Read Online The Black Benedicts by Anita Charles - Free Book Online Page B

Adrian ’ s own— softening miraculously. “ How terribly out of it he always looks, and there ’ s nothing very much anyone can do about it. It was a dreadful thing that happened to him. ”
    “ Was it? ” Mallory asked. “ I haven ’ t been told a great deal about it, but I gather there was an accident. ”
    Jill nodded.
    “ And he lost his wife and his earning capacity all in a single evening! There is only one interest left to him in life, and that is his piano, and he really plays quite divinely. ”
    “ I know, ” Mallory told her. “ I ’ ve heard him. ”
    Jill looked at her in slight surprise.
    “ Did he play for you, or did you just overhear h i m? ”
    “ I overheard him, and he played for me, ” Mallory admitted.
    At that moment Adrian turned and caught sight of them and gravitated ov er to the settee on which they were both seated.
    “ You two girls look as if you might be holding some sort of a conference, ” he remarked, with his gentle smile—but it was a smile which was largely for Mallory. “ Have you any objection if I break it up and join you? ”
    “ None whatsoever, ” Mallory assured him, but she thought that Jill made rather a wry little face.
    “ You honour us, Adrian, ” she told him, in a very distinct voice. “ It isn ’ t often you work up enough interest on an evening su c h as this even to wish to break up a conference, as you term it. And I ’ m wondering whether it ’ s some particular magic Miss Gower possesses? ”
    “ As to that, ” Adrian returned, quite gravely, his eyes dwelling thoughtfully on his daughter ’ s governess ’ s face, “ I think Miss Gower has got some sort of magic w hich has certainly had its effect on Serena. I was having a chat with the child a few minutes ago, and she tells me that she is already ‘ in love ’ with Miss ’ Gower. And she certainly never fell in love with Miss Peppercorn, or any of the others who have had temporary c harge of her. ”
    Mallory felt herself colouring slightly, for some reason which she could not quite fathom, under the influence of this compliment, but Jill Harding looked at her with the faintly rueful smile still clinging to her lips.
    “ There you are, Miss Gower! Serena has fallen for you! I wonder how many more conquests you will make in Morven Grange before you depart from it? ”
    Her tone was light, but Mallory decided it was the moment to go in search of her small charge and take her upstairs to bed.
    “ It ’ s late for her, ” she said. “ She ’ s accustomed to being in bed much earlier than this. ”
    But before she left the room with Serena she saw that Adrian was no longer sitting beside Jill on the settee. He was back looking out of the window, that remote, lost look on his face.
    Serena retired to bed with Belinda as usual, and it was arranged that Mallory should have the new kitten in its basket with her, in case, as Serena phrased it in some anxiety, Belinda should “ suddenly wake up and eat it in the night. ”
    “ Oh I don ’ t think Belinda has any cannibalistic tendencies of that order, ” Mallory reassured her; “ but it ’ s such a wee thing, it might be better it I took charge of it for a day or so, particularly as we don ’ t even know whether it ’ s house-trained .”
    Long after Serena had fallen into a state of quiet sleep and blissful dreams in her own room, with Belinda dreaming of strange white kittens and emitting uneasy little whimpers in her basket beside her, Mallory sat before the drawn-back curtains in her own room, and listened to the sound of music and voices which reached her from the drawing-room immediately below her.
    They were dancing now, the friends and the visitors who were there for the evening, dancing to the music of gramophone records played on a powerful radio-gramophone which Mallory had glimpsed in a corner of the lovely room. That is to sa y the visitors were dancing, but the host and Miss Martingale, who was still con valescent,