The Alington Inheritance

“I’d better go if they’re expecting me,” he said, and paused, hesitating. And went.

Je

Chapter VI

Mac and Alan only stayed for a bare twenty-four hours. Mac was two years down from Oxford and in process of becoming a barrister. Je

She didn’t think a great deal about Alan. He was a boy, just down from Oxford. Quite a nice boy if he could get over being so afraid of his mother-and of Mac. He was very like his father to look at. She wasn’t so sure if he was really like him. She had been very fond of Colonel Forbes, and she had been aware of something in him which she missed in Alan. Colonel Forbes had not so much given way to his wife as stood out of her way. More and more as the years went on, he had avoided her, not in the way of offence or bad temper, but where their opinions differed-well, he made a point of not being there to be differed from. And more and more he had withdrawn into his library.

Je

She thought that Alan had cared-she hoped that he had. He was abroad when his father died, and she didn’t see him for three months. Mac didn’t care, or only just a little. But then Mac was different. Je

She settled easily enough into the routine of the house. It wasn’t so very different from what she had been accustomed to. Until she left school she had bicycled the four miles into Camingford every morning and bicycled back at tea-time. After that she had spent her days at Alington helping to nurse Joyce when she was ill and teaching Meg. She didn’t want to do anything else. She was quite happy. She had been head girl at her school, but she didn’t want to go on to college. She was quite content to look after Meg and Joyce, and to see the boys at week-ends. That they came home much oftener than they used to did not strike her at all. She took it quite naturally. But now there was a change. Living in the house, things struck her that she hadn’t noticed before. Or perhaps “struck” is the wrong word. There was nothing as definite as that. It was just that, the strangeness having worn off a little, there was something left that hadn’t been there before. She couldn’t get nearer to it than that.

As the second Saturday came round, Meg and Joyce began to wonder openly whether Mac and Alan would come down for the week-end.

“They don’t ever come two weeks ru

“They did in the summer.”

“That was on a special occasion. I remember it quite well. It was for A

“August’s a stupid time to have a birthday. Everyone’s away.”

“Mac and Alan weren’t away.”

“Perhaps that’s why she was born then.”

“When?”

“In August, stupid!” Joyce made a face and put out her tongue.

“I’m not,” said Meg with dignity. “And it’s very vulgar to make faces like that.”

“Who says it is?”

“Mother does.”

“Oh-”

Je

“Who’ll get to the elm tree first?” she said in a laughing voice, and the three of them raced away over the lawn to the big elm which creaked so horribly in winter, and which the gardener, old Jackson, always said was only biding its time. “Nasty trees, ellums,” he would say. “No one ought to have ’em in the garden. Churchyard trees, that’s what they are, and there they may bide for me. That ’ere tree ought to come down, miss. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it fifty times for sure.”

“Well, it’s no good saying it to me,” said Je

Jackson looked at her. He remembered her mother. “Features her proper,” he thought, “but more of a way with her.”

It rained in the afternoon, so they didn’t go out. The little girls were going to have tea with their old nurse, Mrs. Crane, who lived with her daughter just on the other side of the village. They kept on going to the windows and looking out to see if it had stopped raining.

Mrs. Forbes came in and gave orders that they were not to go unless there was a reasonable probability of their getting there dry.

“It doesn’t matter so much about their coming back, but they must get there dry,” she said in her sharp, imperious way. “I shall be out in the opposite direction so I can’t take them-I’m going to the Raxalls. You’ll be going with the children of course.”

Je

“Well, I thought if you didn’t mind I’d stay at home and let Carter go. She’s such friends with Na

“Oh, yes-I’d forgotten. Well, if they can get there dry they can go.”

She was gone again without waiting for an answer. It wasn’t her place to wait for answers. She gave an order and it was carried out, as she knew it would be when she gave it.

The rain was slackening off, when the door opened and Mac and Alan walked in. Meg and Joyce gave squeals of joy and flung themselves on them.

“Mother seems to be out, and we’ve come to tea.”

“We didn’t expect you this week,” said Je

Mac smiled at her. He might do worse. He might do much worse. She could have been a plain lump, and here she was, very far from being plain. Very, very far indeed.

Alan had the two little girls one in each arm and was swinging them. Mac leaned a little closer to Je

“Have you missed me, Jen?” he said softly.