The Rich Are with You Always Read Free Page A

fourth time since dinner, Nora thought it a good occasion to leave them. On her way to the door Hetty Beador, Sir George's sister, beckoned to her.
      "If you really are intending to leave tomorrow, Mrs. Stevenson," she said, barely above a whisper, so that Nora had to lean close, "Madame Rodet is in the library. I know she has something particular to say to you."
      Nora thanked her and looked uncertainly at the two doors she might use, one leading through the hall, the other through the ballroom. "Take the candle on the bureau," Miss Beador said. "That will light you through the ballroom."
      Nora stepped tentatively into the great, dark chamber, where everything was kept shrouded except at the big festivities. Now, if this were my room…she thought, beginning a favourite game. But a roar of laughter from the gentlemen, still at their port, interrupted her. She did two solemn steps from a waltz, being careful with the candle flame, and then began to wonder what Madame Rodet could want.
      Rodet was the ironfounder who had supplied rail for part of the Paris–Rouen line, which John had partnered the great Thomas Brassey in building back in 1841. Since the coming of the railways to France, Rodet had prospered. Beginning as a small, well-established patron of the third or fourth generation, he had in less than ten years become one of his country's foremost ironmasters. How he had come to know Sir George Beador she had not yet learned; but she knew it was Rodet who had put Sir George up to this notion of investing in ironfounding as a way of making more money than his rents and bonds could fetch in. And it was Rodet, too, who had suggested John Stevenson as a likely partner. He had even been here on their arrival at Maran Hill to introduce John and herself to the Beadors; but he had left for France within the hour.
      "He doesn't want to get caught between us until things are settled," John said.
      Nora did not believe that that was a complete explanation.
      Madame Rodet had stayed on to enjoy a fortnight with the Hertfordshire
    and the Puckeridge, for Sir George hunted with both packs. She was the sort of follower Nora had little time for. She rode well enough, very correctly, but she didn't go. She was content to drop behind the field early in a chase and was delighted at every check, when she would mill around with the "at home" crowd and lose all interest in the hunt itself. In short, she hunted merely in order to ride. Nora, thinking they had little in common, looked forward to their meeting with no very special interest.
      At first she did not see Madame Rodet. But when the door latch sprang softly back into its mortise, part of what she had taken to be the upholstery of the high-back sofa moved. It was Madame's lace cap.
      "Mrs. Stevenson," she called. "I hoped you would come." Her welcome was very warm; that and the charm of her accent made it hard for Nora to persist in her indifference.
      "How do you see to embroider just by the firelight?" Nora wondered aloud.
      "Oh!" It was a Gallic laugh. "I can do it when I am sleeping even, you know." She patted the sofa beside her, next to the fire. "Please."
      Nora put the candle on the table before them and sat. She shivered at the heat. "I didn't know how chill it had got."
      "Tskoh!" Madame Rodet looked intensely at her, with a curious angry sympathy. She had a face like an eagle. "You must drink whiskey. Yes. It's good."
       Oh dear, Nora thought, realizing that the other had believed her to say she'd got a chill. Her heart sank at the prospect of the misunderstandings to come. "What are you making?" she asked.
      Madame Rodet stabbed two more deft stitches in to complete one small leaf in a formal arrangement of peacocks and vines; the embroidery was barely begun, most of the design was still just pencilled in.
      The more Nora looked at it, the more she marvelled at its intricacy. "Did you make all that up?" she asked.
      "Oh