Bleak Expectations Read Online Free PDF Page A

napkins!’
    ‘Mama, no, I am not a napkin, I am your son, Pip . . .’
    ‘Pip? I see no Pips!’ She covered her eyes with her hand and turned her head away from me. ‘Now run along, child, for I am awaiting the return of my husband. He’s a terribly dashing double-pleated curtain.’
    ‘But, Mama!’ I protested. ‘Papa is dead!’
    ‘I know. I may have quite a wait! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!’
    Her laugh was not that of a sane woman. Indeed, it was that of a mad one. High-pitched and falsely ecstatic, each ‘ha’ was like a hyena-wielded dagger to my tender young heart. I could face it no more, and slammed the cupboard door.
    ‘Ha ha ha! Ha ha – ow!’
    I had inadvertently trapped my mother’s finger in the door. It caused her but brief pause, however, and the soul-piercing laugh soon resumed, its awful sound echoing in my ears as I fled.
    The rooms and corridors of our home, once so full of joy and laughter, were now full of only pain and sadness. There was no bollibling, only woement and cryification. We played no games, sang no songs, danced no merry jigs, except ironically.
    Poppy had Mr Humswell teach her the saddest note he knew and she played it repeatedly on the pianoforte, bleakly striking B-miserable over and over with a grief-stricken finger. Pippa set aside her anvil – she said that striking it was too much like striking the memory of Father – and donned a bright green and purple mourning dress. 1 For my own part I decided that, now I was the man of the house, I should show no childish tears and bottled every emotion inside myself, like sad sherry.
    Mr Parsimonious visited, but even his gifts of nine kinds of rare orchid, some salmon, a stained-glass representation of the battle of Agincourt, two dozen crystal wren’s eggs and a funny sculpture of a bottom offered no grief-relief. Alas, accompanying him was Mr Benevolent, whose presence saddened us further.
    ‘A dashed-darn idiot, your father, and now he’s dead. No loss, really.’
    ‘It is a loss to us, sir,’ Pippa said. Poppy and I nodded our agreement.
    ‘Cowards, eh?’ Benevolent sneered, showing all the empathy of a malicious stone.
    He may have been odious – in fact he definitely was – but he could at least answer something that nagged at me. I gulped like a nervous heron and asked, ‘Please, sir, you were with our father in the Indies. How did he meet his end?’
    A part of me did not want to know; another part needed to know; a third part could have gone either way.
    ‘Very well. I shall tell you.’ His dark eyes gleamed with delight at the dead-fathery news he was about to impart. ‘Your father had created a hotel in the Indies made entirely from monkeys.’
    This unexpected building material startled Poppy. ‘Sorry . . . Did you say monkeys?’
    ‘I did. He trained them to stand on each other’s shoulders, binding themselves together to form a rigid but flexible framework. It was a triumph, this monkey hotel. People came from miles to stay in it. And then . . . someone opened up a factory right next door.’ He shook his head, as if this was the most regrettable and terrible thing anyone had ever done.
    ‘What sort of factory?’ I asked.
    ‘A peanut and banana factory. The monkeys went berserk and tore your father limb from limb.’
    I was astounded. ‘But . . . but who would do such a stupid and evil thing?’
    ‘No idea.’ Benevolent reached into his pocket and produced a bag of sweetmeats. ‘Anyone fancy a peanut and banana treat?’ 2
    I was too distraught to take one of his nutty, nana-y delights, my mind filled with the image of my father trying desperately to fight off crazed monkeys and failing even unto death. I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Mr Parsimonious, his face tight with tension, yet his eyes moist with empathy. Or some sort of eye condition.
    ‘Dear Pip . . . I am sorry . . .’ It was empathy, not eye condition.
    ‘Parsimonious, stop being weak.’ Benevolent’s voice