The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart Read Free Book Online Page A

Granted: I’ll accept that. You and Mr Winslow have gone to a lot of trouble to tell me so. I repeat: so what?’
    â€˜You must admit—’ she seemed to be choosing her words – ‘that we were bound to be interested, terribly interested?’
    I said bluntly: ‘You’ve gone a little beyond “interest”, haven’t you? Unless, of course, you give the word its other meaning.’
    â€˜I don’t follow you.’
    â€˜No? I think you do. Tell me something frankly, please. Does your brother still persist in thinking that I might actually be Annabel Winslow?’
    â€˜No. Oh, no.’
    â€˜Very well. Then you have to admit that this “interest” of yours does go far beyond mere curiosity, Miss Dermott. He might have sent you to take a look at me, Annabel’s double, once, but not more than’ – I caught myself in time – ‘not more than that. I mean, you’d have hardly followed me home. No, you’re “interested” in quite another sense, aren’t you?’ I paused, tapped ash into the waste-basket, and added: ‘“Interested parties”, shall we say? In other words, you’ve something at stake.’
    She sounded as calm as ever. ‘I suppose it’s natural for you to be so hostile.’ There was the faintest glimmer of a smile on her face: perhaps not so much a smile, as a lightening of the stolidity of her expression. ‘I don’t imagine that Con was exactly, well, tactful, to start with . . . He upset you, didn’t he?’
    â€˜He frightened me out of my wits,’ I said frankly. I got up from the table, and moved restlessly to the window. The curtains were undrawn. Outside, the lights and clamour of the street made a pattern two storeys below, as remote as that of a coastal town seen from a passing ship. I turned my back on it.
    â€˜Look, Miss Dermott, let me be plain, please. Certain things are obvious to me, and I don’t see any advantage in playing stupid about them. For one thing, I don’t want to prolong this interview. As you see, I’m busy. Now, your brother was interested in me because I look like this Annabel Winslow. He told you about me. All right. That’s natural enough. But it isn’t just pure coincidence that brought you to the Kasbah, and I know darned well I never told him where I worked. It sticks out a mile that he followed me home on Sunday, and either he came here and asked someone where I worked, or he saw me go on for the late Sunday shift at the café, and then went back and told you. And you came next day to have a look at me . . . Yes, I admit I did see you before today. How could I help noticing you, the way you stared? Well, no doubt he and you had a talk about it, and today you’ve followed me home. Am I right?’
    â€˜More or less.’
    â€˜I told you I was being frank, Miss Dermott. I don’t like it. I didn’t like the way your brother talked to me on Sunday, and I don’t like being watched, and I’m damned if I like being followed.’
    She nodded calmly, as if I had said something a little pettish, but fairly reasonable. ‘Of course you don’t. But if you’ll just be a little patient with me, I’ll explain. And I’m sure you’ll be interested then . . .’
    All this time she had been watching me, and there was some quality about her steady gaze that I associated with something I couldn’t place. It made me feel uncomfortable, and I wanted to look away from her. Con Winslow had had the same look, only his had held a frankly male appraisal that made it more understandable, and easier to face.
    She looked away at last. Her gaze shifted from me to the appointments of the shabby little room; the iron bedstead, the garish linoleum, the varnished fireplace with its elaborately ugly overmantel, the gas ring on the cracked tiles of the hearth. She looked