Free The Dark Shore by Susan Howatch

me and I’ve got plenty of friends and so on. I like working in London and I’ve got a good opening in the City.”
    He was reddening slowly as he spoke, Jon noticed. His eyes were still watching the spilt ashes on the floor.
    Jon said nothing.
    “There ’ s another reason too,” said the boy as if he sensed his other reasons hadn't been good enough. “There’s a girl—someone I know ... I don’t want to go away and leave her just yet.”
    “Marry her and come to Canada together.”
    Justin looked up startled, and Jon knew then that he had been lying. “But I can’t—”
    “Why not? I married when I was your age. You’re old enough to know your own mind.”
    “It’s not a question of marriage. We’re not even engaged.”
    “Then she can’t be so important to you that you would ignore a million-dollar opening in Canada to be with her. Okay, so you’ve got friends in England—you’d find plenty more in Canada. Okay, so your grandmother’s been good to you—fine, but what if she has? You’re not going to remain shackled to her all your life, are you? And what if you have got a good opening in the City? So have dozens of young men. I’m offering you the opportunity of a lifetime, something unique and dynamic and exciting. Don’t you want to be your own master of your own business? Haven’t you got the drive and ambition to want to take up a challenge and emerge the winner? What do you want of life? The nine-till-five stagnation of the city and years of comfortable boredom or the twenty-four hour excitement of juggling with millions of dollars? All right, so you’re fond of London! I’m offering you the opportunity to come back here in three years’ time, and when you come back you’ll be twenty times richer than any of the friends you said goodbye to when you left for Canada. Hasn’t the prospect any appeal to you at all? I felt so sure from all my memories of you that you wouldn’t say no to an opportunity like this.”
    But the dark eyes were still expressionless, his face immobile. “I don’t think property is really my line at all.”
    “Do you know anything about it?”
    Justin was silent.
    “Look, Justin—”
    “I don’t want to,” said the boy rapidly. “I expect you could find someone else. I don’t see why it has to be me.”
    “For Christ’s sake!” Jon was almost beside himself with anger and despair. “What is it, Justin? What’s happened? Don’t you understand what I’m trying to say? I’ve been away from you for ten whole years and now I want to give you all I can to try and make amends. I want you to come into business with me so we’ll never be separated again for long and so that I can get to know you and try to catch up on all the lost years. Don’t you understand? Don’t you see?”
    “Yes,” said Justin woodenly, “but I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
    “Has your grandmother been talking to you? Has she? Has she been trying to turn you against me? What has she said?”
    “She’s never mentioned you.”
    “She must have!”
    The boy shook his head and glanced down at his watch. “I’m afraid— ”
    “No,” said Jon. “No, you’re not going yet. Not till I’ve got to the bottom of all this.”
    “I’m sorry, but—”
    “Sit down.” He grasped the boy’s arm and pulled him back into his chair. Justin wrenched himself away. “There’s one question I’m going to ask you whether you like it or not, and you’re not leaving till you’ve given me a proper answer. ”
    He paused. The boy made no move but merely stared sullenly into his eyes.
    “Justin, why did you never answer my letters?”
    The boy still stared but his eyes were different. The sullenness had been replaced by a flash of bewilderment and suspicion which Jon did not understand. “Letters?”
    “You remember when I said good-bye to you after I took you away from Clougy?”
    The suspicion was gone. Only the bewilderment remained. “Yes.”
    “You remember how I