The Tender Winds of Spring Read Online Free Page B

Vanity. Your name is Josephine.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Meaning?’
    She shrugged. She knew he was only talking to divert her, or at least to give her time. She cut short the diversion and asked directly: ‘Abel, you just said I also had to do something else.’ She paused. ‘What is it?’
    ‘You have to begin to think of others.’
    ‘Others?’
    ‘There are others in this, Josephine. You’re not the only one.’
    ‘I’m the only twin. We were twins. Twin twins, not just sister twins. Geraldine was Josephine and Josephine was Geraldine. Can you understand?’
    ‘Yes, and sympathise. But it can’t stop at that.’
    ‘Mr. Passant? I mean man called Abel?’
    ‘Just Abel will do. No, it can’t stop at that. It can’t stop because Mark Grant was in it, too, and because of Grant, his three children.’
    ‘I’d never met Mark,’ she said.
    ‘But your twin had, and presumably loved him.’
    ‘Yes, Gee loved him.’
    ‘And Geraldine is Josephine,’ he reminded her. ‘You’ve just said so.’
    She thought that over. ‘Yes, you’re right, of course—I have only been thinking of myself. But the pain is so big it—it seems to fill eternity. There just isn’t room for anyone else.’
    ‘There has to be room. For a period, that is. There has to be temporary room for three children.’
    ‘Oh, yes, the children. I’d forgotten the children. Where are they?’
    ‘Being watched over in the stationmaster’s office in town.’ Abel paused. ‘Awaiting your instructions.’
    ‘My instructions?’
    ‘There’s no one else to give instructions, Josephine. Not, anyway, at this juncture. Had Mark Grant any relatives, do you know?’
    ‘I know nothing about him, only that Gee ... that she ...’ Jo’s voice broke off.
    ‘Well, that all can be untangled later,’ he came in. ‘The immediate thing is what do we do with the kids? They can’t sit in the stationmaster’s office indefinitely.’
    ‘Perhaps their schools—’ Jo suggested, still in confusion.
    ‘According to some good woman whom the stationmaster called in to talk to them, the children had finished with their schools, and you know how boarding schools are these days, as fast as a vacancy occurs, a child fills it up. Possibly and probably the children will get back in time, but that’s not now .’ He emphasised the now to arouse Jo, and he succeeded.
    ‘But they’ll come here now,’ said Jo in surprise. ‘Of course they will come here.’
    ‘That,’ sighed Abel Passant patiently, ‘is what I’ve been leading up to. Why couldn’t you have said so at once?’
    ‘Why couldn’t you have asked at once? Of course I’ll have them. It’s what Gee would have expected of me. She asked me to help win them for her, do the spadework.’ Jo stopped abruptly at an unmistakable closed-up look in the face opposite to her. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘What’s wrong? What have I said?’
    ‘Just about everything,’ he told her baldly. ‘You’re not looking at the situation for them, are you, only for yourself.’
    ‘No,’ she defended, ‘for Gee.’
    ‘But Geraldine is Josephine and Josephine is Geraldine, remember? Or,’ drily, ‘so you said.’
    ‘I remember, but I don’t know the children, do I?’ Jo answered sullenly, for she felt ashamed of herself. She said: ‘Of course I’ll do my best.’
    His face still had that closed-in look, but this time he made no comment.
    ‘I’ll ring town, then,’ he said instead. ‘Get the hire car to bring them out here. By the way ...’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘They don’t know yet.’
    ‘About—’
    He nodded.
    ‘Oh,’ Jo said.
    ‘Will I get the good woman to break it?’ he asked when Jo said no more.
    ‘No—no, don’t do that.’
    ‘It won’t be an easy job telling them.’
    ‘But nothing is easy, is it?’ Jo said hollowly, the pain of amputation encompassing her again.
    He must have seen her wretchedness, for his face lost its closed look.
    ‘I’ll be here,’ he told her, ‘if it will