Dennis Wheatley: Sixty Days to Live

It transpired that she ran the house and looked after her father with only the help of a woman in the kitchen and a farm hand who laid the fires, cleaned the shoes and did the other heavy work each morning. She made an unnecessary parade of busying herself and mildly sarcastic remarks about Lavina's proverbial laziness.

But Lavina, lolling in a big armchair, refused to be drawn and watched her sister with a faintly cynical smile as the older girl went off to lay the table for supper.

To his own surprise, Sam found himself offering to help and he could cheerfully have smacked Lavina for the openly derisive grin with which she favoured him; but Gervaise Stapleton would not hear of his guest lifting a finger and had just produced some remarkably fine Madeira in a dust-encrusted bottle.

"We have unfortunately used up all our old sherry,' he explained, 'but I trust you will find this a passable substitute. Luckily, I still have a few bins of it. My grandfather laid it down.'

Sam made a rapid calculation. The dark golden nectar had been bottled in the 1840's or early '50's at the latest, then. He sipped it and found it marvellous.

A newcomer entered at that moment; a good-looking, fair man aged about thirty, in well worn tweeds; whom Gervaise introduced as 'our neighbour, Derek Burroughs'.

With a quick nod to Sam, Burroughs walked straight over to Lavina, took both her hands and smiled down into her face.

'So you're back at last,' he murmured. 'I was beginning to think you'd completely forgotten us.'

'I could never do that, Derek,' she smiled up at him.

Sam Curry's mouth tightened. The fellow was in love with her. That was as clear as if he had said so, and it looked as if she had tender memories of him. For the first time that evening Sam felt himself Sir Samuel, and his age—getting on for fifty. He didn't like the thought of this solid, good-looking ghost that had suddenly arisen out of Lavina's past but he comforted himself quickly. Burroughs was evidently a gentleman-farmer—a country bumpkin with little brain and probably less money. What if he had had an affair with Lavina in the past? Surely he could not hope to attract the sophisticated woman she had now become. Still, Sam admitted to himself, he would have given a good few of his thousands to be Derek Burroughs' age again or even to have his figure.

'Do you think I've changed much, Derek?' Lavina was asking.

'You're still the same Lavina underneath,' he replied slowly, 'but on the surface—well, you're a bit startling, aren't you?'

'D'you mean my make-up?'

'Yes. All that black stuff round your eyes makes them look smaller and somehow it doesn't seem to go with your fair complexion. I suppose it's all right in a film star but the simple folk round here would take you for—for . ..'

Oliver Stapleton had been quietly working at a desk in a corner of the room. He turned, and raising his horn-rimmed spectacles, looked across at Lavina under them. 'Go on, say it, Derek,' he urged with a dry chuckle. 'A scarlet woman. That's the classic expression, isn't it? She's remained quite a nice girl really, but she's still very young.'

Lavina sat up with a jerk. 'Uncle Oliver, you're a beast!' she laughed. 'Perhaps I have got a bit much on for the country but I'm so used to it.'

Sam Curry cut into the conversation with smooth tact and was rewarded by a little look of gratitude from Lavina which made his heart beat faster.

At dinner they waited upon themselves. The meal was simple but good, and over it the Stapletons and Derek Burroughs talked mainly of old times and friends whom Sam did not know, which left him rather out of it, although Gervaise Stapleton took pains to draw him into the conversation at every opportunity.

Afterwards they sat in the library again and Lavina told her family something of the joys and pitfalls that she had met with during her three years in the studios.

At half-past eleven Derek Burroughs reluctantly broke up the party as he had a sick mare that he wanted to look at before he turned in; but on leaving he said that he would be over again first thing in the morning and it was agreed that he and Lavina should go for a ride together.

Margery, Lavina and Sam went up to bed, leaving the two older men together. Oliver had a great pile of logarithm books and other astronomical impedimenta on the desk in the far corner of the room; and he settled down to do an hour's work before going to bed. But Gervaise Stapleton was, for him, unusually restless. After reading a few pages of his book, he threw it down and addressed his brother.

'Well, what do you make of her, Oliver?'

The tall, untidy astronomer pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and turned in his chair. 'Make of whom?' he asked, vaguely.

'Why, Lavina, of course.'

'Oh—Lavina. I think she's looking very well. Older, of course, and a little hard; but that is only on the surface. The girl has character, you know, Gervaise. Always had. And that's doubtless stood her in good stead through any trouble. She laughs as easily as ever, which shows that she has come to no serious harm; but then, I never thought she would, and you may remember that I felt you were wrong when you so strongly opposed her going into the film business.'

Gervaise nodded. 'Yes. I think I way wrong but, from all one had heard, the film people seemed such a terribly mixed lot, and she was only twenty.'

At that moment Lavina came into the room again, looking very small and very young now that she had taken most of the make-up off her face and was wearing flat-heeled slippers and a dressing-gown.

She was an impulsive person, and feeling that she owed it to her father to have a heart-to-heart talk with him at the first opportunity, had decided not to delay it until the morning. The fact that her Uncle Oliver was there did not deter her, as the two brothers had no secrets from each other and, in any case, he had turned back to his calculations on her entry.

Going straight up to her father where he stood with his back to the smouldering wood fire on its great pile of accumulated winter ashes, she said softly: 'Well, dearest, am I forgiven?'

He put both his hands on her shoulders and smiled down at her. 'Of course you are, my princess. It is really I who should ask your forgiveness, for opposing you so bitterly three years ago that you ran away and cut yourself off from us.'

'I ought to have been more patient, darling, and waited another year as you wanted me to, but I can understand now just what you felt. You must have thought that all sorts of terrible things would happen.'

He shook his head. 'I should have known that with your personality you'd be all right, and I've blamed myself terribly since for not letting you go when you wanted to. Then you would at least have had our support in those early months when you must have needed it most.'

'They weren't so bad. Of course, there are bad hats in the film business just like any other; but I soon learnt how to deal with them when they became difficult, and most of the film people are wonderfully kindhearted. Many of them were absolutely marvellous to me.'

'I wish I'd known that at the time, because I'm afraid I did them an injustice and it would have saved me many a night of sleepless worry about you.'

'Poor darling! Never mind. It's all over now and we're together again.'

'Yes. And you've come back triumphant, a famous film star.'

'No, dearest, not really. I am a star by courtesy, but I've never made a really big picture. The trouble is that I'm not really photogenic and every picture I play in means endless extra trouble for the director and cutters before they're satisfied. What d'you think of Sam?'

Gervaise considered for a moment. 'He seems a nice fellow. Is he the Sir Samuel Curry who gambles for such big sums at Deauville and Le Touquet? I seem to remember seeing his name in a paper somewhere in that connection.'