A Second Spring Read Online Free Page B

round the side of the house.
    The teasing moon illuminated the scene with pitiless clarity. Its roots riven from the sodden soil, the elm’s massive trunk angled up to the shattered roof of the Dower House, its ravaged crown centred on the crushed wreck of the twins’ chamber.
    Letty tore her hand from Catriona’s clasp and rushed to the tree. As she reached it, it moved again, another overloaded beam failing. She scrabbled at the creviced bark, straining for a fingerhold to pull herself up onto the only pathway to her children.
    Catriona could not deceive herself any longer. Donald and Daphne were dead. Letty was all that was left to her. She ran to seize her daughter round the waist, to tear her from the deadly destroyer.
    “No, Mama! Let me go!” Letty fought her with the strength of desperation. “Donald! Daphne!”
    And then the men were there. Harry Talgarth easily pulled Letty away from the tree. Shrieking, she pounded him with her fists, then collapsed against his chest, tears coming at last, glinting in the moonlight. He held her as she shook with sobs.
    Somehow Sir Gideon was atop the trunk. Catriona held her breath, fists clenched beneath her chin, as he balanced his way up the slope, wavering in every blast of wind. As he reached the first branch, the moon once more hid its face. When it returned, he was past the branch. On hands and knees he crawled up the narrowing trunk.
    He slipped. Catriona’s fingernails bit into her palms, an involuntary cry breaking from her throat. He caught himself, slithered past another limb, reached the house, and vanished into a jagged chaos of boughs and timbers snapped like matchsticks.
    Darkness again. Suddenly the wind dropped. Into the stillness came a small, anxious voice.
    “Mama?”
    “ Daphne!” Catriona swung round, trying to pierce the black night with her eyes, trying to believe she had not imagined the sound. “Daphne? My God, is it really you?”
    The moon sailed clear of the clouds. There beside the shapeless mass of the elm’s roots stood the twins, hand in hand, in coats, hats, and boots, consternation on their small faces.
    Letty fainted.
    Harry Talgarth lowered her to the ground and knelt beside her.
    “Mama!” wailed Donald.
    “Grandmama!” Pulling her brother behind her, Daphne scrambled over the flattened fence and ran to meet Catriona. They both burst into tears as she convulsively hugged them to her. “What’s wrong with Mama?”
    “Is she dead?”
    “Did the tree fall on her?”
    “We didn’t know it was going to fall.”
    “We only went to see the badger.”
    “Will she be all right?”
    “Yes.” She forced the words out. “Yes, she will be all right.”
    Miraculously, Sir Gideon was beside her. “I’ll look after these two. You go and see to your daughter.” He gathered the twins into his arms and began to explain to them what had happened and why their mother had fallen into a swoon.
    Letty was already stirring when Catriona reached her. She looked up and whispered, “Mama? The twins?”
    “Perfectly safe, darling. I have half a mind to beat the little imps within an inch of their lives. They went to see the badgers, if you please!”
    “But if they had not!” Letty cried, sitting up with Mr Talgarth’s assistance. They all glanced up at the ruin of the twins’ chamber.
    A sudden dizziness hit Catriona as reaction to the horror set in.
    “All’s well that ends well.” Harry Talgarth, prosaic but comforting, helped Letty to stand.
    “Mama, Sir Gideon says we may live at the manor!” The twins dashed up to cling to their mother.
    “Till the Dower House is mended.”
    Their voices seemed to come from a long way away. “Your turn to swoon, I think,” said a soft, faintly amused voice in Catriona’s ear. Sir Gideon took her arm. “Come, sit down and put your head between your knees.”
    “I never...swoon,” she gasped, obeying the light pressure of his hand on her shoulder.
    “I don’t suppose Mrs Rosebay makes a