Darkwater by Dorothy Eden Read Free Book Online

grew smaller and smaller as the distance lengthened, and Hannah was at Fanny’s side saying crossly, ‘Miss Fanny, come in, do. All that dirty smoke over your good clothes. And if you ask me, that young man had a great deal too much to say for someone in his position.’
    This was all true. But for once Fanny was going to be illogical.
    ‘Oh, I don’t think so. He talked the greatest sense. Where would we have been without him?’
    ‘Where we are now, of course,’ Hannah retorted acidly. ‘And with the boy crying his head off, and that Chinese sitting like a foreign image, I declare I don’t know how this journey is to be got over.’
    (‘I almost think, Hannah—I almost think I have fallen in love.’) Fanny pressed her lips together, keeping back the impulsive confession. But she couldn’t repress the flush in her cheeks, or her surge of gaiety. Now she was glad to be going back to Darkwater. Because if Adam Marsh liked moors he would make a point of spending time on them when he had the opportunity. He was certainly a young man who made his own opportunities. His company would have a ship sailing from Plymouth, perhaps, and he would break his journey down there to make a call at Darkwater to see how the passengers in whom he had taken such an interest were settling down.
    Or he would invent some other reason. She had no doubt as to his versatility. And now his interest in the children and the Chinese amah no longer puzzled her. It had developed, of course, immediately after he had set eyes on her.
    ‘Miss Fanny—’
    ‘I’m coming, Hannah. Why are you worrying?’ Fanny’s voice was gay. ‘We are going to have a completely pleasant journey.’
    The children were sitting bolt upright. Nolly had refused to lie down, it seemed, so Marcus had done the same, a habit of imitation that Fanny suspected was frequent. There were tears still on his cheeks, and his large smoky blue eyes were woebegone.
    Nolly, however, showed no distress. She sat primly, her feet in their shiny buttoned boots crossed, her hands clasped in her lap. She had something of the composure of the elderly amah, a discipline learned far too young, and hiding, Fanny guessed, a smouldering volcano. The black eyes stared with an unchild-like challenge. Small wonder that Marcus was dominated by a sister like this.
    ‘They’re not like children at all,’ Hannah said in an undertone to Fanny.
    ‘Oh, I think they are,’ said Fanny. ‘I expect they won’t go to sleep because they’re hungry. Unpack that hamper, Hannah, and let us have some lunch. Then everybody’s temper will be better.’
    This, however, was not a complete success. Marcus would have nothing more than a mug of milk, and his sister began a chicken sandwich which presently she laid down with the polite remark that she didn’t care for the taste of it. Hannah’s lips tightened, but Fanny merely said pleasantly, ‘Then try one of these biscuits. I assure you they’re very good.’
    Nolly stared.
    ‘Doesn’t Marcus need to eat his sandwich either?’
    ‘Train journeys,’ said Fanny, ‘are occasions when one isn’t forced to eat anything one doesn’t like. Naturally it is different at home. But we’re not at home yet, are we.’
    ‘Home?’ echoed Marcus hopefully.
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ said his sister. ‘We’re never going home again. You know that Mamma and Papa have gone to heaven and we have no home.’
    ‘And that,’ said Fanny, ‘is something I never want to hear said again. Hannah and I have travelled hundreds of miles to get you and take you home. What a stupid little girl you are. Now will you please ask Ching Mei to have another sandwich.’
    Nolly stared with her disconcerting unflickering gaze. She had a small slightly turned-up nose. Her mouth was soft and childlike. Dark ringlets hung beneath her bonnet. She was only a baby, one realised, if one could ignore her alarming composure.
    ‘I don’t think we care for you, Cousin Fanny.’
    ‘I’m