Unknown by Unknown Read Free Book Online

that nothing was further from his mind.
    “Just wanted you to know that I wish most heartily that while I was at it, I’d landed a few more wallops on that small backside of yours!” he announced regretfully. Then, lifting his hand in a mocking salute, he turned on his heel and strode off across the field.
     
    Meg returned to the hotel in a state of mind bordering on sheer fury. That man! He had behaved disgustingly, and that final impertinence had really been beyond forgiveness. Why, quite apart from anything else, he had contrived to have the last word which was, surely, a woman’s inalienable right!
    None the less, as the distance between them increased and she cooled down to some degree, she realised that she had at least gleaned some information from him, though whether it was reliable or not was another matter.
    Yet, reluctantly, she had to admit that so far as Nanny was concerned, what he had said had had the ring of truth about it. Old people did get frightened, and for just the reason that Sir Hector had given. Meg knew that at first hand, for in addition to acting as her uncle’s secretary-receptionist, she had also paid regular visits to the hospitals with which he was connected, either to make herself useful in any way that offered or else to talk to old and lonely patients who had few visitors. And time after time, that same problem, the conflict between the desire of independence and the very real need of care, would crop up. It was a problem which Meg, and for that matter Uncle Andra, had never been able to solve. The trouble was that any answer depended on one’s point of view. It was easy to see that to an individualist, preferring a solitary life, the idea of living in a community, however well organised, was hardly better than being sent to prison. And yet it was equally easy to see that one couldn’t just stand aside and shrug one’s shoulders when a downright dangerous state of affairs had developed. Something had to be done—
    But that was thinking in general terms. It was Nanny’s particular case which concerned Meg. Had Sir Hector been speaking the truth when he had said that Nanny had become increasingly frail and infirm during her last year of life? That could well be. Her forehead puckered as she remembered the dilapidated notice board she had unearthed in Nanny’s garden. The single word : teas was printed on it in uncertain capitals with the letter s the wrong way round. Evidently it was Nanny’s own effort, so presumably there had been a time when she had been strong enough to look after thirsty visitors.
    But the find had provided her with another piece of information. The stake supporting the board had rotted away and the notice itself was so battered and weatherbeaten as to make it reasonable to suppose that Nanny had abandoned her little enterprise before the summer which had just passed. Because she had found it too much for her? Quite likely that was the answer, but could it have been because the supply of visitors had stopped ?
    Sir Hector had told her that his reason for prohibiting trespass so stringently had been the damage which had been done to crops and animals. That, if it was true, made sense. People could be both ignorant and thoughtless, and the more there were of them, the greater the likelihood there was of damage being done. But the “quite a few hundred” of whom he had spoken was surely an exaggeration. It seemed unlikely that people in such numbers would visit such an out-of-the-way place as Blytheburn, beautiful though the surrounding country undoubtedly was.
    Or was it so unlikely? In these days of cars and coaches visiting beauty spots was the easiest thing in the world. And what could be more pleasant after a drive than a comparatively short walk along a pleasant, tree-shaded road with, at the end of it, a good cup of tea waiting?
    The by-road. That could be the reason for the failure of Nanny’s little money-making scheme. It was true, of course, that