Bachelor Boys Read Online Free PDF

nasty way, darling,” she added gently. “The first thing you have to understand is that I’m fairly reconciled to dying. I’d rather not, but everyone has to do it some time. And you know I can never be happy in the old way. Not without Jimmy.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œI’m not exactly religious,” she went on, “but I’ve been thinking a lot about what I should expect, after all the dying business. And I can’t help being absolutely sure that there’ll be a way of being with Jimmy. I couldn’t tell you how or why I’m so sure, but I do have this strange confidence. I think I might almost be looking forward to it.”
    You’d think I’d cry, wouldn’t you? Even with a lead weight on my chest, however, I didn’t. I was beginning to discover that when things are really bad, you don’t.
    Phoebe poured tea, and pushed a plate of homemade macaroons toward me. To please her, and to show her that I was still her Sensible Girl, I put one in my mouth. It was ash against my tongue.
    â€œBut of course, I’m worried,” Phoebe said. “I’m getting more and more worried about the boys.”
    â€œWhy? What’s the matter with them?”
    â€œOh, nothing—I didn’t mean—it’s just that I’m so worried about leaving them. Who on earth will look after them? How will they cope? I suppose what I mean is, who will love them?”
    I was sturdy, swallowing fear. “I think it’s safe to say they’ll never be short of love. Half the women in London are in love with them.”
    â€œIt’s not just the love,” Phoebe said, fixing me with her earnest brown eyes. “Who will buy their food? Take care of their washing? If they stay in this house, they’ll never be able to run it properly. They have no idea
what things cost. They’re not ready to be orphans. I can’t throw the two of them straight into the world.”
    â€œDo you want me to talk to them, or something? Assist their stormy passage into real life?”
    â€œIt suddenly came to me this morning,” Phoebe said, “so I rang you straight away. We have to find wives for Fritz and Ben. If I know they’re safely settled and cared for, I can die in peace.”
    I was deeply moved—moved beyond tears, to the very core of my bones. This mother’s heart would burn with love long after the body around it had turned to dust.
    But I was also slightly irritated. “So you want me to provide the wives?”
    â€œWell, since you’re always telling me your women friends can never find nice men, I thought—”
    â€œPhoebe, my girlfriends are brilliant, beautiful and successful. Yes, a surprising number of them are single—but they’re not desperate. Not one of them deserves to be lumbered with your layabout sons.”
    Phoebe was still smiling. She never minded my criticism of her adored ones, because she simply didn’t believe I meant it. “You said yourself, hundreds of girls fall in love with them.”
    â€œYes—floozies and slappers and aging rock chicks.”
    â€œAll we’d have to do is find some nice girls, with a proper sense of responsibility.”
    â€œWhy can’t Fritz and Ben learn responsibility for themselves?”
    â€œThat’s what you always say,” Phoebe said calmly, “and you know they never will. I can’t possibly leave them until I’ve seen them settled. Why are you laughing?”
    â€œYou’re like someone in a Victorian novel, fretting over unmarried daughters. I could just about take your plan seriously if Fritz and Ben were a pair of eighteen-year-old girls.”
    â€œCome on, Cassie.” Phoebe was impatient and eager. “Will you help me or not?”
    I loved her so much for her blind love. Though the idea of tracking down solvent wives for the boys was ludicrous, I couldn’t refuse. I would do