Sixty Days to Live Read Free

is, Sam. We had money once, lots of it, and owned miles of country hereabouts; but a Stapleton, in Regency times, gambled nearly everything we had away, racing cockroaches and things. Now, farming doesn’t pay any longer and the family’s onits beam-ends. You may have noticed that the Lodge is empty and the drive all overgrown. Of course, I pulled your leg a little bit, just for fun, but Daddy really is most desperately poor.’
    ‘Well, perhaps we could rectify that.’ He smiled as he let the clutch in again. ‘Buy the place and let it to him for a peppercorn, or something.’
    She quickly shook her head. ‘For goodness’ sake don’t try to. He’s as proud as Lucifer and determined to die here rather than sell the place, even if the roof literally falls in. He wouldn’t accept a loan from one of his own relatives, so please don’t even mention the word money.’
    A quarter of a mile farther on they swept round the curve of a broad lake, beyond which lay a square, red brick Georgian house of moderate size.
    There was no butler to receive them but Gervaise Stapleton came out himself with his brother, Oliver, who was also down for the week-end, and Lavina’s elder sister, Margery.
    Although Gervaise Stapleton had not seen his errant favourite daughter for just over three years, he greeted her as naturally as though they had only parted the day before. He was a tall, white-haired man nearing sixty, with the same aristocratic features as Lavina and the same magnetic personality.
    Her Uncle Oliver was a less distinguished and more untidy replica of his elder brother. The best part of his life had been spent in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and his stooping shoulders were the result of the countless hours he had spent poring over abstruse astronomical calculations.
    Margery Stapleton was three years older than Lavina and seemed to have just missed all the qualities which made Lavina such an outstanding beauty. Her limbs were sturdier, her hair light-brown instead of natural gold, her mouth even smaller and a little thin; her nose more beaked and so too prominent in her otherwise handsome face.
    It was soon clear to Sam Curry that only one portion of the house was occupied; but the bedroom to which his host showed him had a cheerful wood fire burning in its grate.
    ‘We live very simply here, as Lavina will certainly have told you before she asked you down, so I fear you’ll have to unpack and fend for yourself,’ was Gervaise Stapleton’s only reference to his lack of servants.
    ‘I’m used to that,’ Sam lied cheerfully. It was twenty years since he had done anything but use his brain and give orders to others, but his age, his arrogance and his habit of taking it for granted that every service should be performed for him seemed to have unaccountably disappeared from the moment he had entered the half-derelict Georgian mansion.
    He felt almost a boy again and that it would have been more natural to accept a five-bob tip from Lavina’s father than to offer him financial assistance. There was a strange, compelling dignity about the tall white-haired figure, although Gervaise Stapleton was not the least stiff and his smiling blue eyes showed whence his younger daughter had got her sense of humour.
    On coming downstairs Sam found the family assembled in the library; a long, book-lined room furnished with an assortment of pieces from a dozen different periods, but all mellowed by time, so that nothing jarred. Gervaise loved his books and so had chosen it as the living-room when economy had compelled him to close up the others.
    As soon as he had a chance to talk to Margery, Sam discovered that she was as different mentally from Lavina as she was physically. The beautiful Lavina could be hard, but that was a sort of protective armour, whereas Margery’s hardness was a natural quality and, clearly, she was jealous of her younger sister.
    It transpired that she ran the house and looked after her father with only