A Dark and Distant Shore Read Online Free PDF Page B

part of both of them, and each was a link in the chain that bound the other to it.
    ‘Well, I suppose if he were to make himself generally useful... I will ask, although I can make no promises. But, on consideration, don’t you think it a splendid arrangement? You will be quite one of the family, and Mrs Telfer will launch you into the ton and chaperone you in your first Season.’
    In a colourless voice, she said, ‘Would it be impertinent to ask why they are being so kind to me? I know of no reason why they should.’
    Mr Pilcher took a moment or two to answer. ‘You have the senior Mr Telfer to thank for it. It appears that he heard of your late father’s demise, and was – er – concerned for your welfare. Most thoughtful of him. Indeed, a most generous gesture.’ And one that the old Tobacco Lord could well afford, the lawyer reflected enviously, especially as it was not he, but his son and daughter-in-law who would be landed with the girl.
    All Vilia said was, ‘Oh.’
2
    Luke Telfer was seven years old and alarmingly well brought up. So, when he was summoned to his mama’s drawing-room in St James’s Square one afternoon in November, he showed no surprise at finding both his parents there, looking preternaturally solemn, but bowed as he had been taught and said, ‘Good afternoon, mama. Good afternoon, papa.’
    ‘Come and sit here beside me, darling,’ his mother said, patting the sofa invitingly. ‘Papa and I have something very important to tell you.’
    He perched himself on the edge so that he could rest his feet on the floor, which made him feel taller and more grown up, and raised innocent eyes to her face. He loved his mama dearly. She was very gentle and sweet and, he thought, very pretty with her oval face, high forehead, and silky chestnut hair, which she wore swept smoothly back over her ears instead of in the fussy ringlets that were the fashion. Her eyes always intrigued him, smiling and sad at the same time, and faintly smudged with blue in the hollows beneath. He knew that her constitution was delicate, and that she had almost died when he was born, which was why she was forbidden to exert herself and spent part of every day resting, with the curtains drawn. It had been impressed on Luke, from the moment he was old enough to understand, that he must never make a noise for fear of upsetting her. It was bad for her heart.
    Until three or four months ago, it had not occurred to Luke that there was any other kind of life than the sedate, circumscribed existence of St James’s Square. His mother’s health was far too precarious to allow her to face the rigours of any journey longer than a dozen miles, and certainly not the six hundred to where his grandfather lived at Kinveil. Luke’s papa, therefore, had always gone alone on his duty visit. Until this year, when it had been decided that Luke was old enough to go with him.
    It had been a revelation, like being translated into another world. Luke had developed a vast, childish exuberance. He had run and scrambled, and paddled and climbed; yelled himself hoarse; got dirty as a tinker and wet as a tadpole. He had become semi-amphibious, and loved it. Under the aegis of the steward’s eighteen-year-old son, Ewen Campbell, he had learned to ride a sheltie, a Shetland pony. He had gone bird’s-nesting. And, joy of delirious joys, he had caught his first salmon in Loch an Iasgair, ‘the osprey’s loch’. By the sheerest good fortune, he had saved his second notable exploit for the last week of his stay. Desirous of going to sea, and having been told that all the men and boats were already out, he had purloined a large washtub from the laundry room and rolled it down, with some trouble, to the water’s edge. Then, with a small plank for an oar, and a cherry-twig mast, flying his pocket handkerchief in lieu of the Jolly Roger, he had paddled off with a will in the general direction of the North Atlantic. When he was retrieved by a panic-stricken