Holiday in Bath Read Online Free PDF

lips. “I think that makes me feel old, Cranford, if nothing worse. How is your father?”
    “Much as usual.” Cranford unconsciously touched the scrape on his cheek.
    “I’ve often thought it would be interesting to meet him. Have you been long at Ashwicke Park?”
    “For the last few weeks. I spent several months at Coverly.”
    “That’s your estate, is it not?”
    “Yes, I inherited it from my mother.”
    Kitty asked gently, “And does it prosper, Mr. Ashwicke? You seemed troubled when you last spoke of it.”
    “I was concerned that an experiment I was trying might not prove successful, but it has exceeded my expectations.”
    Tony Bodford leaned forward to interject, “You don’t say! You have the most incredible luck, Cranford. Who would have thought you could do a blessed thing with chamomile? Surely there aren’t that many people who drink the stuff as tea! Ugh!”
    Cranford laughed. “Not only tea, Tony. It’s used as medicine, too, and in warm fomentations. But it wasn’t just the chamomile. I’ve tried a new variety of sheep on the land. Smaller because the poorness of the soil won’t support a larger breed. When next you buy Bagshot mutton in London, it may well come from Coverly and have that sweetness for which the sheep which graze on the heath are noted. Not that most of the Bagshot mutton is actually grazed there. Usually they come from the Hampshire downs.”
    “No doubt the viscount is delighted with your success,” Tony said sardonically.
    “He hasn’t asked.”
    “You’d think he were run off his legs the way he cut you off when you inherited Coverly from your mother!” Tony blurted. “Whoever heard of such a thing? Rich as a nabob and he flings you off to make the best of a barren heath! Sometimes I think…”
    Cranford flashed him a warning look and turned to Mrs. Reed. “Next time I’m in Surrey I’ll have some of the mutton sent to you. I think you’ll find it exceptionally good.”
    Though Kitty’s gray eyes registered her surprise at the gratuitous information offered by Tony Bodford, she followed Cranford’s lead and turned the subject to other matters. The table at the Cypress was no less extravagant than all its other claims on the gentlemen who came. No haut ton dinner party had a finer bill of fare; no gaming club in London was run with more finesse and order. The stakes were high but not exorbitant, and a table was often kept for more moderate plungers. Kitty sat quietly at Cranford’s side as he played, smiling when he glanced at her and pleased when he rose early as a winner. As was the custom of the house, she left the room while he bade his friends good evening and made his farewells to Mrs. Reed.
    Kitty’s room was at the end of the west corridor and Cranford made his way there at a leisurely pace, quietly knocking on the paneled door to announce his arrival. When he entered he found her standing by the fire, its glow the only light in the room. He went to stand by her without speaking.
    “Is what Mr. Bodford said true? Your father expects you to support yourself from a barren estate?”
    “It’s hardly barren,” he said with amusement. “Tony disparages it because it bears no resemblance to his family’s vast acreage. Admittedly it was not in good order when I inherited it. My father had made no attempt to keep it up, feeling much as Tony does and resenting the fact that my mother brought to the marriage only two relatively useless properties. My sister’s husband is having the devil of a time doing anything with her inheritance, too.”
    “But your father doesn’t support you, his heir?”
    “No. He feels it will build my character to struggle under adversity,” he replied ruefully as he stroked her hair. “And it was certainly an effective way to stop the spendthrift habits of my youth. My mother was forever purse-pinched from bailing me out of difficulties and when her allowance did not suffice . . . well, my father thinks of this as a