The Light Heart Read Online Free Page B

now—before lunch,” Phoebe said.
    “Tell your mother first, honey,” said Sue, and Phoebe’s eyes met hers gravely. Mother was a dear. But Father was so exciting sometimes you almost forgot her. Cousin Sue had always taught them it didn’t do to let Mother feel left out.
    “All right. But then she’ll tell Father when he comes home to lunch, and it won’t be the same.”
    “Not quite, but it’s better that way,” Sue insisted quietly. “It’s bad enough already that Bracken came to me before he saw them.”
    Bracken winced at this barefaced saddling of himself with a guilt which was not his, but Phoebe’s glance was commiserating and innocent. She knew how that was too. You always went to Cousin Sue first. She talked people into things for you. It occurred to Phoebe belatedly that Cousin Sue had just talked her into going abroad right over Miles’s head. Bemused, and fingering the new pendant lovingly, Phoebe set out for home.
    In the drawing-room Bracken looked at Sue, one eyebrow aslant.
    “ Well! ” he said admiringly. “You do think fast!”
    “Eden won’t mind, will she? She’s always saying how dull it is without Virginia.”
    “She’ll be delighted. Don’t know why we didn’t think of it ourselves.”
    “I shall pay for everything,” said Sue firmly. “With Gratian ’s money, I mean. He would be glad if it gave Phoebe a good time, wouldn’t he?”
    “Undoubtedly. But you haven’t disposed of the money, you know.”
    “I want her to have lots of clothes,” Sue said extravagantly. “I want her to be dressed the way Virginia always was. Furs, even. And all her travelling expenses, mind.”
    “But, honey, if the legacy is properly invested here, Phoebe’s holiday and wardrobe will all come out of the first year’s income, no matter what you do.”
    Sue stared at him.
    “As much as that? ”
    “Quite a lot. Farthingale wasn’t a cheap house, it was fully equipped and in excellent condition.”
    “Well, it’s all going to be Phoebe’s, anyway,” Sue said decidedly. “You’ve got to spend it on her, and invest it for her, without anybody knowing anything about it. Phoebe is the nearest thing to a daughter of my own I’ll ever have, and I want her to—to—” She hesitated. “Well, to have everything ,” she finished abruptly.
    “Am I to buy her a husband too?” he asked, and Sue’s eyes were unflinching.
    “You’re to buy her a chance to fall in love with someone besides Miles, yes.”
    “Well, I am surprised!” said Bracken. “I thought—”
    Sue interrupted him levelly.
    “Bracken, when I said I wanted Phoebe to have everything, I meant everything I have missed. It’s all right in my case, because with me it was for Sedgwick. But you know as well as I do that Miles isn’t Sedgwick. Miles isn’t— enough. Nobody ought to be an old maid because of Miles, it’s—it would be too lonely.”
    He put his arm around her and his cheek against hers.
    “I see what you mean, honey,” he said.
    “Don’t think I’m sorry for myself, because I’m not.” But she clung to him a moment gratefully. “What Sedgwick and I have had, all these years, has been—worth it. But that’s not for Phoebe. Gratian is going to give Phoebe what he couldn’t give me because it was too late.”
    “And what about poor Miles?” said Bracken. “If he sees danger of her being snatched away from him like this mightn’t he pull up his socks and ask her to marry him?”
    “I hope not,” said Sue gravely. “I do hope he won’t ask her before she goes. It may be very wrong of me, Bracken, but I want Phoebe to have something—well, something more than Miles!”
4
    T HE decision had been made before Bracken left Williamsburg that evening, but there was still time to write to Miles before he arrived for the birthday party. As she sat at the little desk in her bedroom, tearing up sheets of notepaper and beginning again, Phoebe found it a very difficult letter to compose.
    She felt a