Return to Tremarth by Susan Barrie Page B

aback by her strange earnestness. “I really do hope so!”
    CHAPTER V
    CHARLOTTE quite enjoyed herself in Truro the following afternoon, spending money freely or as freely as she dared — and buying all sorts of dainties for her invalid at Tremarth. She would not normally have purchased hot-house grapes at the price she paid for them, but for Richard Tremarth they seemed a good idea. And so did avocado pears and peaches, a brace of partridges (out of season, of course, and therefore very expensive) some smoked salmon and a clutch of plover’s eggs. She didn’t know why she bought the plover’s eggs, except that they, too, seemed a good idea, and if Tremarth’s appetite was likely to be as elusive as his memory he would require tempting in order that his strength should be maintained.
    Lastly, before she turned her car for home, she bought magazines and paperbacks, and then with the boot of the car loaded set off out of the car-park. The Cornish countryside that surrounds its somewhat dour capital — built upon granite over which the waves of the sea once washed, and therefore understandably a little detached and divorced from the encroachments of a modem world — is extremely attractive, and Charlotte certainly found it so as she drove along at a steady forty miles an hour, and felt for no easily understandable reason a desire to sing.
    Flowers ... she thought suddenly. She might have added to her expenditure, by buying some really wonderful hot-house flowers for the invalid’s room, but the reason she had hesitated was because there were so many sweetly scented ones in the garden at Tremarth. And nothing could really improve upon a bowl of roses. She would take the scissors when she got back and snip, snip, snip until she had enough to fill a charming and rather valuable silver bowl that stood on the hall table at Tremarth and carry it up to gladden the invalid’s eyes. She
    would place it on his dressing-table, where he could see it easily....
    And she might place one or two choicer blooms in a glass beside his bed. If he was as bewildered as his dark eyes indicated the roses might give him comfort.
    When she came in sight of Tremarth. after driving up over a cliff-top that was brilliantly green in the evening light, she could not prevent herself from feeling profound satisfaction as she viewed the pleasing outlines of her own house. It was such a very, very beautiful house in an even more beautiful setting, and the knowledge that it was hers affected her in much the same way as a warrior returning from a gruelling campaign that had taken him overseas to some very hostile lands might have felt when he returned to his ancestral castle.
    It was not a castle, but it was considerably more useful, and it was home. It was her home! And what was more, she could keep it! She would keep it!
    Waterloo, who had been disappointed earlier in the day because she had declined to take him with her in the car, came out and wagged his tail at the sight of her, and put his nose amongst the purchases in the boot. Hannah too emerged, and stood watching Charlotte unloading her somewhat strange collection of expensive greengrocery and other edibles, but made no attempt to assist her. She stood at the head of the flight of steps, wearing a crisp blue linen dress and a clean starched apron which she appeared to have included by accident amongst her luggage—they were left-overs from her hospital days — and looked extraordinarily efficient and charmingly wholesome with a slight application of lipstick and powder, which she usually disdained, but a little repressed, and even tight-lipped, which struck Charlotte as rather odd.
    Handing up packages containing smoked salmon and Dover sole, which she had been unable to resist, and urging careful treatment of them, Charlotte enquired why she looked so grim. With a sudden surge of anxiety she enquired:
    “There’s nothing wrong with Richard, is there? I mean, he’s not any worse?”
    “No,