Enchanted Glass Read Online Free PDF Page A

well known to be married. That’s all I know really.”
    “Ah,” said Andrew. He felt he had put his foot in it and changed the subject quickly. “So you were left all alone in the world when your grandmother died?”
    “Last week. Yes,” said Aidan. “The social workers kept asking if I had any other family, and so did the Arkwrights — they were the foster family I was put with. But the — the
real
reason I came here was the Stalkers—”
    Aidan was forced to break off here. He was not sorry. The Stalkers had been the final awful touch to the worst week of his life. Mrs Stock caused the interruption by kicking the door open and rotating into the room carrying a large tray.
    “Well, I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this!” she was saying as she came face forward again. “It’s a regular invasion. First that boy. Now there’s Mr Stock and this one-legged jockey with that stuck-up daughter of his come to see you. And no sign of our Shaun.”
    Mrs Stock did not seem to care that all the people she was talking about could hear what she said. As she dumped the tray across the books piled on the nearest table, the three others followed her into the study. Aidan winced, knowing that Mrs Stock thought he was an intruder, and sat back against the wall, watching quietly.
    Mr Stock came first, in his hat as usual. Aidan was fascinated by Mr Stock’s hat. Perhaps it had once been a trilby sort of thing. It may once have even been a definite colour. Now it was more like something that had grown — like a fungus — on Mr Stock’s head, so mashed and used and rammed down by earthy hands that you could have thought it was a mushroom that had accidentally grown into a sort of gnome-hat. It had a slightly domed top and a floppy edge. And a definite smell.
    After that hat, Aidan was astonished all over again at the little man with one leg, who energetically heaved himself into the room with his crutches.
He
should have had the hat, Aidan thought. He was surely a gnome, beard and all. But his greying head was bare and slightly bald.
    “You know my brother-in-law, Tarquin O’Connor,” Mr Stock announced.
    Ah, no. He’s Irish. He’s a leprechaun, Aidan thought.
    “I’ve heard of you. I’m very pleased to meet you,” Andrew said, and he hurried to tip things off another chair so that Tarquin could sit down, which Tarquin did, very deftly, swinging his stump of leg up and his crutches around, and giving Andrew a smile of thanks as he sat.
    “Tark used to be a jockey,” Mr Stock told Andrew. “Won the Derby. And he’s brought his daughter, my niece Stashe, for you to interview.”
    Aidan was astonished a third time by Tarquin O’Connor’s daughter. She was beautiful. She had one of those faces with delicate high cheekbones and slightly slanting eyes that he had only seen before on the covers of glossy magazines. Her eyes were green too, like someone in a fairy story, and she really was as slender as a wand. Aidan wondered how someone as gnomelike as Tarquin could be the father of a lady so lovely. The only family likeness was that they were both small.
    Stashe came striding in with her fair hair flopping on her shoulders and a smile for everyone — even for Aidan and Mrs Stock — and a look at her father that said, “Are you all right in that chair, Dad?” She seemed to bring with her all the feelings that had to do with being human andwarm-blooded. Her character was clearly not at all fairylike. She was in jeans and a body warmer and wellies. No,
not
a fairy-tale person, Aidan thought.
    Mrs Stock glowered at her. Tarquin gave her a “Don’t fuss me!” look. Andrew was as astonished as Aidan. He wondered what this good-looking young lady was
doing
here. He moved over to her, tipping another chair free of papers as he went, and shook the hand she was holding out to him.
    “Stashe?” he asked her.
    “Short for Eustacia.” Stashe twisted her mouth sideways to show what she thought of the name.