Read Online The Quiet Heart by Susan Barrie - Free Book Online Page A

sleeves literally this time, preparatory to entering the sick room.
    “You could be happier,” she insisted. “You ask my Joe what I mean ... although I don’t suppose you’d like to. But marriage is more than just being friends.”
    Somewhere about the middle of the first night, while she sat beside him, and Mrs. Davenport was on call but out of sight, the invalid opened his eyes and looked full at the girl in the neat dress who sat with her hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the fire, her expression thoughtful.
    “A penny for them?” he enquired whimsically.
    Alison started, and then flushed absurdly.
    “Did you want something to drink?” she asked. “There’s some barley water here.”
    “Thanks.” He looked thirstily at the jug, and she slipped a hand behind his shoulders and eased him into a more convenient position. Although his pyjama jacket had been changed by Mrs. Davenport a couple of hours before it felt wet, and she was pleased, because that meant the fever was breaking.
    “Did you make that barley water yourself?”
    “No, it’s out of a bottle, but I can make you some if you like.”
    To her surprise he smiled at her.
    “You’re doing more than enough as it is. And the barley water was pure nectar and ambrosia.”
    That made her think of the brandy that had sent her off to sleep the night before.
    “You described that as nectar,” she said.
    “What?”
    “The Napoleon brandy.”
    “Oh!” He smiled more broadly. “It did seem to have a disastrous effect on you, didn’t it? But I think you were completely exhausted. Yesterday was not a red-letter day for you, was it?”
    “On the contrary,” she tried to assure him, “I was glad that the new owner of Leydon had come to see it at last. We all began to think you were never coming.”
    His light grey eyes—rendered so striking by his thick black eyelashes—were watching her from the pillow.
    “But I’m no Sir Francis,” he told her, “and I don’t intend to stay here. I regard this place as a wilderness of bricks and mortar, and it’s no use your telling me that numbers of my ancestors lived here because it doesn’t mean a thing to me. I’m no ancestor-worshipper, and I’m not madly keen on history. I prefer life as it can be lived to-day ... trips to the Bahamas, and things like that. I wouldn’t live in a place like this for a pension.”
    “You don’t need a pension,” she reminded him, dimpling at him.
    He seemed quite captivated by the dimples. “You should smile more often,” he said. “Like that.”
    “Like what?”
    “As if you were twenty-seven, and not thirty-seven. When I first met you yesterday I thought you were unnaturally grave. Now I know why.”
    “You intrigue me,” she said, smiling again very slightly.
    “This place ... and three stepdaughters! It’s outrageous! Why, you could make a fortune as a cook if you wanted to.”
    “I don’t want to.”
    “I don’t suppose you do.”
    He looked as if he was about to make some further comment about something or other, but she stopped him.
    “It’s late, Mr. Leydon. You must get some sleep. Would you like me to shake your pillow up for you?”
    “No, it’s divinely comfortable. In fact, this whole room has suddenly become comfortable, and I’ve decided I like it after all.” He held out his hand to her. “Sorry about yesterday.”
    She flushed brilliantly.
    “I’m so sorry I fell asleep last night and kept you sitting up in that cold room. You ought to have wakened me earlier.”
    “That would have been cruelty to animals,” he said a little strangely. He retained her fingers between his hot ones, and looked at them as if they interested him. “You have very pretty hands, even though you do seem to me to work harder than most people. But I wish someone would do something about that wedding-ring on your finger,” frowning at it. “Why don’t you take it off?”
    “Why should I?”
    “It’s not even as if you’re a widow. A widow has