Julia Read Online Free PDF Page B

and precipitous. You’re a regular heroine. I can’t imagine myself ever doing anything so reckless and brave.”
    “God knows I’m not brave,” Julia said, laughing.
    “Oh, but you are. You have a brave soul.”
    “Then I’m a coward with a brave soul.”
    “You mustn’t think it is cowardly to fear Magnus. Magnus is not like anyone else. He has always been a terribly apart sort of person. He has
command
. Sometimes I think that Magnus is not from this world at all, or that he is thousands of yearsold, preserved by some black magic. I’ve had a reservoir of fear of Magnus since he was three years old. Even then, Magnus had an ancient, powerful soul. Of course, I think you were wrong to leave him, and I hope with all my strength that you will return to him.” Lily was drinking tea, and she followed these words by taking a birdlike sip at it, making it clear that she had at least one more thing to say. Julia, listening to this description of her husband, wondered how many times Lily had pondered in just this way on Magnus’s “ancient, powerful soul.” It was typical of her romanticizing of her brother. “But as my advice is universally ignored, I don’t suppose that you will immediately follow it.”
    “You heard from him, Lily? What was he like?”
    “Desperate, simply desperate. Of course, I couldn’t give him a crumb of solace. And his solace, you know, would be mine—I’d be desolate for him if I thought you were never going back to him.”
    “I can’t.”
    “He loves you. Since the only other person, apart from Kate, that Magnus has ever loved is myself, I am able to be quite certain.”
    “Lily,” Julia insisted, “please don’t. I can’t take that now.”
    After a moment while both women looked away from one another toward the park, Julia asked, “Was he angry?”
    “I wouldn’t call it anger,” Lily said. “He was distressed.”
    “Lily,” Julia said, “you have to promise me that you won’t tell him where I am. Never mind what you think is in my best interest or Magnus’s, please don’t tell him. Promise me. Please.”
    “I’ll promise you anything you like. But I’d be happier about it if you made me a promise too. I’d like you to tell me that you will consider going back to your husband.”
    “Lily, I’ve bought a house,” said Julia, almost laughing. “I’ve bought
furniture
. It’s just … just impossible for me to face Magnus. I can’t make a promise like that to you. I can’t even think about Magnus.”
    “On the contrary, it is my impression that you think of him all the time.” She looked interrogatively at Julia.
    When Julia said nothing Lily went on. “It was no one’s fault about Kate, darling. You both very bravely did what you had to do. Magnus and you were both commended at the inquest, you know.”
    “I can’t help that.”
    “But it’s a pity that you were unable to hear it.” Conscious that she was too crudely leading Julia into an area she would be unable to enter for perhaps months, Lily resisted the impulse to be Magnus’s advocate in the matter of Kate’s death. The facts of her niece’s death were at least as clear in Lily’s mind as in Julia’s, and Lily knew, and could fully understand, that Julia had broken down afterward. In fact, Lily realized, she must have begun looking at houses only a day or two after she had come out of the hospital where she had been kept under sedation. Julia had left the hospital only to attend Kate’s funeral; even that had been a mistake. That pale, confused, drugged creature stalked through the rain by photographers—it was unlikely Julia had any memory of that morning. Apparently she had begun to make arrangements for bolting on her first day back at Gayton Road: Lily supposed that she had been unable even to look at Magnus straight. Of course, Kate’s death had been horrible. She had choked on a piece of meat, and Magnus and Julia, after dialing 999 and waiting minutes for an ambulance