Free Mistress of Brown Furrows by Susan Barrie Page A

shoulder, and in the light of the swinging hall lantern he could see that she was no longer pale—even her throat and the tip of her chin were softly, delicately pink. “Remember what I told you in the train,” he added urgently. “Forget everything and have a good night’s rest. And if you want anything just ring. I shan’t be far away.”
    “I will,” Carol promised again, and went without looking at him up the stairs.
    When she reached her room Carol found the curtain drawn and the bedside light glowing softly. The sheets of the great four-poster bed were turned down invitingly, and her nightdress laid out ready for her by an admiring Agatha—who not only had chosen it from amongst her luggage, but had chosen it because it was so altogether exquisite, and Agatha had never seen anything quite like it before.
    “White for a bride,” she had murmured to herself, when she had laid it out, and had fingered the folds of transparent nylon fabric, tucked and edged with a mist of lace.
    For Agatha had capitulated hands down when her new mistress had first appeared in the front doorway downstairs, looking so wan and tired and rather dispirited, and actually not a bit ‘bride-like’, as she put it to herself when she thought about it afterwards. And Agatha had gone to her and conducted her upstairs to her room and taken her a cup of good, hot, strong tea, for there was nothing like a cup of tea after a journey. And afterwards, while Meg regaled her brother with a large whisky-and-soda downstairs in the library, she had run her bath and helped her to dress and felt very tenderly protective towards her every time Carol turned her large, ever-so-slightly anxious grey eyes upon her, and struck her as being almost ridiculously young for marriage—particularly when her husband was so many years older!
    But that was the master’ s affair—not hers—and he always knew exactly what he was doing, and nothing she had ever known him to do had ever turned out to be very rash or unwise. And if Miss Meg didn’ t agree with her that was her affair also, and she, Agatha, was at liberty to give her affections where she pleased, and no one could help liking a nice, pretty little thing like young Mrs. Carrington.
    Even Judson, downstairs in the kitchen, had said how much he liked her, and Ellen James was dying to set a look at her.
    The only one who had greeted her with all the correctness in the world and no real warmth was Miss Meg. But even she would come round in time—of course she would!
    And now Carol had donned the nightdress and was brushing out her hair before the beautiful old-fashioned mirror on the dressing-table.
    Everything in the room was old and obviously carefully cherished. The bed-posts were carved into garlands of flowers, and the little sprays of flowers on the bed coverlet and curtains had instantly pleased her eye. A beautiful walnut tallboy had the sheen of polished satin, and so had the enormous wardrobe and the graceful little bedside table, decorated with some dark red roses, and a pretty-pink-shaded reading lamp. There were red roses on the dressing-table, too, in a shallow crystal bowl, and Carol put down her hair brush—one of the new gold-backed set given to her by Timothy for a wedding present— and fingered their petals gently.
    Roses meant only one thing; but these were obviously intended simply as a welcome to the bride from her sister-in-law.
    Her sister-in-law!...
    There was a strange, heavy, rather wistful feeling in Carol’s heart as she thought of Meg. Meg who had certainly kissed her on arrival, but had scarcely spoken to her since. Meg who had occupied the seat usually reserved for the mistress of the house at the dinner-table, and had talked almost non-stop to Timothy during the meal. Meg who was anxious to hear everything that Timothy had done during his absence, who looked at him as if she adored him, who placed his comfort before her own and was most anxious to wait on him, and had a