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“I’m glad,” Meg replied as soon as Nurse Heyward paused for breath. “And I’m not in a hurry for a bit, so if you’re really sure it’s not a bother, I’d love to have tea with you.”

“No bother at all,” Nurse Heyward declared gaily. “Is there anything you want while we’re waiting for Dad? I can’t make up prescriptions, of course. But anything else—?”

There were one or two things Meg wanted and while she was being served, Mr Heyward returned and was duly introduced. Then he took over the shop and Nurse Heyward led the way upstairs to the family quarters.

“There!” she said triumphantly, opening the door of a pleasant sitting room. ‘‘Would you like to wait there while I get the tea—or would you like to come into the kitchen so that we can talk?”

“The kitchen, please,” said Meg. She was quite sure that Nurse Heyward would do most of the talking, but after all, that was what she wanted—so long as the conversation could be directed to the right subjects. She needn’t have worried. If she had been actually prompted, Nurse Heyward could hardly have come to' the point more speedily.

“You know, I’m particularly glad that Mr Ainslie’s getting better,” she announced as she put the kettle on and began to lay a tray. “Partly because he’s such a nice man, of course, but also because—well, perhaps it sounds silly to you, but you know, people were beginning to wonder, after Nanny Sturt’s accident, if there wasn't something unlucky about being connected with that cottage of hers. Of course it’s nonsense, but still, I’m glad he’s getting better.”

“Yes, I see what you mean,” Meg said slowly. “But are people really as superstitious as that? I mean, in this day and age—!”

“You’d be surprised,” Nurse Heyward told her energetically. “I suppose, in this particular case, it is rather an out-of-the-way cottage—rather mysterious, if you know what I mean. And then Nanny Sturt was a little bit queer in the head, poor old soul! Full of odd sorts of fads and fancies. There, that’s the tea made. Do you mind bringing in that plate of biscuits? Thanks.” Settled in the sitting room, Meg returned to the subject of Nanny.

“Was she in hospital very long after the accident?” she asked, stirring her tea.

“Only about ten days," Nurse Heyward replied. “She broke her hip, you know.”

“Yes, I did know that, poor old Nanny,” Meg said sympathetically. “But I’ve never heard just how.”

“Oh, she got up on the seat of an old basket chair to wind up a wall-clock,” Nurse Heyward explained, pouring out the tea. “And it gave way under her and there she was, helpless on the floor and not a soul near. Of course, she ought not to have been living alone, yet you can’t help sympathising with her for being independent and wanting to stay in her own home.”

“No, you can’t,” Meg agreed. “And actually, the accident was reported quite soon after it happened, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, fortunately it just happened that someone did pass the cottage and heard her calling,” Nurse Heywood replied. “I don’t know who it was, but they rang up the police, who broke into the cottage. Another biscuit?”

“No, thank you.” Meg glanced down at her watch. "I must keep an eye on the time because I’ve got to pick Mrs Laidlaw and my aunt up at the hospital and I want to have a little time with my uncle as well.”

“Well, it’s been a short visit, but I’ve enjoyed it ever so much,” Nurse Heyward said warmly a little later when Meg left. "You know, I like my job—I can’t think of anything I’d sooner do, but there’s no two ways about it, it does restrict one’s chances of much in the way of a social life. Oh well, there it is. One can’t have everything, I suppose.”

She sounded so cheerful about it that Meg felt she was, in fact, rather to be envied. Clearly she had found her own particular niche in life, and that was something Meg didn’t feel that she had done yet.

When she reached the hospital she found that Mrs Laidlaw was staying on for a while and so Aunt Ellen was her only passenger. It provided just the opportunity which Meg had wanted to pass on the information she had got from Nurse Heyward, to which she added her own interpretation of it.

