The Catherine Wheel Read Online Free PDF Page A

John Taylor a smile and a nod, and went and sat down between Jeremy and Al Miller. As she did so, John Higgins came slowly up to the table and gave his name.
    “I got a letter telling me I was to call here.” He spoke slowly with a pleasant country accent.
    John Taylor observed him with interest. There was a puzzled frown between the blue eyes.
    “That’s quite all right, Mr. Higgins. Just where do you come into this family tree?”
    “Well—” the big work-roughened hands took hold of each other—“well, sir, my grandmother Joanna, she was one of the twins. Joanna and John they were, boy and girl. And Joanna Taverner, she married my grandfather, Thomas Higgins, head carpenter on Sir John Layburn’s estate. Son and daughter they had, James and Annie. James was my father, so that’s where I come in. Annie, she took and married a foreigner, name of Castell. Is that what you want, sir? I don’t know that there’s any more I can tell you, except that I’m a carpenter too, like my father and grandfather before me.”
    John Taylor looked him up and down.
    “You served in the war, I suppose?”
    The blue eyes looked straight back at him.
    “Mine-sweeping, sir. They let me do that. It was clean against my conscience to kill.”
    He went back to the last vacant chair and sat down beside Jane Heron. Marian Thorpe-Ennington turned her smile upon him, and then allowed it to travel from one end of the line of chairs to the other.
    “And we’re all cousins,” she said in a voice thrilling with interest. “We’ve none of us ever seen each other before, but we’re all cousins. All our grandfathers or grandmothers were brothers and sisters, but we don’t know anything about each other. Well, I mean to say, it’s divine, isn’t it? Such a bore to grow up with one’s relations, but too wonderful to meet them all ready-made.”
    “I think some of you know each other, ” said John Taylor. “Captain Taverner, Miss Heron—I think you do, don’t you? Now may I just take down your particulars? Ladies first—”
    Jane Heron opened her grey eyes rather widely. A little colour came into her cheeks.
    “My grandfather was the youngest. His name was Acts.”
    CHAPTER 4
    Jacob Taverner was getting bored. He had heard enough—most of it stale stuff which he knew already. “Your grandfather was John—your grandmother was Joanna—you are in this, that, or the other—” It was all as dull as a parish meeting. No zip about John Taylor—no go, no sparks flying. He wanted to put his own fingers into the pie and stir it up his own way. He thought he had stood behind the door long enough. He pushed it open, walked in, came round in front of the line of chairs, and said,
    “Better introduce me, John.”
    John Taylor said, “This is Mr. Jacob Taverner,” whereupon Jacob walked down the line and shook hands with them all. Some of the hands were hot, and some were cold. Mildred Taverner, Lady Marian, and Jane Heron wore gloves. Florence Duke had taken hers off and stuffed them into a gaping pocket. Geoffrey, Jeremy, and John Higgins rose to their feet. Al Miller sat uncomfortably on the edge of his chair and said, “Pleased to meet you.” Geoffrey’s hand was dry and cold—a thin hand, stronger perhaps than it looked. Al Miller’s was so damp that Jacob had no scruple about taking out a cheap brown pocket-handkerchief and drying his fingers before offering them to Jeremy Taverner’s casual clasp. John Higgins had a warm hand and a firm grip.
    Jacob noticed everything—that Jane’s gloves had seen a good deal of service—that Mildred Taverner had a hole in one of hers, and that the right hand didn’t match the left—that Marian Thorpe-Ennington’s clothes had cost a packet. A mouthful of a name, an armful of a woman. It would have surprised him very much to hear that she paid her bills.
    When he had finished shaking hands he came over to the writing-table and sat informally on the far corner, so that by pivoting