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The Squire laughed at that, a laugh that had very little mirth in

it.

“You’ve
lost money!” His keen, grey eyes swept Edmund from head to foot. “I dare say you have, but even at that it was my money you were losing.”

“I didn’t ask to come here,” Edmund flashed, throwing the mutilated end of his cigarette into the hearth. “That was your idea.”

“I’m tempted to think it would have been a better bargain all round to have left you where you were—where you might have had to work for a living and where you would certainly not have had the money to invest in worthless stocks and shares. I gave a promise to your mother—my sister—but I wonder if I have carried out her dying wish to do the best for you!”

The older man’s voice was deadly calm now, and it was tinged with more than the iciness of contempt. There was a note of definite dislike in it which Edmund was not slow to detect. He could not afford, he considered, to antagonise his uncle at the moment, for he was more deeply involved than even the letter before them disclosed. Debts had mounted up during the past year with amazing rapidity. He had gambled and lost, but he still thought that it was his destiny to gamble and win. He forced himself to think rapidly. It was necessary to play for time.

“I don’t suppose it’s any use saying I’m sorry, Uncle. Ten thousand is a lot of money and it would take me a lifetime to pay it back to you ...” He hesitated, waiting for Veycourt to speak, but the Squire made no sign. “I can assure you it will be the last time you have to complain of me,” he continued. “I will even look out for a job.”

He offered the last remark in the nature of a feeler. It was essential that he should know what the Squire was about to do.

Veycourt continued to gaze at him steadily. He had long deplored his nephew’s idleness, but he remembered, only too well, the result of trying to force his own son into a job from which he shrank. The Squire was a proud man, proud of his name and his inheritance, and Edmund was his sister’s son. His name could be changed by deed-poll. He had Veycourt blood in him— somewhere! Even Edmund was preferable to extinction, the Squire thought, half angrily.

“We’ll talk no more of paying back,” he said gruffly, “but we may talk again of a job for you. When you’ve made up your mind what you want to do, come and see me and we’ll talk it over.”

Edmund left the study with a lighter heart, although he had not yet found a solution to the problem of his existing debts. He could not very well ask his uncle for any great sum of money now, he reflected. Not, at least, until he had mollified the old man by making a show of working. He wondered idly what he could find to do that would be of interest to him and keep him amused, in the name of work.

He passed along the narrow corridor which led to the gunroom, his dark brows drawn together in thought. Swinging the heavy door open, he was surprised to see Victor Monset seated before the bench which stretched the length of the long window, his charcoal poised above his thick sketching block.

“Drawing guns, Monset?” he asked.

The artist looked round and shrugged expressively.

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever noticed the view from this window,” he said laconically.

“Not particularly,” Edmund admitted. “When I come here I come to clean my guns—not to moon out of windows!”

Monset’s remark had irritated him, and it annoyed Edmund that it should do so, for he knew Monset was given to such remarks. It was the fellow’s way—intriguing enough when you were in the right mood for it, but out of place sometimes.

“Did you see your uncle?” Monset asked, without looking up from his work. “He was asking for you after lunch. He was in one of his lion moods, I believe.”

Edmund’s face darkened.

“Yes, I saw him.”

He came over to the window and stood looking down at the half-completed sketch which lay before the artist. Monset had captured all the beauty of the view from the gun-room window with a few light strokes: the rolling moorland sloping away from the Hall; the line of trees which was the avenue of Conningscliff; the farm itself, nestling in its sheltered hollow, and beyond, the gradual sweep of the land towards the shadowy hills of the Border with the snow-capped peak of the Cheviot shimmering vaguely in the background.

Hersheil raised his eyes and gazed out on the scene his companion had reproduced so faithfully, but there was little appreciation of beauty in his regard.

“I’ve landed myself in a complete hole,” he confessed. “I persuaded my uncle to invest quite a bit of money in some stock I could have staked my reputation on, and my infernal luck being what it is at the moment, the bottom’s fallen completely out of them. He’s in for ten thousand, and he’s not too pleased about it, I can assure you!”

