The Runaway Visitors Read Online Free

hear good of themselves, she thought; and although she had unintentionally, unwittingly, heard that conversation, the saying held good. ‘This lot,’ he had called them—herself, Sebastien and Amanda. ‘This lot won’t get a chance to upset my work schedule.’ He had decided they were going to be a nuisance before he had even met them. And about her parents, he had said: ‘They’re so damned casual, those Fenns.’ Perhaps it was true that they were casual, perhaps they did put more importance on their own work than on other people’s, but he shouldn’t have spoken so freely and in a somewhat derogatory manner about them to his friends.
    She made her way back by the way she had come. She reached her room safely without being seen by anybody. Amanda was sleeping soundly. Victoria began to undress by the light of one shaded lamp.
    ‘Well,’ she concluded, ‘we’ll see how it goes. He needn’t be afraid that we shall be a nuisance. If there's any bother, I shall pack up and we’ll go home. I sometimes used to suspect—when we were all younger and had to do as we were told—that we weren’t always exactly welcome; but I’ve never heard it plainly stated before, and I can’t say that I like it.’
    CHAPTER II
    In the middle of the next morning, Victoria found herself on a hilltop above Charles Duncan’s farm overlooking a wide panorama of olive groves, pines and Italian cypresses, with the sweet maquis-like smells of the cystus, the thyme and the rosemary all about her.
    The sun was already very hot, but up here in the hills there was a cool breeze to alleviate it. Victoria wore a sleeveless dress in a cool sea-green colouring which went particularly well with the unusual colour of her hair. It was gold without being a true gold with a suggestion of auburn that could neither be called a true
    auburn. There were bronze lights in it. It was, in fact, shining and bright, and had fascinated more than one young man of Victoria’s acquaintance. Sometimes she wore it down and felt young and girlish; at other times, she piled it up on her head and felt dignified. To-day, it was tied at the back of her neck with a flowing sea-green ribbon.
    She looked cool, poised and elegant, without realising that she did so. She never took seriously the remarks of her friends when they said: ‘ Oh, Victoria looks nice in anything,’ but the fact was that she could transform the most ordinary, off-the-peg dress the moment she put it on. She had an air, a style about her, that was the more attractive because she was unconscious of it. She sat on the trunk of a cypress that had been uprooted in some long-ago storm, her ankles crossed, her hands at each side supporting her on the trunk, and thought about the present condition of herself, Sebastien and Amanda.
    There had been no sign of Charles Duncan this morning, nor of any guests. Miss Jameson had walked into Victoria’s room at half past seven with three cups on a tray, stating baldly: ‘Here’s your morning tea.’ Victoria, refusing to follow such an example of bad manners, had said: ‘Good morning, Miss Jameson, thank you very much. But Sebastien doesn’t like morning tea.’ Whereupon, Miss Jameson removed one cup and marched to the door. With her hand on the handle, she said:
    ‘I suppose you’ve got this fad of having your meals out in the open air? You’ll be wanting your breakfast on the terrace?’
    ‘Yes, we’d like that.’
    The closing of the door had been the only answer.
    ‘Old curmudgeon,’ said Victoria softly.
    But the breakfast on the terrace had been exceptionally good. Warm rolls, splendid hot coffee, honey, marmalade; and boiled eggs wrapped up in a napkin. Sebastien cheered up at the prospect of good food: supper last night had been excellent too.
    Miss Jameson had not mentioned Mr. Duncan or guests, nor would Victoria be the first to ask about them. When they had taken their breakfast tray back to the kitchen, they had started out for a long walk