The Carousel Read Online Free PDF

company has enough cash flow to come up with twenty-five percent of its worth, I ask you. Yet if we don’t do it, she’ll try to put her shares on the market, and when we try to block her, there’ll be a court fight with legal fees enough to choke us. To say nothing of the chance that we might lose. Probably would lose. And all because you people wouldn’t make her sign the buyout agreement years ago. She was younger and not as feisty then. If you had insisted, Father, she would have had to do it.”
    Wanting to rescue Oliver from attack, Dan said firmly, “That’s past. There’s no use looking back. It’s water over the dam.”
    Ian got up and strolled to the windows while everyone watched him. A dead stillness lay heavily upon the room, until he returned to stand with his back to the fire.
    “You can all see that Amanda is another reason why the European consortium is a good thing,” he said. “With money like that, we could afford to buy her out and get rid of her.”
    “You only want to sell that land,” Dan responded. “That’s the long and short of it, Ian. You wanted to do it more than a year ago. Amanda’s demand came two days ago.”
    “Okay, okay, I don’t deny it. I’m only saying there’s more reason now. It’s all intertwined.”
    Facing each other, the two young men were obviously uncomfortable with such overt anger. Neither was used to it. It wasn’t “civilized.” Yet now it was palpably there. And Sally, watching the blood suffuse Dan’s face, felt double dread over the far worse blow that he would have to receive tonight.
    Then Dan stood gripping the back of a chair and, controlling himself, said reasonably, “I’ll talk to Amanda. I’ll straighten this out.”
    “Good luck,” Ian said. “I’ll take a bet that it won’t do any good. There’s no reasoning with her. You don’t know her.”
    “I don’t know her? That’s a strange thing to say. She’s my sister.”
    “Dan, you don’t know her. None of us does. A girl who went off to boarding school in California at thirteen and has never come back?” And again Ian appealed to Oliver. “Why don’t you talk to her, Father? You’re always a peacemaker, a mediator.”
    “I told you, I’m not part of this anymore. You’re asking me to decide between my brother’s children and my own, and I won’t do it. You must settle among yourselves, I said. Take a vote.”
    Ian said promptly, “Fine. I’m for the sale. Dan isn’t. Amanda will be for it because it will be a sure way for her to get what she wants. So that leaves Clive to determine the outcome. Either reach a majority or deadlock. How about it, Clive?”
    There was a short delay while Clive underwent a minor bout of coughing. When it was over, he said testily, “I never answer off the top of my head. Anyway, this talk is premature. It’ll be closer to a year before those people can get their plans and their financing together. I suggest you table the whole thing for now. That’s what I suggest.”
    “Oh, fine.” Ian’s laugh was sarcastic. “By all means, let’s table Amanda for a year.”
    Abruptly, Oliver became decisive. His rising was a signal that the evening was over. “Clive makes sense. He always does,” he said with an encouraging smile at Clive. “As to threats—people often make threats that they have no intention of carrying out. My advice to you all is don’t do anything hasty. And a second advice is go to church tomorrow. I seldom miss a Sunday, no matter where I am. Pray for peace, inner peace. Yes, yes, inner peace.”
    They were all standing as he concluded, “Even with these disagreements, it’s been a wonderful birthday, and I thank you. And I love you all. Get home safely.”
    They had not far to go. The two cars filed down the long driveway and out at the iron-lace gates, Dan’s Buick after the Maserati, until the latter turned in at another graveled drive not as long as Hawthorne’s, on either side of which a double row of