mention it.”
“But you will do it?” Ruth asked eagerly. “If you don’t, it is going to be added work for me.”
Farday smiled up at her tenderly.
“Ah, Ruth, lass, you’ve your mother’s heart o’ gold!” was all he said in reply to her request.
Edmund Hersheil came riding over from the Hall next morning with the news that he was going to London for a few days.
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