The Marriage Wheel by Susan Barrie Page A

adorable. ”
    “ Ah! ” Lestrode exclaimed.
    They were standing in the middle of the empty drawing-room, and the warm gold of afternoon was seeping gently through the windows and lying in molten splashes on the floor. There was a kind of desolation in the atmosphere, a gentle melancholy, but Frederica was hardly aware of it. She saw the room as it must once have been, with festoons of curtains at the graceful windows and a thick carpet on the floor—furniture gleaming with polish. She even saw it as it could be, after the expenditure of a great deal of money ... and she knew that if she had the choice she would prefer to live here rather than at the Hall, which for all its charms would never be as homelike as the Dower House could be.
    It was a house with possibilities ... wonderful possibilities. She shut her eyes and then opened them to see the motes dancing in the beams of sunlight, and like a bright spectrum the room came to life. She sighed without quite realising what she was doing.
    “ I ’ d like to live here, ” she said.
    “ Ah! ” Humphrey Lestrode exclaimed again.
    She turned and disappeared into the conservatory, and Lestrode followed her.
    “ You know, ” he confessed, “ I ’ ve been bitten by a notion—I think I’d like to live here one of these days. But if I did that I ’ d have to find a tenant for the Hall, and that might be difficult ... or else I ’ d have to sell it. ”
    “ Why should you sell it? ” Frederica demanded, fingering the withered remains of a palm in a brass pot.
    “ For no particular reason, except, as I say, that I ’ ve been attacked by a whim. And I ’ m the sort of person who occasionally yields to whims. ”
    It seemed to Frederica that she could actually smell the scent of cigar smoke as the gentlemen returned to the drawing-room after dinner, and the ladies were grouped around the piano. Of course, there ought to be a piano. She returned to the drawing-room to decide exactly where it should stand.
    Ah, yes ... Her eyes narrowed again. Over there, by the big window ... and in winter-time, velvet curtains. Velvet curtains would be an absolute necessity where firelight leapt on smooth white panelled walls.
    Her employer came close to her and stood beside her.
    “ Ghosts? ” he enquired, with a tiny smile on his lips as he studied the way the hair bent inwards on the delicate nape of her neck. “ Are you seeing them as well as me? ”
    She turned to him eagerly.
    “ Do you see them, Mr. Lestrode? ” Her eyes were gleaming with excitement, and her lips were softly parted. “ The men and the women who have lived their lives and come and gone in this house that is now so very lonely and neglected? One has a feeling of happiness here—of quiet contentment! It could be an enchanting house. And upstairs there are such a lot of rooms that are not too vast it would be adorable for children! Did you notice that old rocking-chair in the night-nursery? It must have been there for ages! ”
    “ It has. ”
    “ You mean it was there when you bought the place? ”
    “ Long before I even saw the place ... and I only saw it after I ’ d decided to buy the Hall. ” There was an extraordinary—quite an unusual—expression in his eyes as he surveyed her. “ So you ’ re fond of children, are you? ”
    “ Aren ’ t you? ”
    “ Up to a point, yes, but I don ’ t go about dreaming of them, or visualising nurseries full of them, as apparently you do. ” It could have been by accident that his hand alighted on her shoulder. “ One day you ’ re going to be a great little home-maker, Fred. ” She stiffened.
    “ It was agreed that you ’ d call me Wells. ”
    “ Young ladies called Wells don ’ t strike me as ideal home-makers. However, if you ’ d prefer it, Wells ... we ’ ll decide that we ’ ve seen enough of this place for one day and go home! ”
    She felt as if she had come down to earth with a thud.
    “ I ’ m glad you brought me here, ” she said