Free The Black Cabinet by Patricia Wentworth

anyone—most people’ll let you down, if they get the chance. And never put anything on paper that you don’t want the whole world to know.”
    Chloe’s chin went up.
    â€œI never take advice!” she said vehemently. “And I’d rather be hurt a hundred times, and let down a thousand times, than not be able to love people and trust them. If you can’t love people you’re dead—just dead!”
    Mitchell Dane looked at her with a good deal of admiration and just a very faint stirring of something else—pride, affection, a sense of kinship. He found Chloe very much alive, very young and certain of herself.
    â€œSo I’m dead, am I?” he said, smiling a little.
    â€œI think you are,” said Chloe with the scarlet in her cheeks and the ring of defiance in her voice. She felt as if she was up against something that she hated but was not in the least afraid of. She was exultant and angry.
    â€œAnd that’s why you won’t come and live with me?”
    â€œYes, I think it is.”
    Mitchell Dane nodded.
    â€œPerhaps you’re right,” he began. “Perhaps——”
    The door opened and Mr. Wroughton came into the room.

Chapter X
    Chloe went back to Maxton next day. A fortnight later she wrote to Rose:
    â€œIt’s dull without you, but of course I knew it would be. I shan’t stay here. I should like to try London, only everyone says it’s so desperately hard to get a job.
    â€œDucky, I’m a blighted being. You’ll never guess what’s happened. How can I break it to you? Get the sympathetic tear ready, and I’ll do it as gently as I can. Yesterday being Saturday, I went for a walk, and in Halfpenny Lane I met Bernard Austin and a damsel—a strange damsel. She wore tortoiseshell spectacles and a blush. Bernard blushed too. I, of course, I turned pale and clutched my heart. Then Bernard introduced us. Her name is Penelope Jackson, and she looks nice. They are engaged. And I gather she has money. She adores Bernard, and he just lets her and looks silly. I wanted to slap him all the time, but thought I’d better not, in case he should misunderstand and think I wanted him back. He always did seem to feel encouraged by the things which would have snubbed other people. It’s a blessed relief to have him off my hands.”
    Here the letter broke off, to be found and finished by Chloe three days later.
    â€œRose darling, I feel exactly as if I’d got into a dream and just anything might happen. Oh, I do, do, do so wish that you were here. I’m bursting to talk to someone, and have been within an ace of flinging my arms round Ally’s neck and saying ‘Let me confide in you.’ This will show you what I’ve come to. So far, I’ve stopped myself doing it. I’m going to confide in you instead. But you’re such thousands of miles away.
    â€œI wrote all the first bit of this letter on Sunday, and I can’t remember why I didn’t go on with it on Monday, but I think it was because we had a busy day. It all seems like the year before last.
    â€œOn Tuesday I was sewing black sequins on to a dress for the thin Miss Fellowes, when Ally came in frightfully flustered, and said that a gentleman wanted to see me, and would I go down to the parlour, and if I liked, she would come to. I said ‘No,’ quite firmly, and went down. And there was a little oddment of a grey man who said that he was Mr. Dane’s solicitor, and that Mr. Dane had died suddenly and left me everything.
    â€œI sat down on the nearest chair and said, ‘Nonsense!’ And he said, ‘Not nonsense: a solid legal fact. May I enquire if you are of age?’ And I said, ‘Not till February.’
    â€œRose, why did he leave it to me? I told him I wouldn’t have it. And I told him he was dead, and that that was why I wouldn’t go and live with him. I never would have believed that