Read The House at Bell Orchard for Free Online

all?”
    “Too damned much by far!” Harry replied bluntly. “How long will it be before you and my father realize that I am in earnest when I say I will not marry her?”
    “Oh, I am out of all patience with you!” Mrs. Fenshawe exclaimed. “At present you have only to crook your finger and the silly creature will fall into your arms, but that state of affairs will not last for ever, especially if you treat her in this off-hand way. Let me tell you, Harry, that I have not allowed myself to be burdened with that tiresome girl for the past two years just to stand by and see nothing come of it. In fact, had I not imagined that you would have her safely married to you within six months, I would never have befriended her in the first place. But it is all of a piece! You and Miles are the most selfish creatures alive! You and he together created this appalling muddle, and ’tis I who have to bear the brunt of it.”
    “Oh, have done, in the devil’s name!” Harry said exasperatedly. “I know you detest Bell Orchard, but it is not my fault that you have to stay here. I was against bringing the girl here at all, but no heed was paid to me!”
    Charmian waited to hear no more, but turned and fled blindly across to the open door and out into the sunshine. Never in her life had she felt so utterly humiliated. It was bad enough to know that Harry had never had any intention of marrying her, that he was weary of being plagued to do so, but Lavinia’s words had shown her how transparently plain her own eagerness for the match had been. And what Mrs. Fenshawe had seen, others must have seen also; half London must have been laughing at her behind her back. Nor was there any escape. She could not leave Bell Orchard without giving her reasons for doing so, and thus bringing even more humiliation upon herself.
    For a while indignation sustained her as she walked through the gardens, and out of them into the small park which surrounded the house. Inland, this was bounded by the road leading to Wychwood End, but on the seaward side, the direction which Charmian had taken, there was no such definite boundary, and the parkland gave way almost imperceptibly to rolling dunes, and thence to the pebble ridge and sandy levels of the shore itself. She climbed to the crest of the dunes, over the soft sand and patches of rough grass, and stood looking out to sea, her black gown sombre against the brightness of the deserted, sunlit shore.
    This was her first visit to the coast and as such had the attraction of novelty, but the emptiness of the scene before her brought fresh realization of her loneliness. Anger faded, to be replaced by a kind of weary despair, so that the bright prospect before her shimmered in a sudden mist of tears. The weight of misery and bewilderment which had pressed upon her ever since her father’s death seemed all at once too heavy to be borne, and she could endure no longer the endless, profitless circle of her thoughts. She must speak to someone of her doubts and fears, seek an answer to questions which had tormented her ever since the lawyer told her of the disappearance of her father’s fortune.
    There was only one person to whom she could turn for advice, and that was Colonel Fenshawe. Though she saw him now, as she saw the rest of his family, for the opportunist he was, and knew that his kindness had been prompted merely by the desire to secure a rich bride for his son, there was no doubt that he had been on terms of intimate friendship with her father, and was familiar enough with the ways of the world to tell her whether or not the suspicion which for days had been growing in her mind had any foundation. Yet if she wished to seek his advice she must do so without delay, for she had heard him say that morning he would be returning to London on the morrow.
    That evening she sought him out and requested the favour of a private conversation with him. He agreed at once and, leading her to the library, asked how he