The Brading Collection Read Online Free PDF Page A

sensible hat, and looked at Stacy Forrest who had gone back to calling herself Miss Mainwaring. Not very tall, not very anything. Brown hair made the most of—girls spent all their money at the hairdresser’s nowadays. Grey eyes rather widely set. Good lashes, with none of that filthy mascara on them. A clear, pale skin, and a reasonable shade of lipstick. A neat blue linen dress. The girl looked like a lady. Good hands and feet, good ankles. But just why Charles Forrest should have fallen for her was past guessing. No particular figure—just slim. Probably never had a decent meal. Girls were just as stupid as men, only in less revolting ways. This—what was her name—Stacy? Ridiculous! She probably ate in snack bars perched up on a high stool with her feet off the ground. Lunacy!
    The wails of the combatants had died away. The stout woman was fanning herself with a pair of black kid gloves, and all three children were smearing their faces with fresh pieces of chocolate. Lady Minstrell went on speaking as if there had been no interruption.
    “Mama is like that—if she wants anything she wants it at once.” She turned to Stacy. “I would have let you know about the change in our plan if there had been time, but there really wasn’t. My mother just suddenly took it into her head that she had been long enough at Burdon and that what she wanted was sea air, so she packed up and went off to Warne this morning. She didn’t even let me know. I just came down and found she’d gone, and by that time it was too late to ring you up, so I thought the best thing I could do was to get into your train.”
    Stacy felt amused, angry, relieved, all at the same time. She began to say, “Oh, but then of course—” but Lady Minstrell caught her up.
    “No, no, there is no change about the sittings. My mother has gone, as she always goes, to Warne House.”
    Stacy’s hand contracted in her lap. Lewis Brading’s house! And she was to go and stay there, presumably as his guest, and paint Mrs. Constantine! She had a quick picture of him in her mind, thin and grey, with dislike in his eyes, and one of his famous jewels held out for her to see—the sapphire ring which had belonged to Marie Antoinette.
    Theodosia Dale leaned a little forward from her upright position and said drily,
    “Warne House has been turned into a country club.”
    Stacy thought, “She knows me. She wouldn’t have said that if she didn’t know me.”
    And then Lady Minstrell was going on.
    “It belonged to a Mr. Brading, a friend of ours. But of course much too big for him, so he very wisely decided to sell. He keeps the annexe which he had built to house his Collection, and he lives there and has all his meals in the club. It saves him a lot of trouble. The annexe is quite shut off of course, with steel doors, steel shutters—all that kind of thing. Because his Collection is immensely valuable—jewels of historic interest. That is one of the things that takes my mother to Warne. She loves fine jewels, and some of Mr. Brading’s are very fine. The annexe is really like a strong-room, but I shouldn’t like to have so much valuable stuff about.”
    Miss Dale gave a short laugh.
    “Like it! Sticking your neck out, that’s what I call it. Lewis will be getting himself murdered one of these days, and then what good will all that junk be to him?”
    Lady Minstrell sounded shocked. She said, “Dossie!” and Miss Dale tossed her head.
    “Much better to collect postage stamps. Something abnormal about a man going soft in the head over jewels.”
    Stacy found her voice.
    “I’m afraid I couldn’t undertake to do a miniature of Mrs. Constantine in an hotel—it really wouldn’t be possible.”
    She caught a sardonic gleam in Miss Dale’s eye. And then Lady Minstrell’s hand was on her arm.
    “Oh, please don’t say that—it’s all been so difficult! But do let me explain. It isn’t an hotel, it’s a club, and my mother has her own suite of rooms. You