Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume. Annie Haynes
in London. Peggy enjoys that part of her life thoroughly, and she makes a sweet little hostess, but she is never really as happy anywhere as at Talgarth with her children and her flowers, in the home she loves.
Up at Heron's Carew Paul is growing into a tall manly fellow, whom his father is already talking of sending to school, and there is another baby boy, a year old in the nursery, and a little girl a couple of years older, who is her mother's very image, and the joy of her father's heart.
Unlike the Crassters, Sir Anthony and Lady Carew spend most of their time in the country. Sir Anthony, like most men, is happiest there, occupied with his hunting, and his shooting and looking after his property, while the very mention of London to Lady Carew always seems to bring back the memory of that bygone tragedy that once threatened to wreck their lives.
Echoes from the past reach them sometimes when Mrs. Rankin and her daughter pay them a visit, or when a keen looking man with a stubby sandy beard, who is a great friend of Paul's, comes to spend a brief holiday at the Carew Arms. Occasionally, too, the society papers chronicle the doings of a certain Princess Zeuridoff who was, before her second marriage, Lady Palmer.
The Princess has made several tentative efforts of late to renew her friendship with the Carews, and professes herself grieved that her overtures have met with no response. She shrugs her shoulders sometimes, and asks, "What can you expect from the mad Carews?"
Sir Anthony and Lady Carew, however, reck little of her displeasure. Their mutual love, strengthened and purified by the trials they have undergone, their affection for their children, their care for their dependents and their poorer neighbours round their beautiful things make up the happiness of their lives, and they have little time to spare for outside interests.
Judith is adored by the poor folk in all the country-side. Sir Anthony is her willing helper in all her schemes for the good of others, and people, in general, have almost forgotten, seeing him so transformed by his wife's gentle influence, that he was ever spoken of as one of the mad Carews of Heron's Carew.
The Blue Diamond
Chapter I
“There! I think that will about do. No! stay. The tail of that "M" is not quite right, and I will make it all a bit deeper while I am about it. Our initials must last as long as anybody’s, eh, Minnie?”
The girl blushed and smiled as she glanced at the tall, well-set-up figure.
“I think they look beautiful,” she said shyly, as after putting a few finishing touches the man stepped back to her side and surveyed his handiwork with pride: J.G. and M.S.
“May it soon be M.G.” he said as he slipped his arm round her waist. “What a lot of initials there are! The old tree will soon be full.”
“All the lovers that have been in Lockford for years have carved their initials there,” the girl observed, looking up at the wide, hoary trunk. “See here, Jim, these new ones G.D. and M.H. that will be Mr. Garth Davenant and Miss Mavis.”
“Then it is all right that Miss Mavis’s maid should be the next,” the man responded, implanting a kiss upon her half-averted cheek. “Never mind, Minnie”, with a careless laugh, “there’s nobody here to see!”
“How you do go on!” said Minnie, releasing herself and turning her hot cheeks away. “I have to be back at six to dress Miss Mavis for this dinner at Davenant Court, and we haven’t drunk the water at the Wishing Well yet.”
“That is the next thing, is it?” the man said absently. He was gazing intently up at the grand old oak, under the wide-spreading branches of which they were standing. “Minnie, I believe that is a grey crow’s nest up there! Wait a minute, I must have an egg if it is. This old fellow won’t be difficult to climb, I fancy.”
“Oh, Jim, Jim! Indeed you mustn’t!” the girl began. But her protest went unheeded. He had already thrown off his coat and was climbing up the tree before the words had left her mouth, and she could only watch his ascent in a sort of terrified fascination.
Half-way up, however, he halted with, as it seemed to her, a sharp exclamation, then after a moment’s pause he turned and began his downward journey.
“It wasn’t a crow’s after all!” he said as he slid rapidly to the ground. “It was nothing but some old rubbish, and the game wasn’t worth the candle.”
“It will bring us bad luck, though,” Minnie wailed. “Whatever made you climb the Lovers’ Oak, Jim? It shows right well you are a foreigner. If you’d