“You know,” she said, “it’s put an entirely different complexion on things. The cottage was in such a mess that I—and I think, Uncle Andra—assumed that Nanny had been away from it quite a long time and that die damage had been done either by vandals or perhaps by people who had picnicked there and left all their rubbish behind. But there simply wasn’t time, if that was so, for it. to have got into that condition. It wasn’t the result of just ten days. There was months of accumulated rubbish there—some of the newspapers went back nearly three months. So it must have been poor old Nanny’s own doing. After all, she was very old and frail, things must just have got too much for her, so she never troubled to clear up.”

“I think you’re right,” Aunt Ellen agreed thoughtfully. “But it still leaves one thing unanswered—where did all the rubbish come from? She wouldn’t allow anyone into the cottage. As far as I can discover, she hadn’t left it for months and she doesn’t appear to have had any friends. But someone was providing her with food and she was accepting it. That’s the thing that’s been puzzling me.”

"You don’t think that Fiona was right in saying that some people regarded her as a witch?” Meg suggested dubiously. “Because if they did, the food could have been an attempt to keep on her right side, couldn’t it?”

“Stuff and nonsense!” Aunt Ellen declared vigorously. “At least—” she hesitated. “Perhaps a few people might occasionally have done something like that, and of course, poor old Nanny would feel she could accept their offerings because it would titillate her vanity and reassure her to know that people were afraid of her. But from what you say, there were masses of paper and cartons—and newspapers.”

“The newspapers puzzled me,” Meg commented. “They still do.”

“Do they? To me they make the whole thing clear. Somebody in the village might occasionally have taken her food, either out of kindness or superstition. But I doubt very much if it would have been a regular supply and I doubt even more if anyone from the village would think of bringing her newspapers because they probably don’t bother all that much about them for themselves. No, it must have been someone with a very different outlook who would remember that Nanny always liked to know what was going on in the world and that consequently newspapers would provide her with the sort of entertainment she liked. So—someone who was both perceptive and sympathetic.”

“You mean someone from Heronshaw House, don’t you?” Meg asked hesitantly.

“I mean Hector,” Aunt Ellen declared emphatically. “Or someone acting under his orders. Oh, surely you can see for yourself, Meg,” she concluded impatiently. “It’s just the sort of thing he would do, unostentatiously, asking no reward. Yes, it’s branded all over with his hallmark!”

*

Meg dressed for dinner that evening in a state of barely suppressed excitement. It had been a day on which many of the questions which had troubled her had been answered.

Nurse Heyward’s straightforward account of Nanny’s accident with all its convincing detail; Uncle Tom’s confident assertion that the damage to the cottage roof had been the inevitable result of neglect—all this had set her mind at rest to a very great degree, for what she had thought had been caused by malice and vengefulness she now knew had been nothing of the sort. No one but poor Nanny herself had been responsible for what had happened, and though that didn’t make her pathetic little story any less tragic, to Meg it seemed as if a shadow had been lifted from her mind—and from the cottage itself. To Meg it no longer had that depressing—even frightening—aura of evil about it. It was just a poor, neglected little house which had fallen on hard times in just the same way that, in similar circumstances, a human being might. But, unlike a human being, the cottage had no personality other than the one which Meg herself had bestowed on it. Or perhaps been persuaded to bestow on it?

Well, whichever it had been was of no importance now, because she knew that she had been wrong. Perhaps she ought to have realised that sooner, for looking back, she could see how much she had allowed herself to be influenced by what Fiona had told her. Uncle Tom had made no such mistake. In a very short time he had seen through Fiona. He had summed her up as an exhibitionist and a mischief-maker and consequently refused to believe anything she said.

Anything? Meg, sitting at the dressing table, laid down her brush and stared at her mirror reflection.
Anything?
Certainly Fiona had said that Hector never did anything for nothing and that he liked getting his own way. But Aunt Ellen had said, just this very afternoon, that caring for Nanny in an unostentatious way and asking no reward was
just like Hector
!

One could hardly come across two such diametrically opposite opinions. If Aunt Ellen was right—and Meg had every reason to value her opinion above Fiona’s— then was that just another bit of deliberate mischief-making?

Meg drew a deep breath. There was something else that Fiona had told her about Hector.
That he wanted to marry her for her money.
Was that true, or was it another of Fiona’s inventions?

