The House at Bell Orchard Read Free Page B

to bear, dear brother,” he drawled at length. “You are in danger of being bullied into matrimony by our confoundedly autocratic father. Our stepmother is to be exiled to Bell Orchard to comfort the bereaved heiress—poor Lavinia, how she will hate it! And I? As you say, Miss Tarrant is scarcely aware of my existence.” He sipped reflectively at the brandy for a moment, and then turned with lazy grace, the voluminous cloak swirling about him. He was smiling. “But she will be made aware of it one day, my dear Harry,” he said softly. “Death itself is not more certain than that.”

 
    2
    A Time for Tears
    In the coach making its hasty way along the road to Richmond, Charmian Tarrant sat silent and unheeding, oblivious alike of the discomfort of that hurried journey and of the old gentleman beside her. She was frozen into a state of numb incredulity, her shocked mind refusing to accept the truth of the news which Mr. Brownhill, her father’s nearest neighbour, had so reluctantly brought
    Her thoughts went back to the events preceding this urgent journey, and the scenes unfolded in her memory with a clarity which as yet brought no pain, for they seemed to concern some person other than herself. She recalled the ballroom with its flowers and glittering chandeliers, and the shifting pattern of colour as the gaily-clad guests threaded the intricate movements of the dance. She had turned, laughing, to find Lavinia Fenshawe at her side, white with shock beneath the rouge, and had been led by her away from the music and the mirth to a quiet room where the Colonel and Mr. Brownhill were waiting.
    As gently as they could, they had broken the news that her father lay dead by his own hand, but Charmian had been unable to believe it. With mute disbelief she had allowed them to make what arrangements they chose, only rousing when she found herself in Mr. Brownhill’s coach and on the point of departure. Then, giving way for a moment to panic, she had frantically sought Colonel Fenshawe’s guidance, and been reassured by the promise that he and his wife would join her as soon as they could. It was perhaps strange that she should turn for comfort to this man who had been her father’s intimate for only two years, instead of to Mr. Brownhill whom she had known all her life, but the Colonel was a man of strong character and commanding personality, beside whom the kindly, well-meaning old magistrate faded into insignificance.
    Charmian Tarrant was an only child and an heiress; she was also a very lonely young woman. Her mother had died suddenly and tragically, in an accident nine years before, and her father, who had married late in life a lady many years his junior, had from that day withdrawn into an impenetrable aloofness. Always reserved and studious, with a deep interest in the past, he now immersed himself in his historical studies, and sought, by so doing, to ease the sting of his present sorrow.
    Throughout Charmian’s girlhood he had remained a kindly but remote figure, and only her deep affection for him had prevented her from revealing the resentment she often felt at their restricted way of life. She was a gentle and sweet-natured girl, but with spirit enough to rebel against the unexciting rhythm of her days. All their acquaintances were of her father’s generation, and on the rare occasions when Charmian did attend some private party or local assembly, she did so in the care of Mrs. Brownhill. This good lady was so conscious of the responsibility of chaperoning an heiress, and so terrified that her charge might fall into the clutches of some fortune-hunter, that she would scarcely permit the girl to leave her side.
    Mr. Tarrant was a wealthy man, and Charmian had inherited also a large fortune from a maternal uncle, and these facts, combined with a considerable degree of good looks, should have made it easy for her father to arrange for her an excellent marriage. He had made no attempt to do so, and as Charmian