Victor Monset whistled.

“And what are you in for?” he asked.

“A hundred or two—not a great deal, if one had the money,” Edmund confessed.

“And I take it you—haven’t?”

Hersheil laughed.

“Not a bean! And I’m up to the ears in debt into the bargain.”

Monset wondered if he was expected to feel sorry for this man who was even beyond his contempt.

“Why don’t you look for work?” he asked abruptly.

“I’ve already promised to do that.”

Edmund was still gazing out of the window and his eyes were fixed on the tops of the thatched stacks in the Conningscliff yard. Suddenly his expression changed, and there was a strange gleam in his eyes when he turned towards Victor Monset.

“You’ve heard of the saying about killing two birds with the same stone, I suppose,” he said lightly. “Well, I’ve just discovered how I might be able to please my uncle and amuse myself at the same time. Also, I believe I might say that I have found a job at last!”

“If it’s a job to your liking, it might be interesting to know what it is,” Monset remarked.

“I’ll tell you—all in good time!” was Edmund’s only reply.

CHAPTER SIX

During that Easter week Ruth noticed that John Travayne spent a good deal of his time with her father. She often heard them deep in their discussions of crops and new methods of tilling as she went back and forth about her many tasks, and it gave her a gentle sense of well-being to feel that the invalid had congenial company that might keep him from dwelling too much on his unfortunate state.

That this new friendship was not conducive to the peace of mind of another dweller under Conningscliff’s red-tiled roof was very obvious. Valerie Grenton had done everything in her power to make Travayne join the small, organised trips which the rest of the guests took each day, but in vain. Travayne, without offending anyone but Valerie, declared that he preferred to wander about the place and see the countryside without the aid of a high-powered car. Valerie, who had never walked more than half a mile in her short, pampered lifetime, quite frankly could not understand his preference. Once or twice she told herself jealously that Ruth was the attraction in the vicinity of Conningscliff, but when she stayed back from a drive to the Lake District to prove her surmise correct, she was forced to admit that Ruth had little time from her duties about the farm to be much in John’s company.

It was on the day of the run to Scotland that Ruth first noticed signs of Valerie’s desire to monopolise John Travayne. Ruth, with the help of her father who knew the road well, had mapped out a full day’s run to the famous Melrose Abbey.

“I thought if you went by Wooler,” she explained to the Finchleys, who were growing more enthusiastic about this northern corner of Northumberland with each passing day, “you could visit Flodden Field either going or coming back.”

“Oh yes—of course, it’s near here, isn’t it?” the younger Mrs. Finchley exclaimed. “I’d love to do that. It’s all so romantic!”

“There isn’t very much to see at Flodden,” Ruth warned her. “I’m afraid it’s just a rather bleak moor, but if you have imagination, it might help you to see something of the struggle which took place there.” She paused, turning to include Valerie in the conversation. “I’d suggest the road from Coldstream to Kelso along the banks of the Tweed after that,” she went on. “It’s part of the glorious Scott country, and well worth a visit.”

“I’d like to go to Jedburgh,” someone remarked from the edge of the group.

“You can come back by Teviotdale,” Ruth told them, “and either branch off there for home or continue over Carter Barr to Otterburn. Otterburn is the longer way, of course, but a better road. In fact, it might be safer to choose that route.”

“We’d better have it marked on the map,” George Finchley said, drawing out his road map, and Ruth leaned over the table with him and traced the route she had suggested.

The remainder of the guests began to pile into the waiting cars, and the two Finchley children clamoured round their father, urging him to hurry before most of the day was gone.

“Run and tell Mr. Travayne we are ready to start,” Valerie commanded Ernestine Wilton. “Tell him he’s holding up the procession!”