It
could
be. But was it? Only Fiona herself—or Hector—could answer that. And while it was no use asking Fiona if she had lied, since she would certainly stick to her story, Meg could hardly see herself asking Hector straight out if that was what he intended doing. He would naturally regard such a question as downright impertinence and would put her in her place in no uncertain manner.

But was that the only way of getting to know the truth? Meg tried to put herself outside the problem and consider it objectively. Of course, if Hector was as coldblooded as that, he wouldn’t make any pretence of being in love with Fiona. He might be mercenary, but he certainly wasn’t a hypocrite. He would never pretend to an emotion which he didn’t really feel. Fiona had at least made that clear, for she was under no illusion that he was in love with her—

There was a gentle tap at the door.

“Will you be long, dear?” Aunt Ellen asked with a touch of urgency. “It’s really time we went down.”

“Only a minute now,” Meg assured her hurriedly as she put the finishing touches to her hair and make-up. Then, picking up her handbag, she regarded herself critically in Mrs Laidlaw’s long mirror—and gave a little gasp of surprise. There was nothing sensational about her dress, but its tawny shade of golden-brown suited her colouring to perfection. Her hair, never very difficult to manage, was even more obliging than usual. But it was her face that held her attention. She had never looked like this before! Was that glowing, vivid face really hers? Did her eyes really hold that look of eager anticipation?

She felt a sudden fear. Would the way she looked betray her conviction that because, so far, this had been a day of days, what was left of it couldn’t fail to be at least equally wonderful? Just what she meant by that she wasn’t quite sure—or perhaps it was something that she was almost afraid to admit, even to herself. For the truth was that some instinct told her that, tonight, she would meet a Hector she had never met before—and it would be the
real
Hector. She had learnt so much already today which enabled her to see him more clearly than she had ever done before. Now, wise in that knowledge, she would know for sure.

He was waiting for them in the hall—and there
was
something about him that Meg had never seen before. The harshness of his face seemed to have softened as he gave them a smiling welcome and led the way into a small drawing room where drinks were waiting for them. Just at first, as he attended to his guests’ requirements, Meg had an opportunity of watching him without attracting attention. He was so relaxed, so at his ease and—so amusing! That was something which Meg had not anticipated, and she listened fascinated to his gay conversation which set the whole tone of the little party. She found herself drawn into the general chatter and felt herself blossom out—

I

I

Then Hector suggested that they should do the tour of the house which he had suggested when he had given the invitation, and though the two older ladies decided that they would sooner stay where they were, Meg and Uncle Tom followed him eagerly.

Until now, all that Meg had known of this part of the house was the hall and Hector’s study. Now she was entranced with what he showed them. There was, as he had said, nothing very spectacular about the house, but it was so
right,
and its rightness surely lay in the fact that it had been a home for so many years, cared for and loved by generations of people who had each, in their turn, striven to beautify it, not only by adding to its treasures but in leaving behind them an atmosphere of the happiness they had known here.

“You like it?” Hector’s voice said quietly behind her, and Meg spread out her arms in an expressive gesture.

“It’s the most beautiful home I’ve ever seen,” she told him in a voice that shook a little. “It’s quite, quite perfect—there isn’t anything that could be altered to improve it! ”

“So I sometimes think,” Hector admitted. “And yet there are times when I wish it wasn’t quite so perfect— so finished. You see. I’d like to add something: to it myself, but for the life of me I can’t think of anything that I could do. Can you, Meg?”

She shook her head, but with all her heart she wished that she could tell him the one thing he could do. His home was perfect in the visual sense, yet it lacked one thing—the feeling that it was lived in. These rooms were, she was quite sure, rarely used, and as a result there was something a little sad about them as if they were not quite sure that they were still loved as they had been. What was needed was fires burning in their grates, books and magazines lying about or a piece of needlework in a half-completed state, children’s toys— But perhaps he read what was in her mind, for he glanced round the room they were in and sighed.