HIGH TIDE AT MIDNIGHT Read Online Free PDF Page A

said without a tremor, crossing her fingers
    superstitiously in the shelter of her pockets. 'I'd hardly be travelling to the
    back of beyond at this time of year otherwise.'
    'Well!' Vanessa's tone was frankly congratulatory. 'I always knew you
    couldn't possibly be as innocent as you looked. Have you known him long?'
    Morwenna shrugged. 'Long enough,' she said airily. Since I was a small
    child, she thought hysterically, in dreams and stories, and please don't let her
    ask me how old he is or any other details. I don't care if she does think me a
    gold-digger or worse. Anything's better than being regarded as a charity
    case. And I'll never see any of them again, so they can think what they like.
    Vanessa was speaking again. 'And do your plans include marriage, or is that
    an indelicate question?'
    'Oh, that would depend on a lot of things,' Morwenna said hastily. 'I—I
    prefer to cross that bridge when I come to it.' She gave a little laugh. 'And if
    I can persuade him to provide the money to send me to painting school next
    year, I may never have to cross it at all.'
    'I see,' Vanessa said blankly. 'Well, all I can say is that I wish you luck.'
    'Thank you,' Morwenna laughed. 'But I don't think I shall need it.' Her tone
    implied a total confidence in her own power of attraction, and for a moment
    she despised herself for playing Vanessa's game, but what did it matter after
    all? They were never likely to meet again. Once she was out of the way,
    Morwenna guessed that her cousins would breathe a sigh of relief and put
    her out of their minds. In a way she could see their point of view. While she
    had remained at the Priory, they could never feel their inheritance was truly
    theirs. She was a wholly unwelcome reminder of the old days, and relations
    between the two families had never been on the most intimate terms.
    But it was chilling to have to recognise that she was now alone in the world
    with her own way to make. There had been times, not long ago either, when
    she had inwardly rebelled against the loving shelter of the Priory, when she
    had been sorely tempted to thrust away her father's and Martin's concern for
    her and take off on her own like so many of her contemporaries. In some
    ways now, she wished she had yielded to the impulse. At least now she
    would not feel so bereft.
    Later, as she stowed her solitary suitcase and her haversack, with the bulky
    parcel of canvases attached, on the luggage rack and felt the train jerk under
    her feet as it set off on the long run to the West, a tight knot of tension settled
    in the pit of her stomach. She watched the platforms and sidings slip past
    with increasing despondency. In spite of her brave words to Vanessa, each
    one of which she now bitterly regretted, she knew she might well be
    embarking on a wild goose chase.
    She swallowed past a lump in her throat. The request that the Trevennons
    should store her mother's pictures until she was able to come for them had
    seemed quite a reasonable one when she had first formulated it. Yet what
    right had she, a stranger among strangers, to ask any favours at all? Wouldn't
    she have done better to have stayed in London and hardened herself to sell
    the pictures? That would have been the sensible thing to have done instead
    of tearing off on this quixotic journey to a corner of England she only knew
    from bedtime stories and a few semantic images on canvas.
    She .sighed unhappily. For better or worse, she had started on her journey
    and she wished very much that she could put out of her head the fact that
    someone had once said it was better to travel hopefully than to arrive.

CHAPTER TWO
    HER mood of depression had not lifted by the time she reached Penzance,
    and matters were not improved by the fact that it was pouring with rain from
    a leaden sky. Morwenna surveyed her surroundings without enthusiasm.
    She wished that funds permitted her to summon a taxi and order it to drive
    her to Trevennon, but she knew that would be