Angel With Two Faces Read Online Free PDF Page A

knew.’
    ‘No one does. She came to us thirty-odd years ago, and she was on her own by then. She never talks about her marriage, and the only thing anyone seems to know is that it ended when it was still very new.’
    ‘But she was widowed?’
    Ronnie shrugged. ‘Would you be brave enough to pry? The one thing I can say with any certainty is that she’ll have got a good deal on the burial if he did die.’
    Intrigued, Josephine poured some tea from the flask, grateful now for Ronnie’s sedate pace. ‘How’s Archie?’ she asked. ‘I can think of better starts to a holiday than carrying a coffin.’
    ‘Bearing up, if you’ll excuse the pun. Lettice and I always dread any big occasion taking place while we’re at home – weddings, funerals, christenings, they’re all the same. Everyone’s got such a history, you see – they’ve lived and worked together on that estate for generations, and that makes for very strong alliances, and even stronger grudges. It’s like being part of some sort of brotherhood, I suppose – if you imagined something midway between Camelot and Dennis Wheatley, you’d have it about right.’ They both laughed. ‘Most of the time, it’s all perfectly normal. The estate’s big enough for everyone to have his role, and there’s something rather fine about the way they all work together to keep it going. But when we’re gathered together under one roof, it all gets a bit tense and incestuous.’
    ‘Not unlike the theatre, then,’ Josephine said wryly. ‘It must be home from home for you.’
    ‘I’d never thought of it like that, but now you mention it,there are some similarities. I have to say, though, it was a very strange do today, even by our standards. The young lad, Christopher – the Snipe’s nephew, in fact – he nearly dropped the coffin; the curate bungled the eulogy; and, to cap it all, when we came out of the church desperate to get the man safely in the ground, his little sister had tarted the grave up to look like a florist’s showpiece. We rounded the corner and there she was – grinning over six feet of bluebells. All very Lady of Shalott. I could have died, but I’m eternally grateful to you for saving me from the wake. It can only have got worse.’
    Josephine pictured the scene with a shudder. She had a hatred of funerals, and in particular of flowers on graves. ‘If anything happens to me, I don’t want a petal in sight,’ she said. ‘But are you seriously telling me that someone let a child decorate the inside of a grave?’
    ‘Loveday’s not exactly a child. I suppose she’s about fourteen, but she’s always been precocious and her outlook on the world can be a little – well, fanciful. To be honest with you,’ Ronnie added confidingly, ‘I don’t think she’s quite right in the head, but nobody would ever say that. They just accept her for what she is. The parents are both dead, but there’s another sister – Harry’s twin – and the three of them were devoted to each other. I dread to think how this has affected them.’
    ‘What happened to Harry, anyway? Archie said there was an accident, but he didn’t have time to tell me much.’
    ‘Well, Harry’s always been one of those daredevil types, but this time his luck ran out. The stupid boy rode his horse into the lake and drowned.’
    ‘What happened to the horse?’ ‘He swam safely to the other bank. Trust you to think of that first.’
    ‘Well, I’ve always thought the phrase “daredevil type” was another way of saying “irresponsible bastard”,’ Josephine said tartly, ‘so my sympathies are firmly with the horse. Don’t you think it’s a little selfish to get yourself killed like that?’
    ‘I know what you mean, but don’t say it out loud when we get there – you’ll be lynched. Everyone loved Harry, and they certainly won’t have a word spoken against him now he’s dead.’
    ‘Let’s ask the older sister in three months’ time shall we?’ retorted