The Flowering Thorn Read Online Free PDF Page A

thing I warn you: you’ll have to take him tomorrow.”
    Whatever she felt, Lesley betrayed no emotion.
    â€œI’ll come down with a car.”
    â€œYou’ve realised, of course, that you’ll have to leave your flat? And that no respectable place is going to take you in?”
    At last Lesley paused. The second threat worried her not at all: times had changed since Aunt Alice read East Lynne. But to leave Beverley Court! And leave she must: they didn’t take children. To-morrow, moreover: a bare twenty-four hours’ notice after nearly seven years! Her personal possessions, fortunately, would all be eminently portable, and with a waiting list like the Beverley’s, there would be no difficulty in letting; but all the same, to leave Beverley Court.…
    â€˜It is rather perfect,’ thought Lesley reluctantly; and with her mind’s eye she suddenly saw the big wicker basket, rather like a laundry-basket, which arrived every Tuesday morning to collect her mending. And the following Thursday the basket reappeared and the mending was done. In case of any real crisis—a laddered stocking or a ripped hem—emergency assistance could be summoned by the ringing of a bell.… And that was only one of the amenities. On the first of April in each year a man came round with a dozen pink geraniums and filled the two window-boxes, which from then until the first of October became the responsibility of the under lift-boy. In the early hours of the morning he watered, groomed and when necessary replenished; and on the appointed day the man came back and put in privet instead.…
    â€œOh well,” said Lesley, emerging from her brief homage to the past, “there are other places in town besides the Beverley. If I’m down by three o’clock, Aunt Alice, will you see that his things are ready?”
    â€œThey’ll be ready on the door-step,” said Mrs. Bassington grimly.
    With an agreeable sensation of victory, Lesley gathered up her gloves, made a formal adieu, and walked towards the door. Half-way across the room, by the scattered heap of bricks, she paused and looked down.
    â€œTo-morrow you’re going to come and live with me, Patrick.”
    He nodded off-handedly and got on with his tower.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Among the many epitaphs which Mr. Ashton constantly composed for himself there was one so exquisitely apt that he sometimes felt tempted to scrap all the rest and compose no more. It ran, very simply—though with perhaps a reminiscence of Stendhal—to no more than six words: ‘He made songs, and understood women’; and such being the case, he experienced not the least surprise when Lesley Frewen rang up to say she had changed her mind.
    â€œMy dear, of course I meant it,” he assured her. “Come in to-day—now—whenever you like.” Under the flowered dressing-gown, for it was no more than ten in the morning, his heart, without actually beating faster, felt all the pleasurable emotion of prophecy fulfilled.
    â€œBut what about you, Toby?” asked the voice of Miss Frewen. “When do you want to get out?”
    The moment had come. He would have liked to move to a more comfortable chair, for the conversation promised to be lengthy: but a pause at that point, however slight, would almost inevitably suggest that … well, that necessity was needing time to become a mother. With no pause at all, therefore, Mr. Ashton said rapidly,
    â€œOh, really, my dear, it’s all rather odd. I’ve just had a wire from Paris, and they don’t want me till the week after next. So you see how it is. I mean, would you mind awfully if I stayed? There are two bathrooms.” And he waited with real interest for the answer. For Lesley Frewen—after all, what did one know about her? As hard-boiled a virgin as any in town, he shouldn’t wonder … and yet if so, with an almost uncanny gift for stopping a