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after all I’m still the right side of fifty.’ He smiled a rather child-like and disarming smile. ‘I’ve got a small amount of capital. I’m wondering about buying a small place in the country. Going in for market gardening. Or chickens.’
‘Not chickens!’ said Ann. ‘I’ve several friends who have tried chickens—and they always seem to get diseases.’
‘No, perhaps market gardening would be better. One wouldn’t make much of a profit, perhaps, but it would be a pleasant life.’
He sighed.
‘Things are so much in the melting-pot. Perhaps if we get a change of government—’
Ann acquiesced doubtfully. It was the usual panacea.
‘It must be difficult to know what exactly to go in for,’ she said. ‘Quite worrying.’
‘Oh, I don’t worry. I don’t believe in worry. If a man has faith in himself and proper determination, every difficulty will straighten itself out.’
It was a dogmatic assertion and Ann looked doubtful.
‘I wonder,’ she said.
‘I can assure you that it is so. I’ve no patience with people who go about always whining about their bad luck.’
‘Oh, there I do agree,’ exclaimed Ann with such fervour that he raised his eyebrows questioningly.
‘You sound as though you had experience of something of the kind.’
‘I have. One of my daughter’s boy friends is always coming and telling us of his latest misfortune. I used to be sympathetic, but now I’ve become callous and bored.’
Mrs Massingham said across the table:
‘Hard-luck stories are boring.’
Colonel Grant said:
‘Who are you talking of, young Gerald Lloyd? He’ll never amount to much.’
Richard Cauldfield said quietly to Ann:
‘So you have a daughter? And a daughter old enough to have a boy friend.’
‘Oh yes. Sarah is nineteen.’
‘And you’re very fond of her?’
‘Of course.’
She saw a momentary expression of pain cross his face and remembered the story Colonel Grant had told her.
Richard Cauldfield was, she thought, a lonely man.
He said in a low voice:
‘You look too young to have a grown-up daughter …’
‘That’s the regulation thing to say to a woman of my age,’ said Ann with a laugh.
‘Perhaps. But I meant it. Your husband is—’ he hesitated—‘dead?’
‘Yes, a long time ago.’
‘Why haven’t you remarried?’
It might have been an impertinent question, but the real interest in his voice saved it from any false imputation of that kind. Again Ann felt that Richard Cauldfield was a simple person. He really wanted to know.
‘Oh, because—’ She stopped. Then she spoke truthfully and with sincerity. ‘I loved my husband very much. After he died I never fell in love with anyone else. And there was Sarah, of course.’
‘Yes,’ said Cauldfield. ‘Yes—with you that is exactly what it would be.’
Grant got up and suggested that they move into the restaurant. At the round table Ann sat next to her host with Major Massingham on her other side. She had no further opportunity of a tête-à-tête with Cauldfield, who was talking rather ponderously with Miss Graham.
‘Think they might do for each other, eh?’ murmured the colonel in her ear. ‘He needs a wife, you know.’
For some reason the suggestion displeased Ann. Jennifer Graham, indeed, with her loud hearty voice and her neighing laugh! Not at all the sort of woman for a man like Cauldfield to marry.
Oysters were brought and the party settled down to food and talk.
‘Sarah gone off this morning?’
‘Yes, James. I do hope they’ll have some good snow.’
‘Yes, it’s a bit doubtful this time of year. Anyway, I expect she’ll enjoy herself all right. Handsome girl, Sarah. By the way, hope young Lloyd isn’t one of the party?’
‘Oh no, he’s just gone into his uncle’s firm. He can’t go away.’
‘Good thing. You must nip all that in the bud, Ann.’
‘One can’t do much nipping in these days, James.’
‘Hm, suppose not. Still, you’ve got her away for a while.’
‘Yes. I thought it would be a good plan.’
‘Oh, you did? You’re no fool, Ann. Let’s hope she takes up with some other young fellow out there.’
‘Sarah’s very young still, James. I don’t think the Gerry Lloyd business was serious at all.’
‘Perhaps not. But she seemed very concerned about him when last I saw her.’
‘Being concerned is rather a thing of Sarah’s. She knows exactly what everyone ought to do and makes them do it. She’s very loyal to her friends.’
‘She’s a dear child. And a very attractive one. But she’ll never be as attractive as you, Ann, she’s a harder type—what do they call it nowadays—hard-boiled.’
Ann smiled.
‘I don’t think Sarah’s very hard-boiled. It’s just the manner of her generation.’
‘Perhaps so … But some of these girls could take a lesson in charm from their mothers.’
He was looking at her affectionately and Ann thought to herself with a sudden unusual warmth: ‘Dear James. How sweet he is to me. He really does think me perfect. Am I a fool not to accept what he offers? To be loved and cherished—’
Unfortunately at that moment Colonel Grant started telling her the story of one of his subalterns and a major’s wife in India. It was a long story and she had heard it three times before.
The affectionate warmth died down. Across the table she watched Richard Cauldfield, appraising him. A little too confident of himself, too dogmatic—no, she corrected herself, not really … That was only a defensive armour he put up against a strange and possibly hostile world.
It was a sad face, really. A lonely face …
He had a lot of good qualities, she thought. He would be kind and honest and strictly fair. Obstinate, probably, and occasionally prejudiced. A man unused to laughing at things or being laughed at. The kind of man who would blossom out if he felt himself truly loved—
‘—and would you believe it?’ the colonel came to a triumphant end to his story ‘—the Sayce had known about it all the time!’
With a shock Ann came back to her immediate duties and laughed with all the proper appreciation.
I
Ann woke on the following morning and for a moment wondered where she was. Surely, that dim outline of the window should have been on the right, not the left … The door, the wardrobe …
Then she