A Pack of Lies Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘What lies have I told?’ And when she looked up into those wide-open, long-lashed eyes, they were indeed dark enough to be . . . ‘It’s odd. Your mother mistook me for a liar yesterday,’ he continued, in a loud voice. ‘Now I could tell you a story about a liar-and-a-half in connection with a certain wooden writing box.’
    He eased out past Ailsa, despite her protesting hands on his chest, and she was left with the sensation that she had just touched something still connected to the mains electricity. When she rounded the wardrobe, Mr Singh was perched up on a second-hand bar stool, wearing the look of a snake confronted with a snake-charmer, and MCC had started his story.
    * * *
     
    Dearest Mamma,
    I hope you are well. I hope Papa is well. The weather here is v. vile. We have not got out in the park for days. Last week was Easter in the church. The minster said we must forgive those who spitefully use us. But it is v. hard. Belinda steals out of my trunk and Sarah puts mice in my bed and Miss Stubbs has such favourites, truly! I think some mammas and papas must send extra money so that Miss Stubbs will be nice to their girls. I wish I was in India with you and Papa. I would v. much like to see India now that us British have made it sivvilised.
    Miss Stubbs says it is v. educational and I miss you so much, dearest Mamma. And dear Papa, too.
     
    Grace Briavel-Tomson sucked the end of her pen, and stared out at the rain-shiny street. Her fingers drummed on the sloping lid of her beautiful escritoire. She knewhow much her mother liked to get letters from her. She was under strict instructions to write every week. It was hard to think of enough things to write
every
week. It was different for her mamma and papa. Life in India was so very interesting, with fakirs and opium and bazaars and typhoid and army balls and skirmishes with the natives and child brides and widows being burned on funeral pyres. Kensington was very dull by comparison. In India, a girl would have native servants to do everything for her, and hunters risking life and limb to shoot tigers and lay the skins at her feet.
    ‘They ought to send for me,’ she thought, watching the ink well up into the nib of her pen like a big blue teardrop. ‘They
shall
send for me! Why should they enjoy themselves out there at all those dances and polo matches, and leave me sitting here learning stupid French? It’s not fair! Well it’s not.’
    She chewed ferociously on the end of her pen until inspiration came, like milk through a straw, and she scribbled off a last few lines to fill the sheet of pink paper.
     
    Matron uses some very strange language, Mamma, and calls Peter the caretaker a ‘bastard’ and a ‘sot’. Could you kindly tell me what these words mean as I do not understand them. Your afectionate and loving daughter asks God to bless you —
    Grace.
    PS Please send a little money if you can spare it, for Morgana twisted my arm and pulled my hair until I gave her all my pocket money, and I fear v. much that I shall have nothing to put in the collection plate on Sundays.
     
    As she blotted dry her letter and addressed the envelope, she called out in a shrill, piercing voice, ‘Morgana! Where are you?’
    A timid, gangling girl hurried clumsily into the room, all hands and feet and apologies.
    ‘Take this letter to the post, Morgana.’
    ‘Oh, but Grace! It’s raining so
hard
!’ whispered the girl pleadingly.
    ‘Take it! . . . Or do you want me to pull your hair again, like before? Oh and you’ll have to go to the Post Office for a stamp, first.’
    ‘But Grace! You took all my . . . I mean you borrowed all my money. Don’t you remember?’
    Snatching hold of the girl’s white lawn smock, Grace wiped her inky nib on its ruffles before laying the pen neatly in its compartment and locking her escritoire with its little silver key. ‘Then you shall have to borrow the money from someone, won’t you, dear?’ she said sneeringly.