The Benevent Treasure

Miss Olivia could not have disapproved more. What an occupation for a girl whose father seemed to have been a gentleman! She said in her curtest ma

‘She looks a good deal more than seventeen to me.’

‘Oh, yes – she must be twenty-three or twenty-four now. The second girl is married, and Linda who is the clever one has got a very good secretarial post, so they are off Je

Miss Olivia broke off the conversation abruptly. She had no wish to hear any more about Miss Je

‘To retire?’

‘Well, that’s just it – he doesn’t want to go on working, but he doesn’t really want to retire.’

‘Darling, he can’t have it both ways.’

‘Well, he thinks he can. He has got it all worked out. He would like to take a partner who would run the show and pay him over say two-thirds of the profits. He wouldn’t ask him to put in more than a thousand if he felt it was someone he could get on with.’

‘Oh, he wants to go on working?’

‘Well, not to say working. He’d just like to come in and potter round when he felt like it. You know, he hasn’t really been up to it for some time, and the place has gone down, but it could soon be worked up again. It would be a wonderful chance for someone – Derek, it would be a wonderful chance for us.’

‘Us!’

‘Yes, darling. I didn’t mean to talk about it here, but I just can’t keep it back.’

‘I couldn’t do it. I don’t know the first thing about ru

‘But you know about cars. Mr. Adamson always says you’re a first-class mechanic – the Army did that for you. And you’re a very good driver. As for the business side, I’ve got it all at my fingers’ end. There’s nothing you wouldn’t learn easily enough as soon as you got going on it.’

‘And where do we get the thousand pounds, darling?’

She looked up at him, her eyes very blue, very serious.

‘How much have you saved?’

‘Nothing like that.’

‘How much?’

‘I only started just over a year ago. I’m not much good at saving.’

‘I said, “How much?” ’

‘Well, about four hundred.’

She let the blue eyes smile.

‘But that’s very good. I didn’t think it would be as much as that. You’ve done frightfully well.’

Je

‘I’ve been able to put away most of my salary, and they gave me another hundred for Christmas.’

Je

‘I think we can do it.’

‘Darling, four from ten leaves six.’;

She nodded gravely.

‘Derek, I didn’t tell you that old Cousin Robert Rainsford left me a thousand pounds. Peg had two hundred out of it when she married, and Linda had two hundred and fifty to help her through college and get her started.’

‘Then we are only fifty pounds short. Would Mr. Adamson wait for that?’

She said, ‘I’ve got fifty saved.’

He gazed at her with genuine pride.

‘Darling, you’re a wonder! If it wouldn’t send the balloon up like a rocket, I’d kiss you!’

She let her eyes smile back into his for a moment, then was serious again.

‘Mr. Adamson is going to live with his married daughter. They’ve got that nice cottage a couple of miles out, and he loves the children, so he won’t be wanting the house any more. There are six rooms and it would suit us down to the ground. It was bombed in the war and rebuilt a couple of years afterwards, so it’s all modern – built-in cupboards – frightfully labour-saving. We can have the curtains and the floor-coverings for a song. I chose them for him, so they’re all right. And if we want any of the furniture, he’ll let us have it cheap. It really is the most marvellous chance.’

It was. He knew that well enough. Opportunity doesn’t knock a second time upon the door that will not open. He saw that quite clearly. And he saw the things that would come in if he opened the door. There would be a lot of hard work, and he hated work. There would be Je

Je

‘Do you think I could make a go of it?’

Je

Chapter Eighteen

The Deanery party broke up in due course. Everyone told Mrs. Mayhew how much they had enjoyed it, and in most cases they spoke no more than the truth. Louisa Arnold, coming back into her own house with her cousin, was really quite reluctant to admit that the evening was over and to say good night. It was so very pleasant to linger by what was left of the drawing-room fire and gossip for a while.

‘I am really quite charmed with Candida Sayle, but, my dear, did it not strike you that Stephen was too?’

Miss Silver smiled. She could have expressed it a good deal more strongly than that, but she refrained.

‘And, my dear Maud, did you notice Derek Burdon and that nice girl I was telling you about, Je

‘He is very good-looking.’

‘Oh, quite charming. And he really plays delightfully. Not highbrow enough for Mrs. Mayhew, but she can’t help liking him – no one can. He has been dangling after Je

Miss Silver was wearing the dark blue crêpe-de-chine. With the gold locket which bore her parents initials in high relief and contained locks of their hair, it supplied her modest needs. For the party at the Deanery she had subsituted light silk stockings for her usual wool, changed during the summer months for lisle thread. With an almost new pair of glacé shoes, she had felt very well equipped. She said a little primly,

‘I do not fancy that Miss Olivia has any chance of seeing her wishes fulfilled. Young people have a way of taking these matters into their own hands.’

‘Oh, yes, indeed!’ But Olivia always has to have things her way. She was like that as a child, and she could be very nasty indeed if she was crossed.’

‘No one can expect to have his own way all the time.’

‘Well, Olivia does. And she bullies Cara shockingly – she always has. Maud, didn’t you think she was looking terribly ill? I really felt quite concerned.’

‘Miss Cara?’

Louisa Arnold nodded.

‘I thought she looked terrible. And all that black – so unbecoming.’ She looked down complacently at her own full skirt of mauve and blue brocade. ‘But of course it is just about three years since Alan Thompson went off in that extraordinary way. Cara was always one for keeping a