United States or Malaysia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Go to-day and take Ellice, I am so much better alone; and by the time you come home perhaps I shall have been able to sleep it off." So Johnny Everard drove Ellice over to Starden that afternoon. Helen Everard received them in the drawing-room. She was fond of Johnny Everard and his sister. This dark-faced girl she did not know, though she had heard of her. And now she looked at her with interest.
"Before his death, which occurred six months ago, Mr. Robert Meredyth, who had made a great deal of money in Australia, re-purchased the old Meredyth family estate at Starden in Kent, Starden Hall, meaning to return to England, and take up his residence there. Unfortunately, he died on board ship.
Passes here most days in his car, he does always running over from Buddesby, as is but natcheral." Starden Hall gates stood about a quarter of a mile out of Starden village, and midway between the village and the Hall gates was Mrs. Bonner's clean, typically Kentish little cottage. Artists were Mrs. Bonner's usual customers. The cottage was old, half-timbered and hipped-roofed.
"The Meredyths," said Mrs. Bonner, "hev lived at Starden" she called it 'Sta-a-arden' "oh, I wouldn't like to say for how long, centuries anyhow. Then for a time things got despirit with them, and the place was sold. Bought it was by Mr. Gorridge, a London gentleman. Thirty years he lived here. I remember him buying it; I would be about eighteen then, just before I married Bonner.
"I will do nothing, nothing, Con, unless I tell you first." She knew Ellice for the soul of honour; she had felt safe, and now she was waiting. "Well, Ellice, have you anything to say to me?" Johnny was gone after dinner to his tiny study to wrestle with letters and figures that he abhorred. "Yes," Ellice said. "I thought you had well?" "I am going to Starden," the girl said.
He was staring at a small flaxen-haired, dirty-faced boy as he spoke. The boy grinned at him. "You have a sense of humour," said Hugh, "and, no doubt, a sweet tooth." He felt in his pocket for the coin that the Starden children had grown to expect from him. The boy took it, yelled and whooped, and sped down the street to the sweetstuff shop.
And in the cottages, how they will stare at Miss Meredyth of Starden when she takes her walks abroad. They'll wink at one another, won't they. They'll remember! Trust 'em, they'll never forget!" She felt sickened, faint, and horrified, yet she gave no sign. "Money you said!" he shouted, "and money it shall be!
So he drove very slowly the six and a half miles to Starden, because he had many questions to ask of himself, questions to which answers did not come readily. "Gipsy is right, she always is," he thought. "She is finer-minded, better, more generous than I am. Her mind could not harbour one doubt of anyone she loved, and I " He frowned.
Bonner a little surprised, but by no means unready. "You said as you'd send me a message, sir," she said. "I did, and I haven't done it I'll take the consequences." But there were no consequences to take. She prepared him an ample meal at the shortest notice, and was willing enough to stop and talk to him while he ate it. "Anything new, anything fresh?" "Nothing!" "No strangers about Starden?"
Charge a person with wrongdoing, and even though it be definitely proved that he is innocent, yet people only remember the charge, the connection of the man's name with some infamy, and forget that he was as guiltless as they themselves. Joan knew this. She dreaded it; she shuddered at the thought that a breath should sully her good name. She was someone now a Meredyth the Meredyth of Starden.
Word Of The Day