Charlotte instantly looked alarmed and protested that he was not fit, and that the doctor’s advice should be followed to the letter; but her invalid merely requested her politely to leave the room, and suggested that perhaps Hannah would help him to dress. He was not exactly wobbly on his feet, but it would accelerate things if she lent him a hand.
“But there’s no hurry – ” Charlotte protested.
Richard Tremarth began to look slightly like a hunted man.
“There is a good deal of hurry,” he asserted. “When Miss Brown arrives I have no intention whatsoever of entertaining her up here, and outside in the garden she, too, will get the benefit of the sea air.” He grinned sideways, almost boyishly, at Charlotte. “I don’t feel my own man lying in a bed with a girl like Miss Brown sitting feeding me grapes and offering to read extracts from the daily newsprint aloud to me,” he confessed. “Besides, it isn’t fair to her.”
Charlotte couldn’t prevent herself from being awkward.
“Why isn’t it?” she demanded. “Presumably the only reason she’s down here at all is because you’re unwell?”
“Is it?” His white teeth flashed in his thin brown face as Hannah stood ready with his dressing-gown, having already placed his slippers within easy reach of the bed. “You don’t think I’m the fortunate one to be visited by anyone as dazzlingly attractive as Miss Brown, and that in order to show my appreciation I ought to make an effort, at least?” Charlotte looked openly taken aback, and Hannah smiled in an amused fashion which she endeavoured to make secret as she urged that he should take his time over getting out of bed, and asked whether he liked a really hot bath, or whether he preferred it merely tepid.
“I think you’d better leave us now,” she said in an aside to Charlotte, and the latter made no further references to Miss Brown and went downstairs feeling very much as if she had been snubbed, or at any rate put in her rightful place.
She went through to the kitchen to inspect the contents of the larder and plan the meals for the day, and it was while she and Mrs. Ricks, the daily help, were discussing the curious obstinacy of men when they were unwell, having already discussed the rival merits of junket and rice pudding as a sweet for lunch, that the local taxi made its appearance in the drive, and the enchanting Miss Claire Brown was decanted at the foot of the terrace steps.
She was dressed all in blue this morning – a light, azure blue that lent her a slightly angelic appearance, and plainly had the local taxi-driver slightly bemused as he accepted a generous-sized tip for his services so far, and arranged to pick her up in the same somewhat decrepit taxi at about six o’clock that evening.
“By which time our invalid will be feeling a little exhausted, I imagine,” she said as she turned to confront Charlotte, who had emerged from the house to greet her. “By the way, how is he?” she asked. “Much better, I hope?”
“He seems better, and he says that he is very much better,” the mistress of Tremarth informed her a little stiffly – she was afraid there was a smudge of flour on her cheek, and she had most unfortunately forgotten to remove her apron. The taxi-man’s eyes, although they widened with a modest amount of appreciation at sight of her, didn’t glow in the slightly fanatical way that they did as they returned to his fare, all light blue and golden.
“Oh, that’s splendid,” Claire replied, looking really pleased. “I was half afraid I might have exhausted him yesterday.”
She accompanied her hostess into the house.
“I’m a little early, I’m afraid,” she apologised, “but I did say I wanted to spend the whole of the day with him. Can I go straight upstairs to his room?” making for the staircase.
But Charlotte took quite an acute pleasure in preventing her.
“As a matter of fact, you won’t have to go upstairs,” she said. “The doctor suggested Mr. Tremarth should get up for a few hours, and he’s coming downstairs. If you like, you can go and sit in the drawing-room until he comes down, and I’ll bring you some coffee. Or you can wander in the garden… as you please! ”
Miss Brown looked displeased at being prevented from ascending the handsome oak staircase. She said something about doctors doing the most extraordinary things nowadays, and elected to go and sit in the drawing-room, to which Charlotte shortly afterwards carried a tray of coffee and some of her own home-made shortbread biscuits. Miss Brown disdained the biscuits, but accepted a cup of black coffee, and in between smoking a cigarette and sipping her coffee let her eyes rove openly round the room and commented on it as being quite a treasure-house.
“You seem to have quite a collection of antiques,” she remarked, “and although I don’t know much about these things I’d say that some of them are valuable. That rosewood desk over there, for instance – ” nodding at it – “looks like Sheraton to me, and I’d say that’s a very valuable picture in the alcove. If you’re ever hard up you can make money on these things.”
Charlotte studied her.
“Mr. Tremarth wanted to buy them – all of them! ” she emphasised.
Miss Brown looked only partially surprised.
“Yes, I did hear he was interested in making a purchase down here in Cornwall,” she admitted. “After all, he’s Cornish, isn’t he?” as if that explained the slight idiosyncrasy. Her light eyebrows crinkled in a frown. “Personally, I wouldn’t choose to have my headquarters in an out of the way place like this, but if you don’t have to remain tied to it it’s not so bad.” She nodded her charming golden head, as if to give emphasis to her thoughts and to convince herself. “Yes; under the circumstances I think I could put up with it, and after all this is a very attractive house.”
“What circumstances?” Charlotte enquired bluntly.
Miss Brown turned her lovely light blue eyes upon her. And then she smiled – very deliberately, and a little provokingly.
“Oh, come now, Miss Woodford,” she said, “you don’t have to have all your i’s dotted and all your t’s crossed, do you? I rather gathered from Richard that you were terribly shrewd and hard-headed – this was when he met you first of all, of course, and before his accident. When you told me just now that he wanted to buy all this – this conglomeration of good and bad furniture and other odds and ends,” waving a hand to indicate the room’s contents, “I knew that he was interested. I told you so last night, as a matter of fact, and you chose to be coy about his offer to buy. But if you want me to tell you why I'm interested “well, you might as well know that I’m not just Richard’s secretary. In fact, I’m not his secretary at all! ” “Oh, really?” Charlotte exclaimed, staring directly and rather fixedly at her.
Miss Brown inhaled a deep puff of smoke, and then exhaled it very gradually.
“I did work for him once – about a year ago,” she admitted. “I wanted a job, and he found me one. But I’ve known him for several years, and I think you can take it that we’re very good friends. In fact -
But at this stage of her revelations Richard himself chose to make his appearance, having somewhat slowly descended the stairs, and Claire rushed at him and seemed to be quite overcome by the sight of him standing on his own two feet once more.
“Oh, darling!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Richard, how wonderful to see you up and about again! I was so afraid I’d exhausted you yesterday, but I must have been good for you after all.”
Richard seemed very glad to reach a chair on the terrace, and he seemed even more appreciative when Charlotte stuffed a cushion in behind his shoulders and he was able to lie back comfortably, and
Hannah draped a rug across his knees because of the keenness of the morning breeze.
“This is good,” he declared, as his eyes rested contentedly on the line of blue sea. “This is very good indeed!”
Claire drew another of the comfortable terrace chairs up close beside him, and Charlotte accepted the hint and withdrew into the house. Hannah, a little more loath, apparently, to leave her patient alone with his visitor, retreated after lingering for a minute or so longer, and when she joined Charlotte and Mrs. Ricks in the kitchen she confessed that she was not entirely happy that Miss Brown intended to remain for the whole of the day.