‘Linnet Ridgeway!’
‘That’s Her!’ said Mr Burnaby, the landlord of the Three Crowns. He nudged his companion. The two men stared with round bucolic eyes and slightly open mouths. A big scarlet Rolls-Royce had just stopped in front of the local post office. A girl jumped out, a girl without a hat and wearing a frock that looked (but only looked) simple. A girl with golden hair and straight autocratic features – a girl with a lovely shape – a girl such as was seldom seen in Malton-under-Wode.
With a quick imperative step she passed into the post office.
‘That’s her!’ said Mr Burnaby again. And he went on in a low awed voice: ‘Millions she’s got… Going to spend thousands on the place. Swimming-pools there’s going to be, and Italian gardens and a ballroom and half of the house pulled down and rebuilt…’
‘She’ll bring money into the town,’ said his friend. He was a lean, seedy-looking man. His tone was envious and grudging.
Mr Burnaby agreed.
‘Yes, it’s a great thing for Malton-under-Wode. A great thing it is.’ Mr Burnaby was complacent about it. ‘Wake us all up proper,’ he added.
‘Bit of difference from Sir George,’ said the other.
‘Ah, it was the ’orses did for him,’ said Mr Burnaby indulgently. ‘Never ’ad no luck.’
‘What did he get for the place?’
‘A cool sixty thousand, so I’ve heard.’
The lean man whistled.
Mr Burnaby went on triumphantly:
‘And they say she’ll have spent another sixty thousand before she’s finished!’
‘Wicked!’ said the lean man. ‘Where’d she get all that money from?’
‘America, so I’ve heard. Her mother was the only daughter of one of those millionaire blokes. Quite like the pictures, isn’t it?’
The girl came out of the post office and climbed into the car. As she drove off, the lean man followed her with his eyes.
He muttered:
‘It seems all wrong to me – her looking like that. Money and looks – it’s too much! If a girl’s as rich as that she’s no right to be a good-looker as well. And she is a good-looker… Got everything, that girl has. Doesn’t seem fair…’
The Hon. Joanna Southwood said:
‘Darling, I think it’s going to be all perfectly marvellous!’
She was sitting in Linnet Ridgeway’s bedroom at Wode Hall. From the window the eye passed over the gardens to open country with blue shadows of woodlands.
‘It ’s rather perfect, isn’t it?’ said Linnet.
She leaned her arms on the window sill. Her face was eager, alive, dynamic. Beside her, Joanna Southwood seemed, somehow, a little dim – a tall thin young woman of twenty-seven, with a long clever face and freakishly plucked eyebrows.
‘And you’ve done so much in the time! Did you have lots of architects and things?’
‘Three.’
‘What are architects like? I don’t think I’ve ever seen any.’
‘They were all right. I found them rather unpractical sometimes.’
‘Darling, you soon put that right! You are the most practical creature!’ Joanna picked up a string of pearls from the dressing table. ‘I suppose these are real, aren’t they, Linnet?’
‘Of course.’
‘I know it’s “of course” to you, my sweet, but it wouldn’t be to most people. Heavily cultured or even Woolworth! Darling, they really are incredible, so exquisitely matched. They must be worth the most fabulous sums!’
‘Rather vulgar, you think?’
‘No, not at all – just pure beauty. What are they worth?’
‘About fifty thousand.’
‘What a lovely lot of money! Aren’t you afraid of having them stolen?’
‘No, I always wear them – and anyway they’re insured.’
‘Let me wear them till dinnertime, will you, darling? It would give me such a thrill.’
Linnet laughed.
‘Of course, if you like.’
‘You know, Linnet, I really do envy you. You’ve simply got everything. Here you are at twenty, your own mistress, with any amount of money, looks, superb health. You’ve even got brains! When are you twenty-one?’
‘Next June. I shall have a grand coming-of-age party in London.’
‘And then are you going to marry Charles Windlesham? All the dreadful little gossip writers are getting so excited about it. And he really is frightfully devoted.’
Linnet shrugged her shoulders.
‘I don’t know. I don’t really want to marry anyone yet.’
‘Darling, how right you are! It’s never quite the same afterwards, is it?’
The telephone shrilled and Linnet went to it.
‘Yes? Yes?’
The butler’s voice answered her.
‘Miss de Bellefort is on the line. Shall I put her through?’
‘Bellefort? Oh, of course, yes, put her through.’
A click and a voice, an eager, soft, slightly breathless voice.
‘Hullo, is that Miss Ridgeway? Linnet!’
‘Jackie darling! I haven’t heard anything of you for ages and ages!’
‘I know. It’s awful. Linnet, I want to see you terribly.’
‘Darling, can’t you come down here? My new toy. I’d love to show it to you.’
‘That’s just what I want to do.’
‘Well, jump into a train or a car.’
‘Right, I will. A frightfully dilapidated two-seater. I bought it for fifteen pounds, and some days it goes beautifully. But it has moods. If I haven’t arrived by tea-time you’ll know it’s had a mood. So long, my sweet.’
Linnet replaced the receiver. She crossed back to Joanna.
‘That’s my oldest friend, Jacqueline de Bellefort. We were together at a convent in Paris. She’s had the most terribly bad luck. Her father was a French Count, her mother was American – a Southerner. The father went off with some woman, and her mother lost all her money in the Wall Street crash. Jackie was left absolutely broke. I don’t know how she’s managed to get along the last two years.’
Joanna was polishing her deep blood-coloured nails with her friend’s nail pad. She leant back with her head on one side scrutinizing the effect.
‘Darling,’ she drawled, ‘won’t that be rather tiresome? If any misfortunes happen to my friends I always drop them at once! It sounds heartless, but it saves such a lot of trouble later! They always want to borrow money off you, or else they start a dressmaking business and you have to get the most terrible clothes from them. Or they paint lampshades, or do batik scarves.’
