Fortune's Lead by Barbara Perkins

trying not to give it any deep implications, the other half began to relax again in the ease of Henry’s company. He insisted on having a taxi called to take me all the way back to Julia’s flat when the evening was over—and paid it in advance—and we parted laughing, because he had been telling me a long and probably apocryphal story about the time all his relations had decided to visit him at Thurlanger at once, and he had disliked them all so much that he had simply packed up and left for the South of France. We left it that I would write to him and let him know whether I would accept his job, since he was off to Thurlanger in the morning. He hoped I would decide to come...
    I found I was still seeing Henry as a leprechaun as I let myself into Julia’s flat. Mischievous, but both charming and kind—and he seemed, for some reason of his own, to like me.
    As I crept past Julia’s room—it was very late—I felt inclined to wake her up and tell her I’d just been offered a fabulous and overpaid job as a social secretary. And that Henry’s arrival in my life had been predicted by a gypsy—with further, distinctly startling, suggestions...
    I could imagine what she would say. ‘Really, Charlotte, you must be feverish! You’d better go to ‘bed!’ Or if I told her about the job and not the gypsy, she’d say, ‘Good gracious, how extraordinary! And what a waste of your training! Of course, you won’t take it!’
    And she’d be right—of course. I wouldn’t take it.

 
    CHAPTER III
    I climbed out of the taxi which had been there to meet me at Beemondham Station, and looked up at Thurlanger House with a flutter of nervousness in my stomach.
    All right—so here I was. It was one thing to decide the whole thing was inevitable, to write accepting Henry’s offer, and to receive a delighted letter back. It was another to be standing here in front of this square-fronted, beautifully imposing house trying to nerve myself to ring the doorbell and announce my arrival. I glanced over my shoulder at the parkland falling away behind me—grass, trees, a fenced paddock with horses grazing. Low buildings away to the left of the house suggested themselves as stables, and beyond them I could see white and red poles and bars set up as practice jumps. I had seen all this as we came up the long drive from the road, after a rattling journey along the fifteen winding miles from Beemondham. Beemondham’s best (or only) taxi had seen better days, but as its driver deposited my suitcases and climbed back behind the wheel, I felt half inclined to go back with him. I was too ridiculously out of place in this gracious setting. But it was too late to do anything about that now, as the car wheels swished on the gravel and the taxi rattled back the way we had come. Besides, I had not only accepted the job, but an advance on my salary as well, sent by Henry ‘for necessary expenses.’ One of the necessary expenses had been more clothes bought in London on my way here, since part of my job was supposed to be looking well-dressed for the benefits of Esther Thurlanger. Glancing round now, I had the horrible feeling that nothing I possessed would look suitable worn here—I should have gone for good tweeds, and sensible shoes. Wrong already—but it was no use standing here in the cool early October air wishing I’d never come. Stiffening myself resolutely, I picked up my suitcases and mounted the three shallow steps to the front door. After all, there was nothing to be afraid of...
    My peal on the doorbell had unexpectedly rapid results. The door swung open at once, as if someone had been standing just inside it—in fact someone obviously had, though not for the purpose of greeting me. He was on his way out—a very tall, broad-shouldered young man, who almost bumped into me, and drew back with an apology which died on his lips. I found myself staring into a face I’d seen once before—on the train, at Bradfield, when I first met