The House of Seven Fountains Read Online Free PDF Page B

what the solicitor had told her about her godfather having enemies in certain quarters, she felt it would be unwise to confide in him until she knew him better.
    “ Well, if you’re putting up at the Rest House, I warn you that you’ll need a gas mask. This is the durian season.”
    “The what season?”
    “Durian. It’s a tropical fruit that tastes delicious but smells like rotten eggs. During the season the whole town reeks of the stuff and the Rest House is opposite the fruit market.”
    “Then it’s just as well I’m not staying there.”
    She laughed at the frank curiosity on his face.
    “Is Mauping a large town?”
    Julian leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. She noticed that he wore handmade shoes. Both his cigarette case and lighter were obviously gold, and so was his wrist watch. Evidently he was a young man of means as well as charm.
    “Fairish size,” he said. “There’s a swim club, a couple of movie houses and one European-type store. Socially, it’s pretty dead. Everybody knows everybody else, and there’s nothing much to do but eat, drink, sleep and gossip. Now that our local mystery man is dead, even the scandal market is pretty slack.
    “The mystery man? Who was he?”
    He grinned reminiscently.
    “ A queer old boy who lived by himself in an enormous mansion just outside town and refused to have anything to do with the rest of us. Quite a character, I can tell you. He used to drive about in an ancient Rolls-Royce with a huge Union Jack flying on the hood. Mad as a hatter, of course. Still his antics gave us something to talk about.”
    Recalling what Mr. Adams had told her earlier, Vivien asked, “His name wasn’t Cunningham by any chance, was it?”
    “Mm, that’s right. You’ve heard about him then?”
    She now had no choice but to reveal her relationship.
    “He was my godfather,” she said calmly.
    “Ye gods!” Julian’s eyebrows shot up and he looked comically embarrassed. “I say, I’m most frightfully sorry. Naturally, I hadn’t a clue. Good heavens, this will start the grapevines buzzing. Do you mean you’re going to live in that mausoleum? Oh, lord, I didn’t mean that. I mean, they say it’s practically a palace once you get inside. Rather like the castle in the tale about Sleeping Beauty, you know. It’s surrounded by an impenetrable barrier of jungle.”
    Vivien accepted his profuse apologies for having dropped a brick and admitted that she would be living at her godfather’s house for a time.
    “You’d better prepare yourself to be the chief topic of Mauping chitchat for weeks. Everyone in the place will want to see you,” he told her. “By jove, I wonder what old Doc Stransom’s reaction will be?”
    “Dr. Stransom? I’ve already met him on the flight from London.”
    “Have you, indeed? Oh, yes, now I come to think of it he went to England for some conference or other just after old Cunn—your godfather died. What did you make of our Spartan physician?”
    “I hardly know him. Why should he have any special reaction to my arrival?” Vivien asked.
    “Because he is the only European with whom your godfather was on speaking terms. And because he has no time for women,” Julian informed her with a certain relish as if he envisaged a provocative situation. “I take it he didn’t know who you were on the plane?”
    “No, I don’t think so.”
    “ Aha! Miss Connell, I foresee that life in Mauping is going to be the livelier for your coming. We need waking up and if I’m not mistaken, your arrival will start quite a furor.”
    “Oh, dear, I hope not,” Vivien said uneasily. “I’ve no desire to be a focus of interest.”
    “You’re the first woman I’ve ever met who hadn’t. Most of them lap it up. The more fuss the better. It’s being overlooked that gets their goat,” Julian said knowledgeably.
    “I must be different then. I much prefer peace and quiet. Mr. Barclay, I wonder if you would mind not mentioning that you’ve met