With All My Worldly Goods Read Online Free Page B

could come tomorrow and break it to you. But there is no question of your staying anywhere, my child, until your father comes, because he won’t be coming. You see—he died in New York the night before the boat sailed. And he made me his executor and your guardian.”

 
    CHAPTER TWO
    Lenora had the confused impression that the floor rose up and hit her.
    Everything was a blur for a minute or two, and there was a loud singing in her ears. She didn’t seem able to see anything or feel anything.
    Then she slowly became aware of the pressure of someone’s hand at the back of her neck, and things began to clear again. She was sitting in a chair and that hand on her neck was forcing her head down, so that the blood ran to her numb brain once more, and consciousness was coming back.
    She struggled slightly, the hand was immediately withdrawn, and she felt herself lifted and laid back in the chair.
    At the back of her dazed mind she thought: That would be Bruce Mickleham’s way of reviving you. No tender words and eau-de-cologne for him. He took you by the scruff of the neck and shoved your head between your knees.
    But at least it was effective.
    “Drink this,” his voice ordered somewhere beside her.
    She obediently drank from the glass that was held to her lips. She didn’t really want his arm round her, but it was there, supporting her, whether she liked it or not.
    “Better?”
    “Yes, thank you.”
    She lay back again and looked at him now, and as she did so she saw that he too was pale.
    “I’m sorry,” she said shakily. “I’ve never gone right out like that before.”
    “No, it’s I who should be sorry. I had to stop your going away, of course, but it was a clumsy way of breaking it.”
    “It—it’s quite true then?” She stared up at him piteously, as though, even now, he might relent and tell her he had only been frightening her.
    “I’m sorry, but—yes.”
    “How did it happen?” she said in a whisper.
    “Are you sure you want to hear now?”
    “Yes, please.”
    “He had a terrible heart attack in the hotel in New York. He had been having them for some while, but this was much more serious than any of the earlier ones.”
    “He never told me,” Leonora said dully.
    “No. He always had the idea it would be worrying you unnecessarily. As I expect you know”—he hesitated, and then added in a slightly gentler tone than his usual abrupt one—“your father was an incurable optimist He was quite unable to believe that he was mortally ill.”
    Yes, she could imagine that. Her father would scarcely recognize death even when it stood beside him. Somehow, those words brought him back with unbearable clearness.
    She leant her head on her hand, trying to force back the tears. The last thing he had done was to send her that joyous, loving telegram about their future together. And all the time she had been making those plans, anticipating his happy home-coming, he had really been lying dead in a New York hotel, three thousand miles away.
    There was silence for a minute or two. And then she said in a husky little voice.
    “Please go on.”
    “There isn’t very much more to tell. I happened to have business in New York, and had travelled with him from Mexico City, so that was how I was there. We had known each other very well for some years, and when he knew it was just a matter of an hour or two until the end, he had a solicitor called, made his will, and appointed me your guardian. I already knew about your being left alone after your aunt’s death—he used to talk of you a great deal—so that when he asked me to go to you by the boat in which he himself would have travelled, it seemed the best solution.”
    “I see. It was really—very—kind of you.”
    “It was also my legal duty,” was the slightly cool reply.
    “It all sounds rather a lot of fuss over one unimportant girl,” Leonora said sadly.
    “Your father was very anxious that everything should be explained to you quite