Crooked Wreath Read Online Free PDF Page B

think a glass of sherry would be grand.”
    â€œOn the contrary,” said Philip, “it would be extremely silly.”
    Edward looked rebellious. “Let the boy have it,” whispered Bella, fearful of another attack. “It couldn’t do him any harm, and they say it’s better not to thwart them.”
    â€œRubbish,” said Philip, looking about for a jug of water. He filled the syringe from it and, going to the French window, squirted the water out in a thin curving arc across the terrace. “Oh, sorry, Brough–I nearly hit you–I didn’t see you were there!” The water finished up in a little pool at the farther side of the terrace and in a moment was dried up by the sunshine pouring down. Philip wiped the needle. “No, Edward, you definitely can’t have alcohol after an attack like that, so shut up! Bella must be out of her senses to want to allow it.”
    Bella’s pretty mouth folded into a stubborn line. “After all I do know about Edward, Philip! I’ve brought him up! I mean, you don’t really specialize in this sort of thing. You’re not an alienist. You know nothing about psychoanalysis, do you?”
    â€œNo, indeed,” said Philip. “I’m not an Austrian Jew escaped after appalling hardships from a German concentration camp, so how could I? But even a general practitioner may have his poor little pathetic ideas about the suitability of alcohol after a fainting attack of this sort, and I say quite emphatically that I will not let Edward have it.” He flung open his bag and put away the syringe; slightly ashamed of his irritability, he added: “By the way, here’s the coramine I brought down for Grandfather.” Six thin glass phials each nested in its bed of cotton-wool in a tall cardboard box. “Everyone had better have a look. One ampoule during an attack–just inject it into the arm, any old where as long as you get it in. And don’t get funny, anyone, and go giving more than the one. Bella, Doctor Whatsaname’s shown you how to do it?”
    Bella was resentful and cross. “Yes, he has; he’s told me all about it and shown me how to do it, and the Broughs, too, in case your grandfather should be taken ill in the grounds. There’s no need, Philip, for you to interfere. And anyway,” said Bella virtuously, “I don’t think this is a conversation to be carried on in front of your grandfather!”
    â€œNonsense,” said Sir Richard. “I’m the interested party! You’d better arrange some central place where the stuff can be kept, Bella, and see that everyone knows where it is.” But it maddened him to be subject to such weakness, to have to be fussed over like some silly woman. “A fine pair we are, Edward, with our faints and our heart attacks!”
    A crone so ancient and palsied as to be unacceptable even to the insatiable maw of the new Filling Factory at Heronsford (“Except possibly as a filling!” said Ellen), confided in a whining voice that dinner was on the table, Mum, and she’d be glad if they’d get on with it soon, as she and Mrs. Brough wanted to get ’ome–so, in the England of 1944, were Bella’s once elegant little luncheons announced. Edward insisted upon coming to the table with them, and the afternoon so inauspiciously began continued on what was to prove its disastrous course, till even Serafita, looking down from the canvas upon her peevish family, seemed to have changed her arch, painted smile for a little angry frown. Bella was on a high horse, pretending to herself that if Her Shame had not been known to all the family, Philip would not have been so abrupt and snubbing to her in the drawing-room just now.
    Philip and Ellen had spent a miserable and embarrassing twenty-four hours, for Swanswater hospitality did not extend itself to a “spare room” and he was sore and angry at