HIGH TIDE AT MIDNIGHT by Sara Craven, Mineko Yamada Read Free Book Online Page A

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    of real malevolence, and bright eyes under grey shaggy eyebrows glared
    suspiciously up at her.
    'Wrong 'ouse,' he snorted, and attempted to close the door.
    Morwenna stepped forward quickly to circumvent the move. She smiled
    beguilingly at him, ignoring the scowl she received in return. Her thoughts
    were seething. Was this— could this be Dominic Trevennon? He would be
    about the right age, she reasoned, and he seemed to fit the portrait of
    unlovable eccentric which she had begun to build in her mind.
    'Mr Trevennon?' she asked, trying to speak confidently.
    'Not 'ere,' was the discouraging reply. 'So you may's well take yourself off.'
    'Do you mean he's away?' Morwenna's heart sank within her. 'Or is he just
    out?'
    'Tedn't none of your business,' the gnome remarked with satisfaction. 'Now
    go 'long with you. I want to get this door shut.' Somewhere in the house a
    telephone began to ring, and his face assumed an expression of even deeper
    malice. "Ear that?" he snarled. 'I should be answering that, not stood 'ere,
    argy-bargying with you.'
    'Oh, please,' Morwenna said desperately, seeing that he was about to slam
    the door on her. 'I—I've come a long way today. If Mr Trevennon isn't here
    at the moment, couldn't I come in and wait?'
    'No, you couldn't.' He looked outraged at the thought. 'If Mr Trevennon
    wanted to see you, he'd have left word you were expected. You phone up
    tomorrow in a decent manner and make an appointment. Now, go on. I'm
    letting all this old draught in.'
    The door was already closing in Morwenna's face when a woman's voice
    called, 'Hold on there, you, Zack. You're to let her in.'
    ' 'Oo says?' Zack swung round aggressively.
    The woman approaching jerked a thumb over her shoulder. ' 'E does. Good
    enough for you?'
    Apparently it was, because Zack held the door open— not wide, it was true,
    but sufficiently to allow Morwenna to squeeze herself through it into the
    hall. She put her case down and eased the rucksack from her aching
    shoulder, ignoring Zack's mutter of. 'Seems mazed t'me.'
    'You keep your opinion until you'm asked, Zack Hubbard.' The woman gave
    Morwenna a searching but not unfriendly look. 'You can wait in the study
    for the master, miss. There's a nice fire in there.' She paused doubtfully,
    taking in Morwenna's chilled and generally bedraggled appearance. 'Would
    you fancy a cup of something hot, while you're waiting?'
    Morwenna accepted gratefully and followed her rescuer across the wide
    hall. She was too bemused by the suddenness of her access to the house, just
    when she had almost given up all hope, to take much account of her
    surroundings. but the paramount impression was one of all- pervading
    shabbiness.
    And this was confirmed by the room in which she found herself. A big
    shabby desk, littered with papers and crowned by an ancient typewriter,
    dominated the room. A sagging sofa covered in faded chintz was drawn up
    in front of the fireplace, and these with the addition of a small table just
    behind the sofa constituted the entire furniture of the room. The square of
    dark red carpet was threadbare in places, and the once-patterned wallpaper
    seemed to have faded to a dull universal beige, with lighter, brighter square
    patches seeming to' indicate depressingly that pictures had once hung there.
    Morwenna sank down on to the sofa and held out her hands to the blazing
    logs. What she had seen so far gave her no encouragement at all. The
    Trevennons, it seemed, had fallen on hard times since her mother had last
    visited the house. And it could furnish an explanation as to why Laura
    Kerslake had never returned there. Perhaps the Trevennons themselves had
    discouraged any reunions, preferring her to remember things as they had
    been. To remember people as they had been.
    She glanced at the rucksack which she had placed on the sofa beside her and
    began to fumble with the buckles. She "took out the parcel of paintings, and
    after a moment's hesitation walked