I stood up suddenly and threw myself into her arms.

“Oh, Fanny, dear Fanny, we’ll always be together.”

She was militant in her fierceness. “You bet we will, Miss. I'd like to see the one as could part me from you.”

I released her and sat down on the bed.

“I shall be glad to be finished with this house. I don’t remember ever being really happy   here except on those Christmas mornings and times with you. Do you remember how we used to go out into the markets—how we used to toss with the pieman and buy hot chestnuts?”

“You always loved the markets, Miss.”

“They seemed so exciting and colorful, and those people who were so anxious to sell their goods … they were poor and I was rich … but I used to envy them, Fanny.”

“You didn’t know what their lives were, Miss. You just thought selling there in the market was a nice sort of game, and never having felt the chilblains driving you mad with the itch and the soreness, and the rheumatics bending you double, you just thought what a good time they had. You can’t always know what’s going on out of sight, can you.”

“I was too sorry for myself in those days, Fanny. Now all that is over. I shall expect you in Cornwall by the end of the week.”

“You can depend upon it, Miss, that as soon as I’ve cleared up here I’ll be on that train. And what about all the furniture and everything?”

“I suppose the good pieces will come down to Menfreya; the rest well sell. Mr. Bevil will make the arrangements.”

“I reckon he’ll be making all the arrangements in the future, Miss.”

I smiled and I suppose my happiness shone through the smile, because she was silent for a moment; then I noticed her own expression harden and I understood, because Fanny was not usually one to hide her true feelings, that she disapproved of my wedding.

“I hope so, Fanny. As my husband it is natural that he should!”

“Oh yes, hell make them all right.”

“Fanny, for heaven’s sake, stop it! This is a time for congratulation—not doleful prophecy.”

“The time for prophecy is when it comes naturally to make it”

“What on earth do you mean by that?”

“I’m not at ease in my mind, Miss. Couldn’t you wait a while?”

“Wait, Fanny? What for?”

“You’ve been rushed into this.”

“Rushed. I’ve been waiting for Bevil to ask me to marry him for years.”

Tm afraid …”

“Don’t be. Now, I’m not going to discuss this with you anymore. Everything will be all right.”

“There’s one thing I’d like to know.”

“All right. What is it?”

“Did he ask you before your stepmother died … or after?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means a lot to me, Miss. Before you had only your income, didn’t you? I don’t understand these things much, but I reckon that when your stepmother died all that money was yours … without strings like … as there was with her. Well, you see, if he waited till after she died …”

I could have struck her because I was so angry, and I knew myself well enough to understand that I was whipping up anger to hide fear. Why had she put that vague, uneasy thought of mine into words so that now I could no longer ignore it? I had to faring it out and examine it in the light of day.

“What nonsense,” I said. “He was going to ask me before she died … only we were interrupted.”

If only Aunt Clarissa had not come in at that moment when he had called on me! I was certain then that he was about to ask me to marry him. But was he? If he had meant to ask me, wouldn’t he have made the opportunity?

Fanny was looking at me steadily, her eyes dark with fear and suspicion. She was firmly convinced that Bevil was marrying me for my money; more than that, she had watered those seeds of doubt in my own mind so that they were already springing into life.

She twisted her hands awkwardly. “You see, Miss Harriet, I want you to be happy. I just want everything of the best for you. And when things start to go wrong, they have a habit of going on that way.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“I can’t help thinking of that poor lady. She’s on my mind. I see her looking at her lovely skin in the glass and men putting that stuff in her drink , . . and then going like that”

“It’s horrifying. I’m trying not to think of it, Fanny, but I can’t get her out of my mind. Dying like that … without being prepared.”

“Without being prepared,” whispered Fanny. “Yes, that was how it was. She didn’t have a warning. She was there one day and gone the next I expect my Billy had a warning. He’d hear the storm rising, wouldn’t he? They’d be fighting the storm and they’d know there was danger all round… but she, poor lady, she didn’t know...”

“We’ve got to stop thinking of it, Fanny.”

“Thinking can’t do no good,” she agreed.

“Now stop worrying about me. Everything will be all right”

“Oh yes. Well see to that between us.”

Her mouth was set, her eyes hard; she looked like a general going into battle.

And although she had made those doubts spring up in my mind, I knew that as long as Fanny lived I should always have someone to love me.

Lady Menfrey and I were met at Liskeard, and I shall never forget driving to Menfreya. The lanes, made narrower by the summer foliage on the banks, had never seemed so green and colorful; I sniffed the warm breeze as we came near to the sea and when I saw the towers of Menfreya I could have wept with emotion. Now it was more than a house which had caught my fancy, more than an ancient fascinating house; it was my home.

There was the house on the island; and there was the cliff with the walls of Menfreya rising stark above it on the coast side, as though it were part of the cliff face itself.

Through the porch under the dock tower, with the ancient clock which was never allowed to stop, into the courtyard, where we alighted. Sir Endelion was standing on the great porch waiting to receive us.

“Welcome, welcome, my dearest child.”

I was taken into his embrace; I was kissed.

Never had a bride been more warmly welcomed by her new family.

Those days at Menfreya stand out in my memory. I wanted, I told them, to explore the house—every room and passage, every alcove, every nook.

