The Brading Collection Read Online Free PDF

wouldn’t know you weren’t in a private house.”
    Theodosia watched them. The girl would like to get out of it, but Milly wouldn’t let her. Nice hot water she’d be in with old Myra if she turned up at Warne without the tame artist. After refusing to so much as have her photograph taken for about forty years Myra had swung round and was all set to be painted. Snatch her miniaturist away at the last moment and there would be the devil to pay.
    She watched Milly being soothing, and the girl hanging back. And then they were at Ledstow, with Myra Constantine’s chauffeur on the platform touching his cap and saying,
    “The car is outside, my lady.”
    CHAPTER 5
    In the car Stacy told herself that she had behaved like a mesmerized rabbit. But what on earth could she have done? Impossible to go on saying no without giving a reason. Impossible to explain in the interested hearing of Theodosia Dale, a fat woman, and three children eating chocolate. She hastened to make amends to herself. Much better to do as she had done. She could go up to Warne House, put the case quietly before Mrs. Constantine, and catch a morning train. It wouldn’t hurt her to spend the night in Lewis Brading’s house. She need not even come down to dinner. Much better and more dignified than having a scene at the station. Lady Minstrell’s voice came through her thoughts.
    “Dossie and I were at school together. Her father was the Rector. She has a little old house in the village, and she knows all about everyone. I have asked her to come up this evening. My mother likes to know about everything too.”
    Stacy couldn’t think of a thing to say.
    Lady Minstrell flowed on—schooldays, Dossie’s good heart, Dossie’s sharp tongue.
    “She really is the best friend in the world, but of course she wants knowing. She never wears anything but those thick coats and skirts winter and summer. I don’t know how she does it in this heat. There—we’re coming to Warne now—down in the dip. Such a pretty village. Really it was a pity Dossie was having tea in Ledstow, or we could have given her a lift, but there is quite a convenient bus service. Look—that is Warne House, half way up the slope on the other side among the trees. It is very tiring travelling in this heat, don’t you think? We shall both be glad of some tea.”
    Stacy felt as if it was going to take more than a cup of tea to get her through arriving at Warne House. Lewis Brading was the sort of cousin who had always been there. She and Charles had dined with him, driving over from Saltings on a summer evening, turning in between the trees as they were turning now, and just as they came in sight of the house Charles had taken his hand off the wheel and touched her lightly on the cheek.
    “Cheer up, darling, it’ll be all the same by tomorrow. Anyhow, what’s the matter?”
    “He doesn’t like me.”
    His smile flashed out, fleeting, impish, charming.
    “He doesn’t like anyone—much. What used to be his heart is completely bunged up with the Collection—there really isn’t room for anything else.”
    “How grim.”
    She could hear him laugh.
    “Cheer up! It takes all sorts to make a world.”
    The whole scene came back in a flash, the two of them all warm and happy, and sorry for Lewis Brading who was out in the cold. That cut deep, because two days later Stacy was out in the cold too—the bitter freezing cold that kills your heart.
    “Here we are,” said Lady Minstrell in a tone of relief. “We’ll go straight up to my mother. She is longing to see you.”
    Mrs. Constantine’s sitting-room looked over the tree-tops to the sea, unbelievably blue and still under a cloudless sky. Mrs. Constantine herself sat well up to the window in the largest armchair with her feet resting upon an embroidered footstool. They were pretty feet, and she was inordinately proud of the “only bit of prettiness I ever had, so no wonder.” Stacy saw them before she saw anything else, pretty,