In Distant Fields Read Free Page A

went back into the dining room, shutting the door behind him, and Kitty slipped quickly out of the front door. What a boon for her to know that her father still owed the Earl of Caulfield a great deal of money.
    She shot out of the front door and started to walk at breakneck speed towards the pawnbroker’s shop, always and ever known discreetly in their house as the ‘shop on the corner’. Pawnbrokers always gave a better price than jewellers. She would always loathe going there, but this morning she cared less, for if Mr Trinder would give her enough money to go to stay at Bauders Castle, she would be only too grateful.
    â€˜ Good morning, Miss Rolfe. How nice to see you again.’
    Mr Trinder was tall, with an ample figure that Kitty always thought must be a direct result of all the money he had made from everyone else’s misfortunes.
    â€˜Good morning, Mr Trinder.’
    Kitty seated herself on the gold chair by the counter, placing her mother’s diamond ring on the cushion in front of them both. As soon as he saw it Trinder took out his enlarging glass and studied it, before wordlessly disappearing into the back of his premises.
    Kitty waited. She knew the ring was worth a great deal of money. It had the blue glow that valuable old diamonds always had. Mr Trinder returned shortly, looking poker-faced, if slightly pinker.
    â€˜Just remember I am not a bank,’ he said with a sigh, stroking his double chin slowly and pretending once more to smile. ‘Everyone hereabouts thinks I am but I simply trade on interest. I hardly make a thing on the gewgaws people bring to me. I hardly make a farthing, let alone a penny, let alone a shilling.’
    He laughed rather too loudly at the thought of making a shilling, shaking his head slowly while all the time carefully watching Kitty.
    â€˜Hmmm,’ he said as he replaced the ring on the cushion. ‘This is a delightful piece. Quite delightful. It will be an honour to have this in my case.’
    He smiled again, and Kitty wished for perhaps the twentieth time that he would not. Mr Trinder’s smile was not a pretty sight.
    â€˜I am quite sure it will be an honour,’ Kitty told him primly. ‘It is a beautiful diamond.’
    â€˜Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘As I am saying, this is adelightful piece, most delightful. And I dare say you are expecting a sizeable loan on this, are you not? I most certainly would be, on such a delightful piece of jewellery, most certainly. So today I might have to be even more generous than is my custom. Particularly since it is soon to be Christmas, and the time when we should be thinking of others – and doing our best to put our good feet forward. Do you not think so? Most certainly I do, most certainly. So shall we perhaps say this? Would that be satisfactory, young miss?’
    Having written a sum on a pad on the counter, Trinder turned it round so that Kitty could see. Fortunately Kitty had been brought up by her mother to cope with the Mr Trinders of this world, tradesmen who presented their accounts twice, and all manner of other tricks.
    â€˜That will not be enough, Mr Trinder, and you and I both know it.’ Kitty did her best to look stern and unyielding.
    â€˜You are, of course, right, Miss Rolfe. Perhaps we may settle on my second figure? I do hope we may.’
    Kitty stared at the second hastily written figure, and then at Mr Trinder.
    â€˜Very well, Mr Trinder, plus, I think, a little more, don’t you?’
    Some minutes later Kitty left Mr Trinder’s premises, an envelope full of more money than she would have ever hoped to possess stuffed in her coat pocket.
    Afraid of going home and bumping into her father before he left for Biddlethorpe Hall, she headed for the park, for the sight of the ducks and the swans, the other people, their dogs and their children, all the time grasping the envelope in her pocket so tightly that it might almost have been a helping