Distant Choices by Brenda Jagger Read Free Book Online Page B

lawyers it must be the sharper the better – surely?’
    â€˜Oh – surely.’ Evangeline’s voice had rippled with the amusement of a purring cat.
    â€˜Quentin will do very well for himself,’ said Maud, intending everybody – particularly Evangeline – to take her word for it.
    â€˜Poor Letty,’ Evangeline had remarked airily as she and Oriel were being driven back to their lodgings in Hepplefield. ‘To hear her prattle on, one would think she had no other son but this marvellous Quentin. When, in fact, she has five others and nearly as many daughters. How his brothers must hate him. And his father too, I dare say – if he can find the energy.’
    â€˜I suppose so, mamma.’
    â€˜Did you hate him, Oriel?’
    â€˜Hardly …’
    Wrapped in the aura of his mother’s hysterical devotion it had been difficult even to see him clearly; just a tall, pale young man with those oddly transparent eyes, saying only what one wished to hear, watching his own advantage, guarding his back, taking all the precautions to ensure his own survival that Oriel took herself, but, in his case, taking them coldly. And sharply, she supposed, like those carving knives his employer had spoken of. Could her mother be thinking of him as a possible son-in-law?
    â€˜He has no money, mamma, and no position,’ she quickly said, such things, in Oriel’s experience, being the warp and weft of marriages.
    â€˜Exactly, my darling. Which is why his mother, and his dear Aunt Maud, are so anxious to get him some. His Uncle Matthew’s money and position, in fact, which can only be done by marrying him to Uncle Matthew’s daughter – our little Kate. Thus making him master of everything his Uncle Matthew has put together – except my widow’s portion – whenever Uncle Matthew should happen to die. And even before that sorry event – well – such a marriage would not suit us , of course, Oriel – would it, darling? We should not be pleased to have Letty running in and out of High Grange Park as if she owned it – backed up in everything by Maud, who thinks it all belongs to her in any case. You do see, dearest – I know – that one has to give such constant thought to one’s own position. And just what would my position be – or yours – should Letty’s razor-sharp Quentin become master of High Grange? No – no – we must apply ourselves to finding Kate a husband rather more sympathetic to our cause than that. It does not shock you – does it, my darling? – to hear me making my little arrangements for a comfortable widowhood even before I have quite become a wife?’
    â€˜Of course not, mamma.’
    For what, after all, had ever shocked Oriel Blake, brought up in the midst of Evangeline’s necessities, guarded by her polished shell, her air of distant serenity, her smile?
    â€˜Good girl.’ Evangeline had expected no less. ‘Then – since you will be very much in the company of Kate Stangway, and Quentin too, I suppose, from now on, should you hear the very faintest tinkling of wedding bells you will be sure to let me know? Absolutely at once.’
    It was neither an order nor a request, simply a statement of the alliance formed, for their mutual survival, by their two closely related selves. Not a bond of affection precisely but an acknowledgement that their lives would always be bound to run, more or less smoothly, together. ‘I am fortunate in my daughter,’ agreed Evangeline, whereas to Oriel such matters as good fortune or bad became irrelevant before the simple truth that Evangeline was the only mother she had.
    Not perfect, of course. But then, who was perfect, whose motives were entirely spotless, what would; indeed, have become of Evangeline during those haphazard years of waiting and wandering if – with Oriel’s help – she had not taken such good care