LITMIR.BIZ

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      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER ONE

      GEMMA was at the top of the house making beds when she heard the ominous shattering of glass. The boys were in the garden, kicking a football around, and she wondered which window it was this time. She mitred a corner neatly; news, especially bad news, travelled fast, someone would be along to tell her quickly enough.

      It was George, her youngest, ten-year-old brother, who climbed the three flights of stairs to break it to her that it was Doctor Gibbons’ kitchen window. ‘And I kicked it,’ he added with a mixture of pride at the length of the shot and apprehension as to what she would say.

      ‘A splendid kick, no doubt,’ declared his eldest sister robustly, and shook a pillow very much in the manner of a small terrier shaking a rat. ‘But you’ll all have to help pay for the damage, and you, my dear, will go round to Doctor Gibbons when he gets back from his rounds, and apologise. I’ll telephone Mr Bates in a minute and see if he’ll come round and measure up the glass right away—perhaps he might even get a new pane in before Doctor Gibbons gets back. But you’ll still have to apologise.’

      ‘For a girl,’ said George, ‘you’re not half bad.’ With which praise he stomped downstairs again. She heard him in the garden a few moments later, arguing with his brothers as to the sum of money required for the new window pane.

      Gemma finished the bed and went, in her turn, downstairs. She was a smallish girl and a little plump, but nicely so. Her hair, hanging down her back in a brown tide loosely tied with a ribbon, was the same soft brown as her eyes and although she was on the plain side, when she smiled or became animated, the plainness was lost in its charm. She was almost twenty-five years old and looked a good deal younger.

      She went straight to the telephone and besought Mr Bates to come as soon as he could, and then retired to the old-fashioned wash-house adjoining the kitchen, and started on the week’s wash; a fearsome pile, but she was used to that; with three boys in the family and two sisters younger than herself, there was naturally a vast amount.

      She eyed it with a jaundiced expression; it was a pity that Mandy and Phil had gone to friends for the weekend—of course she could leave it until the next day when they would be back, but the Easter holidays ended within a day or so and it seemed mean to blight their last freedom with a lot of hard work. Besides, it was a lovely day, with just the right kind of wind. She battled with the elderly washing machine and then left it to thunder and rumble while she went to the kitchen to make coffee. It would be a relief when Cousin Maud got back from her visit to her brother in New Zealand—five weeks, reflected Gemma, of holding down a full-time job, running the old-fashioned house and keeping an eye on her brothers and sisters was just about her limit; thank heaven there was only another week to go—less than a week now, she remembered happily as she went to stop the machine. She hauled out the wash and shoved it into the rinser, set it going and then filled the tub up again. The two motors, working in unison, made the most fearful noise, but she was used to that, merely reiterating to herself the promise that one day she and Cousin Maud would get another washing machine, as she went back to the kitchen to drink her coffee.

      She was back in the wash-house, hauling out the first batch in blissful silence, when a faint sound behind her caused her to say: ‘James? or is it William or James? take some money from the housekeeping jar and get some sausages from Mr Potter—and don’t waste time arguing about going if you want your dinner today.’

      She was tugging at a damp sheet as she spoke, and when a strange voice, deep and leisurely, said: ‘I’m afraid I’m not the person you think—my name’s Ross,’ she dropped it to shoot a startled look over her shoulder.

      She had never seen the man standing in the doorway; a tall, broad-shouldered individual, with pale hair which was probably silver as well, she wasn’t near enough to see, but she could see his eyes, blue and heavy-lidded below thick, pale brows. He had a high-bridged nose and a firm mouth and he was smiling. He was a very good-looking man and she stared for a moment. He bore her look with equanimity, laid a football which he had been carrying on a pile of sacks by the door and remarked: ‘Your brothers’, I believe,’ and waited for her to speak.

      Gemma disentangled the sheet and heaved it into the basket at her feet. ‘You’re from Doctor Gibbons,’ she stated, and frowned a little, ‘but you can’t be the foreign professor who’s staying with him; the boys said he was short and fat and couldn’t speak English…’

      Her visitor shrugged. ‘Boys,’ he remarked, ‘I’ve been one myself.’ He smiled again and Gemma wiped a wet hand down the front of her jersey and skipped across the floor between them.

      ‘I’m Gemma Prentice,’ she told him, and held out a hand, to have it engulfed in his.

      ‘Ross Dieperink van Berhuys.’

      ‘So you are the professor. Do you mind if I just call you that—your name’s rather a mouthful, isn’t it? For a foreigner, I mean,’ she added politely. ‘And thank you for bringing the football. I do hope it didn’t disturb you—the window being broken, I mean. They all go back to school tomorrow.’ She gave him an unaffected smile. ‘Would you like some coffee? If you wouldn’t mind waiting while I load this machine again…?’

      His thank you was grave and his offer to hang out the clothes ready for the line was unexpected; she accepted it without arguing and he went into the large untidy garden with the basket while she switched on once more and went back into the kitchen to fetch another mug.

      The coffee was freshly ground and carefully made; she and Cousin Maud cooked and baked between them and they both turned out what her older relation called good wholesome food; the coffee she poured now smelled delicious and tasted as good as it smelled. Her unexpected guest, sitting comfortably in an old Windsor chair, remarked upon the fact before asking gently:

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