The Fortune Hunter Page 0,2

lightened by flashes of lighter shades like a stream in the sun. Her skin, despite much time out of doors, was flawless.

Amy was just tall enough to be called elegant, and her form was sweetly rounded with a tendency to lushness in the upper part, which she particularly deplored.

Amy had never been at ease with her beauty, for it seemed to make people behave in very silly ways - men ogled and clustered, and women were frequently acidic - but she had borne it until the family's plunge into poverty. Then she had realized how it set her apart from her sisters, just as Jassy had said. Amy would always find a husband if she sought one, whereas Beryl - much more worthy of love - was unlikely to, and even Jassy, pretty as she was, might fail without a penny to her name.

So Amy had spent the last two years doing her best to obliterate her beauty. She had always had a taste for simple garments, and after her father's death she had stripped them of all trimmings and dyed the brighter ones into dull colors. Mourning had provided a good excuse, and those which had survived the black dye vat had been plunged into a brown one, with the explanation that it made them more suitable for work.

"But Amy, dear," Beryl had said, "I cannot see why a brown dress is more practical than a pink one unless you mean that it will not look dirty when it is. I do not like that thought at all."

Amy had had no satisfactory response to that one.

She had used the same excuse, however - their new need to do the work once done by a dozen servants - to take to wearing her hair scraped back into a tight knot and covered by a cap. Beryl had found no logical argument against that, except that it was not very becoming.

Amy had hoped she was right, but neither clothes nor cap seemed to reduce Amy's quantity of admirers, and Amy wanted them reduced to zero, for she could not bear to marry while her sisters were left spinsters.

In desperation, she had made the experiment of having her hair cropped short like Jacinth's. That had been a disaster, and she was waiting impatiently for it to grow. For the moment there was no question of confining it at all. It rioted around her head like a cherub's curls, emphasizing not just her beauty but a childlike impression she abhorred.

"If you were as plain as a barn door," said Beryl with a teasing smile, "it would be even harder on us, dearest. I enjoy seeing your beauty."

Amy squeezed Beryl's hand again, touched by the sincere words. Beryl had no scrap of envy in her. "But perhaps I am too serious-minded," she said. "Since we never expected to have this money, it would do no harm to spend it on fripperies."

"It would do no good either," said Beryl, "except develop a taste for more. I'm sure you were right when you said it would be better to live very simply for a few years so that Stonycourt be restored." She did not sound very sure.

"You are the oldest," said Amy. "If you think we should manage in a different way, please say so."

"Oh no," said Beryl honestly. "I have no notion at all. Left to myself, I suppose I would have carried on as Papa did, had it been possible to get credit. I am good at finding ways to manage on less, but I can't plan as you do, and figure out our finances, and how long it will take... it would all be too depressing." She worried a groove in the table with her fingernail, then asked, "How long will it take, Amy?"

Amy had done her best to be vague on such matters, and in typical fashion, the family had not pressed her, but she would not shrink a straight question. "Four years," she said, "if we're very careful, and rents stay high, and there is no disaster such as the roof leaking..." She stopped herself from listing all the unexpected expenses which could arise to throw her calculations into chaos. "In four years," she said cheerfully, "we should be almost free of debt, and Jasper's income will be adequate for Stonycourt to become a proper home again."

"That will be pleasant for Jasper," Beryl said, "but what of us?"

Amy felt as if a void had opened at her feet. In all her