Free The Carousel by Belva Plain Page B

positively jovial today. He was rarely so, especially when Ian was present, when his spirit seemed to retract into a shell.
    His laconic speech was often curt. Sometimes, it seemed to Sally now, you catch him looking at you and feel he’s having strange thoughts; you can’t tell whether he likes you or not.
    There was no doubt about his liking Tina. Helping herself again from a plate of marshmallows, she had just dipped one into an overfilled cup of chocolate, then dropped the wet marshmallow onto the rug.
    “Oh dear, look what you’ve done. It’ll stain,” said Sally.
    “That’s okay,” Clive said. “It was an accident. Somebody’ll clean it.”
    Sally was not sure it was an accident. Tina had her own ways of getting attention, and spilling things was one of them. However, this was neither the time nor the place to make an issue of it.
    “I’ve been thinking,” Clive said, “have I mentioned it to you?—that I’m going to build a cottage for myself up at Red Hill. It’ll be only a quarter of a mile from the main house, but still, it’ll give me privacy. I’ve been feeling a need for something of my own, where I can get up at five in the morning without disturbing Father or hisguests and go out riding. I might even stay there part time in the winter and commute to work.”
    “That’s a long commute,” Dan observed doubtfully.
    “Sixty miles are nothing on the open road, especially early in the morning. It’ll be worth the price to be able to ride alone out through the woods in the winter. Down here at the riding academy there are always too many people. I love the winter silence up there, not a sound, not even birds, and on a still day, not even the wind.”
    Dan nodded. “I see you know, then, how I feel about the woods. Not that I’m as solitary as you, but I can empathize with you. That’s more than your brother does, with his plans for Grey’s Woods.”
    Clive’s response was surprising. “He’d leave part of it. After all, it wouldn’t be the entire tract.”
    “Part of it!” exclaimed Dan. “You’re satisfied with that?”
    Clive shrugged. “Whatever Father wants.”
    “But he won’t commit himself. You heard him say so quite definitely. It was on his birthday here in this room. He’s leaving it all to the three of us.”
    Tina had been wandering about, touching things while Sally kept watching to prevent damage to any treasures. Now she sprang up to rescue the silver carousel.
    “I want to hear it. Play it,” Tina commanded. And when Sally refused, telling her that it was not a toy, she kicked her mother on the ankle.
    This time Dan sprang up. “See here, we willnot have this, Tina. You may be tired, you may be upset about something, but you may not hurt people. Go sit in that chair and be quiet until we’re ready to go home.”
    “Tina’s a good girl. Come sit here on my lap,” Clive coaxed. “Someday, if you’re a really good girl, maybe you can have the carousel to keep.”
    Sally’s and Dan’s exasperated glances met, and Dan began, “No, she has to learn—”
    But Tina was already on Clive’s lap, where she sat triumphantly scattering cookie crumbs over him and onto the floor.
    Offended and uneasy, Sally sat on the edge of the chair, wanting to leave. But Dan was tenacious and wanted, she understood, to get back to the subject that troubled him.
    “Whatever Oliver thinks, you said, but since he hasn’t told us—at least I haven’t heard anything—where are we?”
    “Oh, somewhere in the middle,” Clive replied. He was stroking one of Tina’s long braids.
    Dan persisted. “In the middle of Grey’s Woods, do you mean? I’m surprised that you can even consider Ian’s idea. Especially since you so often don’t agree with him.”
    “It’s not what I consider. It’s Father. He told me last week that maybe, after all, it might be a good thing to take the money and give Amanda what she wants. Cheaper than costly litigation.”
    “That’s been said