Ruth, who knew that John Travayne was over in the North Meadow with Will Finberry examining a sick cow, felt the telltale colour mounting to her cheeks. She had asked Travayne to join the party for Melrose earlier in the morning, and he had told her that he preferred to stay at the farm.

“I don’t think Mr. Travayne is going to-day,” she said to the party in general, but she knew that Valerie Grenton’s antagonistic stare was upon her the moment she had spoken.

“Oh, well,” Valerie said sharply, her face flushing with suppressed anger, “there’s no need to keep everyone waiting. Are we all ready?”

Valerie would go with the party, Ruth knew, because she was angry and piqued by John Travayne’s desire to remain at Conningscliff.

“We’ll have some lunch at Jedburgh,” George Finchley called back as the cars moved away. “We should be back in nice time for tea.”

Ruth watched them go, Valerie Grenton’s big white car the last in the short line. As they passed the North Meadow, John Travayne and Will Finberry came to the hedge to wave to the children. There was spontaneous response from every car but the last. Valerie drove past looking fixedly ahead.

After seeing the party off, Ruth found Peg Emery in the kitchen collecting the bowls for the morning’s baking.

“That cow’s fair sick, Miss Ruth, hinny,” Peg said. “I’ve just been tellin’ the farmer here, we’ll be havin’ her laid up on our hands afore the day’s over.”

“I hope not, Peg,” Ruth replied. “Have you started the butter yet?”

“I’ve had no time, hinny,” Peg replied. “Breakfast was late, as you know, an’ that Sally Bingle, she’s never come in this morning, so I’ve had all the washin’ up to do myself.”

Ruth smiled. She knew that the remark was a gentle reminder that she had wasted precious time gossiping to the guests before they left. She crossed to the table and took the baking utensils from Peg.

“I’ll do the scones, Peg,” she said. “You get on with your butter.”

“What about them Sally Lunns Mr. Travayne is so fond o’?” Peg asked.

“I’ll try my hand at them, too,” Ruth laughed. “Let’s see, now.

How does the recipe go? Half a pound of flour, one egg, half an ounce of yeast, some salt—”

“Sugar—not salt!” corrected Peg, who was the Sally Lunn expert.

“One ounce of butter and quarter of a pint of tepid milk!” Ruth finished triumphantly.

“Well, there’s your flour in the bowl,” Peg said. “I’ve creamed the yeast an’ the sugar, an’ the butter’s melting in the milk on the hob. Can you manage?” she added doubtfully.

“Perfectly!”

Ruth brought her bowl over and sat down beside her father, beating the mixture on her knee.

“Peg doesn’t believe that anyone who was trained at an Agricultural College, as I was, can do anything right. She insists that I’ve learned all my useful attributes since my return to Conningscliff!” She paused to grease three cake rings and put her dough into them. “Now these have to be left for an hour and a half to rise, then baked in a hot oven for twenty minutes. I’ll leave you to keep an eye on them, Dad.”

She smiled as she returned to the table to sieve more flour. An hour passed as her busy hands went about a hundred and one tasks, but the Lunns were cooked and Ruth was glazing them with a mixture of castor-sugar and milk when John Travayne appeared at the kitchen doorway.

She put the Sally Lunns back into the cooling oven to dry.

“What about the cow?” she asked, as he came through and sat down beside the farmer.

“She’ll do, I think,” he said. “Finberry is going to stay with her for a bit, and if need be he’ll bring her inside.”

“It was kind of you to go down with Will,” Ruth said gratefully.

“Nonsense!” he laughed. “Look at the practical experience of farming I’m getting!”

He turned to her father and held a taper to the fire for the farmer to light his pipe. Until she called them for lunch Ruth heard the pleasant cadence of their voices in conversation, filling the kitchen and her heart with its pleasant sound.

The table cleared and the last plates stacked in their place, she reached for her basket and prepared to collect the eggs from the hen-houses in the far enclosure. Will Finberry was with her father now, and they were deep in discussion about the sick cow.