Gates of Dawn

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Book: Gates of Dawn Read Free
Author: Susan Barrie
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it was the effect of the new face-pack! Seeing them together it was easy for Melanie to decide that Richard was at least ten years younger than Mrs. Duplessis, and that he was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-five or forty.
    There was no effusion in their greeting. Eve offered him her cheek, which must have struck even him as remarkably cool and pleasant to the touch, and which smelled delightfully of some subtle perfume. Then they repaired to the library, where a tray of drinks were set forth on a handsome bu r l table, and Melanie accepted a glass of orange squash in preference to anything stronger, while her employer and her guest drank martinis.
    Richard Trenchard looked tall and broad-shouldered but rather elegantly spare as he stood there in front of the flower-filled fireplace, and his flinty grey eyes barely smiled as he acknowledged his sister ’ s uplifted glass.
    Lunch was served very soon after that, and the shining table in the dining-room was d ecorated with some gorgeous spik y mauve dahlias in a bowl of beaten Burmese silver.
    Richard appeared to wish to concentrate on his meal and not to indulge in conversation—not idle conversation, that is, for which he plainly had little time—and his sister ’ s polite questioning drew forth only monosyllabic responses.
    She asked him about the success of his current play, his recent visit to Italy, and how long he had stayed in Paris on the way back. About friends and relatives in London, including a certain Great-Aunt Amelia who resided, apparently, in a little house in Hill Street, and was remarkably hale for her age, which was close upon a hundred. She it was who was to leave Richard all she possessed when she did eventually depart this life, although Richard was in the fortunate position of being able to care little when, if ever, that event occurred.
    “ And Noel? How is she? ” Mrs. Duplessis inquired at last, when she seemed to be running out of conversational openings.
    Richard Trenchard frowned. Watching him secretly while she crumbled her bread Melanie thought that a muscle at one corner of his tightly compressed lips became tautened and twitched a little, as if he was suddenly possessed by a feeling of irritation, although his voice was quite level as he replied, “ I have been requested to remove her from her school. She is not, apparently, doing very well. ”
    “ Really? ” Eve ’ s eyebrows were upraised. “ You mean her work is not good? ”
    “ No, ” shortly, “ I mean her health. ”
    Mrs. Duplessis stared at him across the table, and since like her brother she seldom betrayed complete astonishment she merely, on this occasion, looked rather more interested than surprised.
    “ In what way is her health affected? ” she asked. Richard Trenchard refused the sweet course, but finished the remains of the excellent but very dry white wine with which his sister had regaled them during the meal, and which remained at the bottom of his glass.
    “ I don ’ t quite know, ” he confessed. “ But from the information I have received she is always catching colds and running high temperatures, and it is thought that the air of the East Coast is not entirely suited to her. Or at any rate the matron has decided that she would rather be rid of her responsibility. That ’ s why I ’ ve made up my mind to buy Wold House, if it ’ s at all worthy of purchase. ”
    “ I see, ” his sister commented. “ Well, probably it ’ s a good plan for you to have a more permanent kind of home than the flat which you now occupy in London—although I imagine you ’ ll keep that on as well?—but it seems a little hard that the responsibility for Andrew ’ s child should rest upon you, more especially as you happen to be a bachelor. I know, ” rather more hastily, “ that blood is thicker than water, and so forth, and poor Andrew naturally expected one of us would either take her or make arrangements for her welfare —”
    “ I don ’ t

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