Last Nocturne Read Online Free PDF

frantic desire to attend one of the London art schools and to learn how to paint and draw properly, her feeling that talent alone was not enough – or not without some direction. Had he still been alive, she would have been enrolled at one or other of them by now, probably the Slade, instead of having to endure all this useless nonsense about coming out and doing the season. But her mother wouldn’t hear of it and her brother Guy, who was now legally responsible for her, was still too wrapped up in the aftermath of his father’s affairs to be approachable, much less to enter into a battle with his mother.
    ‘Perhaps,’ suggested Mrs Cadell, ‘if it is too painful for you to visit the gallery yourself, Edwina, Dulcie may go along and judge for herself, as you suggest? Your nice Miss Thurley might take her. She seems a sensible creature.’
    Dulcie raised her eyes and realised that help was coming from an unexpected source. Cynthia Cadell, currently her mother’s best friend, was a small, pretty woman with a triangular kitten face and a penchant for gossip with a spice of malice. She purred, but had claws. Yet Dulcie sensed an ally, if only because Mrs Cadell had probably seen the opportunity of outmanoeuvring Edwina, something which did not often happen. Perhaps she, too, had sensed, as Dulcie had, that there was something a little – distraite – about Mama this afternoon, almost as if her mind were on other things.
    ‘Well, I’ll speak to Guy, and see what he thinks,’ Edwina said at last, blinking, looking as though she suspected she’d been trapped, but didn’t quite know how. ‘And Grace – where is the dear girl now, Dulcie?’
    ‘I believe you told her you wouldn’t need her, so she went for a walk.’
    ‘A walk?’ echoed Edwina, who never walked anywhere, other than to take a stroll in the square gardens or around St James’s Park. ‘Alone? Perhaps not quite so sensible, after all, Cynthia. All the same, we’ve all become very fond of Miss Thurley – Grace, we call her, the dear girl, since I’ve known her from the cradle, after all. Her mother and I came out together, you know.’ She omitted to say how many years had passed since then, or that she and Grace had never previously met. ‘But I believe they don’t have the same sense of
comme il faut
in Birmingham as we do.’
    Dulcie seized the moment. ‘She may be back now. Shall I see if I might find her?’
    ‘Run along, do,’ Edwina answered, dismissing her daughter with evident relief, fluttering a hand. She had large, well shaped and very white hands and used them often and expressively, which was useful to draw attention to her beautiful rings.
    ‘Yes, Mama. Goodbye, Mrs Cadell,’ said Dulcie politely. ‘So nice seeing you.’ She smiled, looking almost pretty, and her large dark eyes said thank you.
    ‘Your girl seems devoted to Miss Thurley already,’ remarked Cynthia, after Dulcie had been allowed to make her escape from the drawing room.
    ‘Devoted,’ agreed Edwina absently.
    It was true that Dulcie – so quiet and watchful – so
judgemental
at times – appeared to have taken to Grace Thurley, though one never knew with Dulcie. The last thing she would ever do was to confide in her mother. But she and Grace seemed to have made friends, which was a blessing, relieving Edwina of much anxiety as to how to occupy an unwilling daughter during this indeterminate stage between schoolroom and the adult world. Though in truth, Edwina hadn’t yet made up her mind whether Grace as a solution to the problem was going to work out or not. She herself was prepared to like the young woman, who seemed discreet and pleasant, and had worked so very efficiently at organising Edwina’s rather more than chaotic private affairs. But she’d occasionally caught a look of irony in her eyes which warned Edwina not to take her for granted. ‘She’s certainly very agreeable,’ she temporised.
    ‘My impression exactly when I met her the other