Master of Melincourt by Susan Barrie Page B

she should be out in the sunshine, and she looked towards Tina as if expecting her to leap at her and hug her for putting forward such a brilliant suggestion, but Tina did nothing of the kind. She sat at the schoolroom table making large blots on a page of one of her exercise books and surrounding them with tiny dots, and from the look of concentration on her face she was wholly absorbed in what she was doing.
    Marsha frowned quickly and looked impatient. “Tina!” she exclaimed. “I’ve suggested to Miss Sands that she lets you off lessons for to-day, and your uncle and I will take you out with us. We’re going out to lunch where there are several children—all, like you, in the charge of a governess—and I’m sure you’d like that, wouldn’t you ? ”
    “Not particularly,” Tina answered, looking up at her with indifferent eyes.
    Marsha bit her delicate pink underlip.
    “But surely you don’t want to remain cooped up here on such a lovely day?” she demanded. “Apart from anything else it isn’t good for you.”
    “I’d rather go for a walk with Edwina,” Tina explained. “She’s fun to go for a walk with because she knows so much about birds and things, and she’s already said that we’ll go for a really long walk this afternoon.”
    “But surely you’d rather go for a drive than a walk?”
    “No.”
    Marsha turned away. Edwina could tell from her sudden, heightened colour that she was annoyed, and she was also afraid that Tina had not been particularly tactful in the way she had refused her invitation.
    That night the two of them were invited downstairs for dinner, and although Edwina was certain it was far too late for the child to be up, let alone to partake of a particularly lavish meal, her objections were overridden by Miss Fleming. With tightened lips she informed Edwina that, before her advent, Tina had always stayed up for dinner with her uncle, particularly when she herself was a visitor to the house, and to-night it was her particular wish that the child should be present.
    “After all,” she said, once more walking into the schoolroom at the very moment that the schoolroom table was being set for a light and nourishing repast that would have ensured Tina getting to bed at a reasonable hour, and enjoying a restful night after the right amount of exercise during the daytime, “I do happen to know Tina very well indeed, and I’m hoping that our relationship will be even closer in the future.” She looked meaningly at Tina, and asked her softly to run away to her bedroom for a short while because she wished to talk to Miss Sands without interruption, and although Tina obeyed her it was not without a lingering backward look at the fruit salad on the table, and the special flavoured junket that the cook had created especially for her.
    Miss Fleming cast a jaundiced look at the junket and said she believed in young people being reared as adults from the word ‘go,’ and nowadays parents were much more broadminded about that sort of thing. The days when children were banished to nurseries and seen occasionally but heard very seldom were no more, and she was wholeheartedly thankful. She had been a ‘banished to the nursery child’ herself, and she felt very strongly on the subject.
    Edwina, who agreed with her up to a point, watched her walking up and down the floor of the schoolroom, and waited for whatever it was that was coming. She observed that Marsha Fleming was looking quite determined, as if her mind was made up about something that was important to her ... and now that the opportunity was hers she was determined to get whatever it was off her chest.
    She picked up a dessert-spoon and examined it casually for a moment, and then looked Edwina full in the eye.
    “Miss Sands,” she said, “I want you to be clear about Tina’s future. She will not much longer be the motherless, spoiled child that she is now.” Her classically cut lips curved with a certain dry amusement as