Free Mistress of Brown Furrows by Susan Barrie Page B

faint, occasional smile for his new wife.
    “Carol, my dear, I expect you’ll find it a little strange up here if you’re used to the south.... We must have a little talk sometime and get to know one another...!”
    Those were the only two remarks she had actually addressed to Carol during the evening, until she had commented on her tiredness and suggested that she ought to go to bed.
    And now she was downstairs still talking to Timothy... !
    Carol wondered suddenly whether she was being a little unreasonable about Meg, for she was, after all, Timothy’s sister, and naturally she had a great deal to say to him, and naturally they liked talking to one another. All their lives they had shared interests, and apparently they had few secrets from one another. And there was this marriage to be explained to Meg—the reason why it had come about, the conditions under which it had taken place....
    Carol felt her face flame suddenly. No doubt Meg would declare to Timothy that he had behaved in the most quixotic manner imaginable, and that he must be slightly mad— unless
    he was in love with the girl!
    Which, of course, he was not.
    And she might well ask why Carol had married Timothy....
    Carol put her hands up to her suddenly hot cheeks and held them there. She looked at herself in the glass, in the white, clinging, transparent nightdress, with her pale gold hair framing her uncomfortably blushing features and her disturbed grey eyes, and the thought flashed through her mind that she did not look so young after all. The sophistication of the nightdress, with its elegantly lovely line, called attention to the slender perfection of her own figure, and for the first time in her life she knew that at heart she was no longer the complete schoolgirl. She was a woman who had married without knowing why, but at least of one thing she was certain. It was not because she had been frightened of facing the world alone. It was not because Timothy had offered her security and comfort. A little of the security had appealed to her, naturally, after her sheltered life, and so, perhaps, had the comfort. But that was not all....
    She wandered away from the mirror and started to pick up things and put them down again in a distracted and slightly agitated manner. She slipped on her dressing-gown of white, quilted brocade and started to fasten it without being really aware of what she was doing, and in the same abstracted fashion slid her feet into mules.
    Where, she wondered, was Timothy’ s room, and how far away was it from her own? In the hotel she had at least been aware of the number of his room, but here in his own house— and hers! —she had no knowledge at all of where he would be sleeping!
    She couldn’ t have told anyone just then just why she would have liked very much indeed to have known that Timothy was not to be so very far removed from where she was herself. Even if they were separated by a corridor—or perhaps a wing of this ancient house—it would be something to know exactly which wing did contain his old room. For, naturally, he would be occupying the room he always had occupied.
    She listened again to the silence of the house and then opened her bedroom door very gently and soundlessly. She peered out on to the softly-carpeted landing—rich crimson carpet, and the wall lights, shaped like the petals of flowers, shone down upon it and created a gentle radiance. Her room was almost at the head of the stairs, and she could make out the
    gleaming handrail, and the tall, carved, supporting pillars. She tip-toed forward until she was peering down at the shining oak treads, and into the well of the hall. And then a door slammed sharply behind her.
    “Is anything wrong, Carol?” Timothy asked quietly—very, very quietly it seemed to her, as his eyes stared at her with a strange, inscrutable expression in their depths with which she was certainly not very familiar.
    “Oh, no—no, thank you! ” Carol felt like a child caught