Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand Read Online Free PDF Page B

hope of having children, and Nancy could never resist making that little face smile from ear to ear. It was he who had been forced to put a stop to many an extravagance.
    “Roger really has an eye for design,” said Sandy. “He could be a decorator.” Roger blushed.
    “Really?” said the Major. “That’s quite an accusation.”
    ∗
    They left soon after, Sandy handing her car keys to Roger to drive. She took the passenger side without comment, leaving the Major to sit in the back.
    “Are you all right back there, Dad?” asked Roger.
    “Fine, fine,” said the Major. There was a thin line, he reflected, between comfort and smothering. The car’s back seat seemed to mold itself around his thighs. The ceiling also curved close and pale. The sensation was of being a large baby riding in a rather luxurious pram. The quiet engine contributed its own hummed lullaby, and the Major struggled against an encroaching drowsiness.
    “I’m so sorry Roger was late today,” said Sandy, turning around to smile at him through the gap in the seats. Her bosom strained at the seatbelt. “We were looking at a cottage and the realtor – I mean the estate agent – was late.”
    “Looking at a cottage?” he said. “What about work?”
    “No, that all got resolved,” said Roger, keeping his attention fixed on the road. “I told the client I had a funeral and he could push things back a day or get someone else.”
    “So you looked at cottages?”
    “It was my fault entirely, Ernest,” said Sandy. “I thought I’d scheduled plenty of time to fit it in before I dropped Roger off at the church. The estate agent messed things up royally.”
    “Yes, I’m going to call that agent tomorrow and let her know just how offended I am that she made me so late,” said Roger.
    “No need to cause a ruckus, darling. Your aunt Marjorie was extremely gracious about it.” Sandy put a hand on Roger’s arm and smiled back at the Major. “You all were.” The Major tried but failed to summon his rage. In his sleepy state, he could only come up with the thought that this young woman must be very good at her public relations job.
    “Touring cottages,” he murmured.
    “We shouldn’t have gone, I know, but these cottages get snapped right up,” said Sandy. “Remember that cute place near Cromer?”
    “We’ve only looked at a few places,” said Roger, his eyes giving an anxious glance in the rearview mirror. “But this area is our priority.”
    “I admit it’s more convenient than the Norfolk Broads or the Cotswolds,” said Sandy. “And of course for Roger you’re the big attraction.”
    “An attraction?” said the Major. “If I’m to outrank Norfolk, perhaps I’d better start offering cream teas in the garden.”
    “Dad!”
    “Oh, your father is so funny,” said Sandy. “I just love that dry humour.”
    “Oh, he’s a joke a minute, aren’t you, Dad?” said Roger.
    The Major said nothing. He relaxed his head against the leather seat and gave himself up to the soothing vibrations of the road. He felt like a child again as he dozed and listened to Roger and Sandy talking together in low voices. They might have been his parents, their soft voices fading in and out, as they drove the long miles home from his boarding school for the holidays.
    They had always made a point of coming to pick him up, while most of the other boys took the train. They thought it made them good parents, and besides, the headmaster always held a lovely reception for the parents who came, mostly ones who lived nearby. His parents enjoyed the mingling and were always jubilant if they managed to secure an invitation to Sunday luncheon at some grand house. Leaving late in the afternoon, sleepy with roast beef and trifle, they had to drive long into the night to get home. He would fall asleep in the back. No matter how angry he was at them for sticking him with lunch at the home of some boy who was equally eager to be free of such obligations, he