The Uninvited Guests Read Online Free PDF Page B

before, but having once committed to the settee he bravely balanced on the frame and kept his eyes locked into those of his hostess.
    On Emerald’s entrance to the room he lifted his face towards her and was struck by her vitality and the dewy flush of her skin, as well as her clownish trousers. He got to his feet.
    ‘Mr Buchanan,’ she said, ‘Mother.’
    ‘Yes …’ said Charlotte, fadingly, ‘John Buchanan’s here.’ And she lightly rose and left the room, looking around her with dim urgency as if searching for something. In the doorway, pausing, she murmured, ‘I must see about the hens.’
    John Buchanan and Emerald were left alone. This was a very far from ideal situation and Emerald tapped her stockinged foot beneath the muddy hem of her riding garment.
    ‘Have you hens?’ asked John.
    Emerald was loath to admit they hadn’t any. She felt bound to defend her mother who, in the storm of John Buchanan, had sheltered in the port of invented poultry.
    ‘Robert may have acquired some. And I believe Devlin has been known to keep them.’
    John Buchanan stared at her gravely.
    ‘I see you’ve brought your car,’ said Emerald breezily.
    ‘Yes,’ he said, adding helpfully, ‘I arrived in it.’
    In the pause that followed this revelation, running, booted steps were heard, and Clovis raced into the room. Pulling up in the doorway, an unlikely chaperone, he stuck out his hand and said gruffly, ‘John!’
    John stepped forward to greet him. ‘Clovis, how are you?’
    ‘Oh yes, I’m very well, thank you.’
    Clovis had the ironic tone of a boy playing the part of somebody tedious in a school production and Emerald winced to hear it, fearing he was in the insulting mood he usually reserved for their stepfather. Clovis, however, reined himself in. ‘I’m going to play chess,’ he announced, and crossed to the window in his muddy boots, where a board was set up on a cherry-wood table. He sat down and began to set out the pieces.
    ‘I hope he doesn’t argue with himself over the moves!’ said Emerald, and then in confusion, ‘Why don’t we sit down?’
    They sat – John avoiding the collapsed settee this time and placing himself near Emerald on the chaise. Clovis bent frowning over the chess pieces.
    ‘Has mother offered you –’ she glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantel which had never worked, ‘– anything at all?’
    ‘No.’
    Emerald was about to make an offer of tea when John reached inside his jacket and produced a small, navy blue box tied with a thin white satin ribbon.
    ‘Happy birthday, Miss Torrington.’
    Behind him, Clovis stared up from his chess with wild, appalled eyes, causing Emerald to look down at her hands, sharply.
    ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure I really—’
    ‘Please accept it,’ he said.
    Emerald took the box and placed it on her palm. She imagined a pair of vulgar earrings and was sliced in half by guilt.
    ‘Mr Buchanan,’ she began. She looked up into his face. He was the most geometric of men: absolutely symmetrical with no tricky corners or contours to confuse the onlooker. He had a straight mouth and strong brow, dark hair neatly and squarely cut and combed, broad shoulders… He was even in every way, and on the large side – that is, he was tall, and one had the impression he’d look imposing stepping out of a bathing hut, if he ever were to do such a frivolous thing as to get into one in the first place, for John Buchanan – despite being called the farmer John Buchanan by the Torringtons – was a mill owner and single-minded in his pursuit of success. His father was the farmer, and John, on making something of a small fortune, had purchased the tenancy for him in filial gratitude, not to mention sentiment, farming being in steep decline.
    This fortune, this generosity, this attraction to Emerald – demonstrated by his rash visit on her birthday, as well as the tedium of his conversation – were what had driven Charlotte to leave her daughter