The Quiet Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

as it were, in a long line of aspiring hopefuls for the hand of the beguiling Marianne. Whether Marianne regarded him with more pleasure than she had any of her earlier admirers no one member of her family could tell, but she certainly looked very contemplative as she stood with her graceful head backflung waiting for the sounds of his approach.
    As she stood there she took note of the amount of attention the hall itself had received from her stepmother and Mrs. Davenport during the course of the afternoon, and Jessamy had put flowers on the gigantic hall table. A not very successful fire was smouldering on the baronial hearth, and away up amongst the roof beams a cold current of air stirred a couple of faded banners that had been carried by Leydons in various historic skirmishes.
    Marianne stiffened slightly as she thought she caught the sound of car wheels ... But they were far too silent to be the wheels of Robert Marquis’s convertible that he had had fitted with a racing engine. She could have moved or disappeared behind one of the numerous doors that opened off the vast expanse of hall when it became clear to her that this was the owner returning, but she did nothing of the kind. She simply stood there, waiting and smiling very slightly, as if she was the mistress of the house expecting to be taken out for the evening by the master.
    Charles Leydon thrust open the great door with an impatient hand. He knew perfectly well that if he pulled the old-fashioned bell-chain (which was probably rusty in any case) no well-trained manservant would be likely to answer him, and as yet he was not quite clear about the duties of Mrs. Fairlie. She had struck him as an obliging if somewhat reticent young woman, but he had not so far ascertained whether she received a salary or anything of that sort. Mr. Minty was a trifle vague on the subject ... as indeed, he was vague on most subjects that had nothing to do with land values and tenures and rights of disposal. It was one of Mr. Leydon’s list of points that had to be raised and cleared up before this first visit of his to Leydon Hall terminated.
    Mr. Minty was hard on his client’s heels as they entered the hall, and even he felt a trifle surprised by the sight of one of the young women they had met that morning apparently poised to receive them on the staircase. She was very differently dressed from the way in which she had been dressed that morning, and in fact he would have said she was a little overdressed for a caretaker’s dependent. And it certainly did strike him that she hadn’t any real right to be where she was ... not without a feather duster in her hand, or a polishing rag, or something of the sort.
    Her quarters were in the south tower, where no one could take exception if she chose to dress up like one of those young women he had seen occasionally on television—and he was not a television addict; or in a glossy magazine. And he was not a great magazine reader, either.
    “Good evening.” She spoke pleasantly and absolutely confidently as she descended the stairs. “I do hope you had a good lunch at the Leydon Arms. They do a good meal, I know. As a matter of fact, I’m going to have dinner there to-night.”
    She addressed herself to Leydon, and it was into his eyes that she smiled with extraordinary sweetness as she reached the hall.
    “Thank you, but I’ve already forgotten what I had for lunch. I’ve been into Murchester since then,” he replied curtly.
    He was vaguely irritated by so much grace and elegance in sherry-coloured velvet and some strikingly good-looking fur. And beneath the coat her silken skirts were full and reached to her small satin slippers.
    “Oh, really?” She was ready to be chatty, and he sensed it. “How do you like our little country town? I expect, after New Zealand, it seems terribly, terribly rustic and rural—”
    “I haven’t been to New Zealand since I was a very small child! so I have no idea what goes on out there or