Fragile Mask Read Free Page A

remembered then that earlier moment, when she had
seemed flurried. This was indeed mysterious.
    Putting down his cup, he leaned towards her, ‘What is it,
Unice? What are you thinking?’
    ‘ I have sometimes wondered...’ she began, and stopped,
shaking her head. ‘Osmond thinks me fanciful, but she is so very
serene that I have sometimes thought there is strangeness about
it—as if it is not quite right.’
    Denzell’s interest intensified. ‘What is not
right?’
    ‘ I don’t quite know. It is only something I feel, without
knowing quite what it is or why I should feel it. It is as if I
sense something underneath. A feeling, or a touch of—yes,
melancholy.’
    ‘ So that is why you used the term “poor girl”?’
    But Osmond was laughing. ‘Pay no heed to her, Hawk. My
darling, you always imagine melancholia in others when you are in
your present condition.’
    ‘ I know, my love, but in this case—’
    Denzell withdrew his attention from the
burgeoning squabble and addressed himself to his breakfast. To say
that he was intrigued would be putting it mildly—this female became
more and more alluring. To be sure, he had indulged in a good deal
of raillery in discussing the matter with his hosts, for, of
course, he was not really in love. He had enough experience to know
that these little tendres were transient
in nature.
    He had not yet met the woman with whom he might fall truly
in love, but he knew that when he did so there would be far more to
her than a beautiful face—animated or otherwise.
    But a little harmless flirtation with an exquisite creature
of the name of Verena Chaceley would certainly enliven his visit.
Besides, Osmond seemed to think he must inevitably fail, and that
in itself was a challenge. He must find a way to meet her as
speedily as possible.
    ***
     
    Miss Verena Chaceley, unaware either of having been
observed or of being a subject for discussion, was hurrying home to
Mama. She was feeling more than a little guilty, for she had been
gone over an hour, forgetful of the time in her preoccupation with
the children’s games. She hated to leave Mama, even for this short
time—although Betsey might be trusted to see to her rising. Only
the fresh brisk air had beckoned, and the children’s joyful cries
had drawn Verena like a magnet.
    How different from her own childhood. Laughter had been
rare. Oh, she and Adam had played, yes. Had forgotten even,
sometimes. But the shadow had pervaded their lives and could not
often be set aside.
    She had hoped to eradicate it here, thinking that with
distance the scars would heal, the fear die. She was wrong. Mama
seemed to be worsening, and Verena herself, instead of being
reassured by the passing of time, felt every day more hunted, more
at risk. She shivered, her gloved fingers clasping tighter within
the brown muff that hung from a cord about her neck.
    Then she set her teeth, annoyed with the little loss of
control. Well might she shiver, she told herself with defiance. It
was cold, was it not?
    Thrusting the thought away, she sped lightly in her snug
kid half-boots across the snowy square of ground that separated the
Ruishtons’ house from her lodging.
    It had been Verena’s deliberate choice to move up here once
she got the lie of Tunbridge Wells. The Ruishton property lay
between two other plots on the one side, while closest to the
lane—a curved departure from the main London Road that led down
past the Common towards the centre of the town that clustered about
the chalybeate spring and the Pantiles—were a number of houses with
smaller areas of land about them.
    The lodging house, of which Verena and her mother had hired
the better part, lay more or less opposite the Ruishtons’, largely
hidden from general sight within some fencing against other houses
round about, yet open to the fields. It had the merit of isolation,
Verena felt. For although it had not been possible to remain aloof
in a town like Tunbridge Wells—and for Mama’s