“I think it’s the most wonderful house in the world,” I told Sir Endelion and Lady Menfrey on that first day.

“That’s fortunate since ifs to be your home, my dear,” replied Sir Endelion.

“I want to see everything...”

“You’ll find that the east wing is in need of repair.”

I smiled, remembering the table with the rubies which were no longer there. Menfreya needed money to be lavished on it by those who were fortunate enough to be taken under its roof. But I should never grudge spending my money on the preservation of the house.

The day after my arrival Sir Endelion himself took me on a tour of inspection. He was delighted to show me everything, and told me as we studied the shield over the fireplace in the great hall that nothing in the world could have made him happier than this engagement.

“It was what your father wished, and it is what I have always wanted. The union of our two families. Your name, my dear, will be inscribed on the shield, for there are the names of all the families into which the Menfreys have married.”

I studied those names, and I wondered what the owners of them had felt when they had come to this great house as brides. Very soon Delvaney would be added to them, and I thought of the names going on when my sons brought home their wives.

It was a happy sense of belonging, and that was what I had always wanted.

There was so much to see and admire, so much which I had seen before and which now bad a special interest because it was to be my home. There was the wonderful mosaic floor in the great hall, the staircase and the suits of armor, the inevitable portraits in the gallery. There were so many in whom I discovered the Menfrey look. They could have been Bevil or Sir Endelion dressed in the costume of another period.

I went into the chapel, which was never used but on whose attar fresh candles were kept; I was shown the secret room in the buttress, and Sir Endelion told me the story of me Menfrey who had kept the woman he loved there, unknown to his family.

The story is that the clock hi the tower stopped and no one could make it go. Then the master of the house came home and went to the secret room and found his mistress. And her child dead. But don’t you believe all you hear about the Menfreys, my dear. There are enough stories about our awful doings to make a One Thousand and One Nights’ Entertainment I don’t think you’ll find us as black as we’re painted. Tell me, Harriet, you don’t think we’re half bad, do you?”

“I have known you too long to be afraid of what I may discover.”

“And soon you’ll be one of us. Bevil’s a lucky fellow. I’ve told him so, and I don’t think you’re going to be so hard done by either.”

I loved seeing the place and hearing the stories.

But Lady Menfrey was eager that preparations for the wedding should be put in hand without delay, so we went to Plymouth and chose the material for my wedding gown, and there we passed the theater in which Gwennan had met Benedict Bellairs, and I was sad thinking of Gwennan and wondering why she had never written to let us know what was happening to her. What fun it would have been if she had been with me now! Sisters, in truth! If only she had married Harry Leveret and were now settled happily at Chough Towers with him, how pleasant it would have been!

We chose the white satin for my wedding gown, and I was to wear the veil which Lady Menfrey herself had worn and which had been worn by her predecessor.

She did not mention Gwennan and I was surprised, for I had thought that coming into Plymouth must remind her.

Bevil came down to Cornwall and the banns were put up. When I went driving with him through the countryside, we called on several of the neighboring squires and were greeted with a great show of friendliness.

“I knew your father. Such a charming man. How happy he would be if he could see this day.”

“So appropriate, I am sure you will be a great help hi the constituency.”

“Such a suitable match. We are all quite delighted.”

Bevil would give imitations of our hosts as we drove along. It was a little malicious but very funny, and I found that I was constantly laughing in his company. It was the laughter of happiness, but then that is the best laughter of all.

I was learning about Bevil. He had a quick wit; he was hot-tempered; he was kind but, when he was in a rage, he seemed capable of injustice; repentance quickly followed, and although inherent pride made it difficult for him to admit he was wrong, his sense of justice was even greater than his pride. I was never quite sure whether he was as much in love with me as he implied. He was fond of me— he always had been—but was he more in love with the suitability of the match than with my person? I felt fearful and wondered whether he could have been equally fond of any girl who obviously cared for him and had enough money to make her good for Menfreya. Sometimes in my room I looked at myself critically. My appearance had improved since my engagement, for happiness can give some beauty to any face, but I could not help being conscious of the manner in which his eyes would light up at the sight of a pretty girl; he had a special smile for them all, even a milkmaid whom we passed in the lanes.

When we called on Dr. Syms I wondered what Bevil was thinking. Here it was that Gwennan had been brought when she had had her accident and he had first seen Jessica, but if he was remembering those days he gave no sign.

“Dr. Syms,” he said jovially, “you’ll come to the wedding?”

“Ill be there, duty permitting.” Dr. Syms, chubby-faced, middle-aged and energetic, was beaming his congratulations. “But if somebody’s baby chooses to make an appearance at that time … well, I shall hear all about it, for there seems to be nothing else people can talk of but the Menfreya wedding.”

Mrs. Syms took us into her drawing room, and we drank wine while we talked of the wedding and the constituency and what was likely to happen at the next election. She was, I discovered, an ardent worker for the party.

“I’m sure you’ll be such an asset,” she told me. “An M.P. needs a wife; and your being the daughter of the previous Member is going to appeal. I hear your father was such a fine Member; and now that he is gone and we’re back in the old tradition of a Menfrey for Lansella, it’s so charming that our present Member should be the husband of the daughter of the old one. It'll be as though the seat never really went out of the family. That will mean a great deal here.”