Free Vanishing Point by Patricia Wentworth Page B

considered to be very fine. Perhaps he wanted to spin out this time with her. Her colour brightened as she opened the door and took him into a well-proportioned room with windows to a terrace and all the furniture done up in dust-sheets. Craig was instantly and disagreeably reminded of a mortuary. The air was heavy and cold, the room full of dead things in their shrouds. There was a gilt clock on the mantelpiece, and some china figures. Above them the portrait of Lydia Crewe in a white satin dress. She held a black feather fan, and she looked out across the sheeted room. Her face was colourless, dominant. It had a kind of stiff beauty like a conventionalized flower—one of the heavy hot-house type, camellia or magnolia, carved in stone. There was a black velvet curtain behind her, and a diamond star at her breast. The shadows in the painted dress were a curious greenish grey.
    Craig looked, frowning.
    “How old was she when this was done?”
    “I don’t know—about thirty, I suppose. Not much more, because her father was ill after that, and there wasn’t any more money.”
    “You mean, she found out that there wasn’t. It must have been a shock.”
    He thought Lydia Crewe would have taken it hard. He said abruptly,
    “I suppose you have to dust this damned room too.”
    “A lot of the things in here have been put away.”
    He dropped his hands on her shoulders.
    “Do you want to stay here till you freeze to death like she did?”
    She let her eyes meet his, but only for a moment. There was trouble in them.
    “There’s Jenny. I’m not trained for anything. I’ve got to think of Jenny.”
    He said, “Think about me for a change. Start now and keep right on. I’m thirty-two and sound in wind and limb. I’m not rolling in money, but I’ve got a decent job, and my last book did quite well.”
    “Craig—” Her voice shook.
    “You’d better listen to what I’ve got to say. I’ve got a temper, and I can be a brute when it’s roused, but I don’t suppose I should beat you. You might do a lot better, but you might do a lot worse too. I wouldn’t actually knock you about, and I’d be good for Jenny. I’ve got a house—an old cousin left it to me last year. It’s not at all bad. In fact I think you’d like it. My old nurse keeps house for me. She’s a comfortable person. I don’t want you to say anything now—I’m not such a fool as to expect you to make up your mind before you’ve known me a week.”
    Rosamond had a quite extraordinary feeling that they had somehow got into one of those dreams in which you just say anything that comes into your head and it doesn’t matter. She said,
    “You’ve only known me for a week too.”
    His hands were warm and very strong. He laughed and said,
    “That’s where you’re wrong, my sweet. I’ve known you much longer than that. I don’t know whether Jenny did it on purpose or not, but there was a photograph of you with the manuscripts she sent us. It was a snapshot. You had on a white dress, and you were carrying a tray. Even in the photograph I could see it was too heavy for you.”
    “Nicholas said so too—he took the photograph. It was all nonsense really.”
    “And what was Nicholas doing that he was letting you carry trays like that?”
    His voice was too harsh for a dream. Something in her began to shake.
    “Craig, let me go!”
    “In a minute, when you’ve promised to think about what I’ve been saying.”
    “What am I to think about? It doesn’t seem real.”
    “Oh, it’s real enough. I’m not asking you to marry me, because it’s too soon. I’m just telling you that that is what I’m going to do as soon as you know me better. I don’t want to rush you. Just think it out. I don’t see that I could possibly be worse to live with than Aunt Lydia, and I might be quite a lot better. I’d take care of you, my dear. It seems to me you want someone who will do that. And now I’m going to make you angry.”
    Before she had any idea what