Hell Or High Water. Anne Mather

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СКАЧАТЬ at least have discussed it with me first?’

      Mrs Chase expelled her breath on a long sigh, and then replied carefully: ‘We have discussed it, Helen. You know that as well as I do. And there is no other solution.’

      ‘How can you say that?’ Helen made a gesture of frustration. ‘After Charles and I are married——’

      ‘Yes? After you and Charles are married—what?’ Mrs Chase viewed her daughter with fond affection. ‘My dear, Charles won’t want to live at King’s Green, and as far as keeping two homes going is concerned …’ she shook her head, ‘It’s simply not feasable.’

      ‘But there must be something we can do.’ Helen paced restlessly across the room, the silky dark hair that resisted all efforts to curl curving under her chin as she moved. She wore it in a simple but effective style, parting it centrally, and allowing the two sides to hang loosely to her shoulders; but now she pushed it carelessly behind her ears, too disturbed by what she had learned to pay any attention to her appearance.

      ‘There’s not,’ her mother assured her now, resuming the sewing which Helen had interrupted. ‘Since your father died things have gone from bad to worse, and it’s a relief to me to know that you at least aren’t going to suffer by it.’

      ‘Am I not?’ Helen sounded less than convinced, and her mother looked up once again.

      ‘Darling, you’re getting married in August. And naturally I’m hoping we can stay here until then. Your father would have wanted it that way. But after the wedding …’

      Helen hunched her slim shoulders. ‘I still think you’re acting hastily. I mean, anything can happen between now and August.’

      ‘Nothing that’s likely to make the slightest improvement in our financial position,’ replied her mother dryly, used toher daughter’s attempts to dissuade her from even considering the idea of selling. ‘And quite frankly, my dear, I’m tired of living this hand-to-mouth existence.’

      ‘But why involve Margot Urquart?’ demanded Helen, clinging to straws now. ‘I mean—oh, you know what she’s like! And this man, whoever he is, is just the latest in a long line of hangers-on——’

      ‘Jarret Manning is hardly a hanger-on, darling,’ Mrs Chase remarked evenly, returning to her sewing.

      ‘Jarret Manning!’ Helen pursed her lips. ‘Imagine selling King’s Green to someone like him!’

      Her mother showed a little impatience now. ‘I enjoy Jarret Manning’s work, Helen, and I see no reason for you to criticise the man when you don’t even know him.’

      ‘Nor do you,’ retorted Helen shortly, and her mother subjected her to a pitying appraisal.

      ‘It seems to me, Helen, that whoever eventually buys King’s Green, you won’t be satisfied. At least, with Margot’s intervention, we may be spared the humiliation of having to advertise the house and show crowds of curious sightseers over the grounds.’

      ‘What makes you think Jarret Manning isn’t just a curious sightseer?’ demanded her daughter crossly, and Mrs Chase uttered a sound of irritation. ‘Well,’ continued Helen defensively, ‘he was born in Stepney or Tooting or some such place, wasn’t he? Hardly the background of someone who might find the peace and beauty of King’s Green to their taste!’

      ‘You little snob!’ Mrs Chase stared at her daughter as if she had never seen her before. ‘Is that what you really think? Is that how you feel? Have I brought you up all these years to regard other people with such contempt?’

      ‘No, I——’ Helen had the grace to flush now, and the colour deepened becomingly beneath the honey-gold skin of her cheeks. ‘That is—oh, Mummy! Is there nothing else we can do?’

      ‘What do you suggest?’ Her mother was not inclined to be generous. ‘Turn the Flynns out of the home farm? They could never afford to buy it, but I suppose someone else might.’

      ‘No! No!’ Helen pushed her fingers through her hairin a revealing gesture. ‘But—Margot Urquart’s latest boy-friend!’

      Mrs Chase’s features softened slightly. ‘Look, I know you don’t like Margot,’ she said quietly, ‘but remember, Margot is not involved in the sale.’

      Helen shrugged. ‘Perhaps she is. Perhaps she’s serious this time. She’s always coveted King’s Green. Maybe she intends to share it with him.’

      Mrs Chase shook her head. ‘My dear Helen, if Margot had wanted to buy King’s Green, why didn’t she just say so?’

      Helen shrugged. ‘I doubt if she could stand being so far from London,’ she admitted, and then sighed. ‘Anyway, I wish you’d told me sooner. I’d have arranged to be out or something.’

      ‘That’s precisely why I didn’t tell you,’ retorted her mother firmly. ‘I had no intention of having to give Margot excuses as to why my daughter had absented herself. And besides, I want your opinion.’

      ‘Really?’ Helen sounded sceptical. ‘And if I don’t approve?’

      Mrs Chase put her sewing aside and rose to her feet. ‘I must go and speak to Mrs Hetherington. Margot said they expected to arrive about midday. If we have lunch at one-thirty, that should give us time to show Mr Manning the house first.’

      After her mother had left the room Helen walked disconsolately over to the windows, staring out with fierce possessiveness over the lawns and flower-beds that bordered the house. This was her home, it was the place where she had been born, and she knew every inch of it with the familiarity of long use. She could see the daffodils, growing in wild profusion between the old larch and fir trees, and she knew, without even looking, that the wooded slopes beyond would be starred with crocuses and pansies, the paths thick with a carpet of pine needles. How could she contemplate handing King’s Green over to some stranger without feeling this pang of helplessness and resentment? Particularly when the person involved was one of Margot Urquart’s young men!

      Of course, she really knew nothing about Jarret Manning, except what she had read on the flyleaf of one of thebooks her mother collected so avidly. The kind of political thriller he wrote, where the reader was never absolutely sure that what he was reading was fiction or fact, had never appealed to her. She preferred history, in all its various forms, but her mother found them fascinating and was obviously looking forward to meeting the author. There had been a picture of him, too, and it was this as much as anything which aroused Helen’s contempt now. He was young—twenty-five or thirty at most, while Margot had been in her mother’s year at school, and Mrs Chase was forty-two.

      Of course, Margot had been married, three times actually, but those associations had not lasted. She was much too susceptible to masculine flattery and attention, and her wealth and carefully preserved looks often attracted younger men. In her position as the daughter of the late Lord Conroy, himself a patron of the arts, Margot would be a very useful ally for a young author to have, decided Helen cynically, and she wondered how they had met.

      Her mother coming back into the drawing room at that moment interrupted her cogitation, and she tried to apply herself to what Mrs Chase was saying.

      ‘You’ll be happy to know that Mrs Hetherington agrees with you,’ the older woman declared tersely, helping herself to a cigarette from the box on the mantelshelf. ‘Really, I just happened to mention СКАЧАТЬ