The Quiet Heart by Susan Barrie Read Free Book Online Page B

of hair had come undone and a pale gold strand was dangling in front of her eyes. She thrust it aside with her hand, and became aware of her crumpled overall.
    Two o’clock, and he looked rather grim, although his eyes were quite expressionless. She received the distinct impression that he wasn’t so much annoyed as disconcerted by the brightness of the light himself. He put a hand up to his chin and felt it.
    “I’m beginning to need a shave! Perhaps I’d better have one before I go to bed. In fact, I don’t think I’ll go to bed at all.”
    “Don’t be silly.” She didn’t know how she dared say it to him, but she did. There was an absurd intimacy in the atmosphere, both standing blinking at one another out of slightly bleary eyes, and he definitely did need a shave. His chin was clothed in dark and noticeable stubble. “Of course you must go to bed, but I’ll renew your hot-water bottles before you do. The ones that are in your bed now will be stone cold. I’ll slip out to the kitchen—”
    “You’ll do nothing of the kind.” He, too, could be firm despite the hour. “If my bottles are cold they can stay cold. In any case, I don’t like hot-water bottles. Now, which way do you go?”
    They were groping their way across the hall, because the electric light switches were far apart. It was a somewhat ghostly, eerie experience in a centuries-old house, but Alison was too accustomed to it to feel nervous. Besides, she had the tall, silent shape of Mr. Leydon at her elbow.
    “I’ll go up the main staircase and along the connecting corridor. You go in the opposite direction.”
    “I’ll find my way.”
    But when she realised he was disappearing down the wrong corridor when they reached the top of the stairs she flew after him and put him right.
    “Your room is the fourth door from the end of the gallery. This way!”
    By this time he was feeling irritated, and he scowled at her.
    “I could have found it myself. Get yourself to bed!” he growled.
    But she still insisted on opening the door of his room, and was perturbed because his fire was practically out. All her careful preparations, and now he was to go to bed in the cold after all!
    That was in the early hours of the morning. Now, at eight o’clock—and she was further startled to discover it was so late, because she always rose at a quarter to seven in order to make certain Lorne had a proper breakfast before catching her school bus to Murchester—it all came back to her, and she wondered how she was going to face Mr. Leydon in the broad light of day.
    In the kitchen of the flat Marianne was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in front of her. She was smoking one of her stepmother’s cigarettes and looking as if the evening before had been anything but a success. Indeed, Alison had seldom seen her more depressed.
    “What’s happened?” she asked, as she rushed in adjusting the front of her neat grey dress. “Didn’t you have a good time last night?”
    Marianne shook her head.
    “Ron and I quarrelled,” she admitted. “It was serious,” she added briefly.
    Alison glanced at her. There were dark circles under her eyes. She even had a mildly dissipated air.
    “Have you had any breakfast?” she asked.
    Marianne shook her head.
    “I couldn’t face breakfast after last night.”
    “Why? What did you do?”
    “Oh, we dined at the usual place, and then we went on to the dance and had a few drinks—”
    “What sort of drinks?” sharply.
    “Vodka and lemon.” Marianne glanced up at her mockingly. “You should try it some time, Ali ... It really gives you a new view of life. For the time being, of course. This morning, I’ll admit, I feel as if I’ve got a bit of a hangover.”
    “I think that’s a horrible thing for a girl of your age to say,” Alison commented.
    Marianne mocked her.
    “Look who’s talking! Anyone would think you were in your thirties, at least. You’ll have to start growing up yourself, Alison, and