Crooked Wreath Read Online Free PDF Page A

anyone!”
    â€œYou talk as though you weren’t expecting me, Peta,” said Stephen in his quiet way.
    Edward went on into the house. Philip came out and down the steps. “Hallo, Stephen. How are you? Haven’t seen you for ages.”
    They shook hands just a tiny bit awkwardly. Eight years ago, Philip had come home from America and presented himself at Swanswater for his grandfather’s blessing; and Sir Richard, overjoyed, had immediately summoned his lawyer to alter his will. “The only man in the family–after all, it’s simply sense that he should be my heir.”
    Stephen had argued. “You’ve always intended to leave everything to Peta, Sir Richard. It would have gone to your eldest son if he’d lived, and Peta’s his heir. I think you’ll regret it, if you change things now.”
    â€œWhat do you know about regretting or not regretting, a boy like you?”
    â€œIt’s the advice my father would have given you,” said Stephen, doggedly.
    Sir Richard had wavered, new wills had been drafted, initialled, altered, and finally laid aside. “You’re quite right, Garde, the eldest would have had it and through him, Peta. And after all, what do I know of this lad? He’s my grandson, of course, but Peta’s been with us all her life, I’ve more or less brought the child up; she knows my ways, she understands what I feel about her grandmother’s memory, she’s the fitting one to live on at Swanswater.”
    And so Stephen had fought for Peta’s inheritance, and won, and in so doing, himself had lost. You do not secure an estate and a hearty fortune for a young woman, and then fall on your knees and ask her to marry you; not if you are a quiet country lawyer with nothing to offer in return but a steady old practice and no hope of anything more, no desire for anything more. So Peta was an heiress, and Stephen a misogynist, and it was never quite comfortable to shake Philip March by the hand. “How did you find Sir Richard?” asked Stephen, to cover it.
    â€œNo better, no worse. It’s a condition; not a case that improves or deteriorates.”
    â€œPhilip says his heart may dicker out at any time,” said Peta, “or he may go on for years.”
    â€œHe’s in very good hands with your medical man down here,” said Philip, politely. “Brown’s prescribed coramine, and, of course, he’s right. I’ve brought a consignment down with me from town; if the old boy always has some by him in case of an attack, we can probably keep him going forever …” He broke off, bored by this profitless discussion with the laity. “Well, I believe Grandfather’s sent for some sherry.”
    Claire, coming downstairs, met them in the hall. “Stephen, my childhood friend, how are you?” She ran towards him holding out her pretty hands.
    â€œHow lovely to see you, Claire,” said Stephen, kissing her lightly.
    Peta drooped in the background, wrapped in gloom. “Stephen, you kiss Claire, but you didn’t kiss me , when we met!”
    â€œMy dear, you were leaping all round me like a young puppy dog; I didn’t have a chance.” Now that the chance was there, however, not to say offering itself, he did not seem very anxious to avail himself of it. “How are you, Claire? Still in the same old job?”
    â€œYes, sweating away to Grandpapa’s great fury.”
    â€œWell, I don’t see why you stick to it when you know he hates it and so do you.”
    Claire became a trifle intense. “When one has writing in one, Stephen, one just has to get it out somehow; of course, journalism isn’t regarded as literature and actually I’m rotten at the newspaper stuff, reporting and all that, but still one can do one’s little piece trying to raise the standard of decent prose a bit. It’s all very mere, of course, but one can’t be content,