Mourning Doves Read Online Free PDF

left it to your Aunt Felicity.’
    Anxious to encourage her mother to take an interest in anything, Celia asked, ‘Who does own it?’
    ‘A Mr and Mrs Lytham bought the other side. I used to play with their children.’ Louise’s expression softened, and she added wistfully, ‘We had some lovely times, playing inthe sand dunes and paddling in the sea. I wonder what happened to them?’
    Celia forced a smile. ‘How nice that must have been.’ Then she looked at her brooch watch. ‘Perhaps we had better lock up, Mother, and go to have a talk with Mr Billings. He could advise us about repairs.’
    Her mother nodded and they retraced their steps to the house, ruefully brushing down their long skirts. Even Celia’s ankle-length, tailored skirt had caught in the undergrowth and had burrs and bits of leaves and seeds clinging to it.
    Celia locked the back door and they walked slowly and dismally through the house, leaving muddy tracks behind them.
    While Celia turned to secure the inner front door, Louise proceeded slowly down the front steps. She suddenly let out a frightened little cry, ‘Oh!’
    Celia spun round.
    Standing in the middle of the red-tiled path was a tall thin man. As the women stared at him, he raised his cap and bowed. ‘Good afternoon,’ he greeted them politely.

Chapter Three
    Confronted by a man, both women were suddenly acutely aware of how isolated the cottage was.
    Walking down the lane to it, they had passed only one other cottage, a squat little dwelling with a thatched roof. It had, Louise told Celia, been lived in for centuries by a family of fishermen. Now, they stared uneasily at someone who seemed to have sprung from nowhere.
    ‘Good afternoon,’ responded Celia nervously, while her mother stiffened, as she catalogued the man as no gentleman, despite his courteous greeting. The lanky man’s grey hair was roughly cut and framed a lined, weather-beaten face. He wore a striped union shirt without a collar; a red and white cotton handkerchief was tied round his neck. His wrinkled, old-fashioned moleskin trousers, held up by a worn leather belt, were stained with dried mud.
    As he looked down at her, Louise’s silence did not seem to disconcert him in the least. His faded blue eyes held the hint of a smile, as he said, ‘You must be Mrs Gilmore. The gentleman as was here to take a quick look at the cottage for you said as you would be coming. He come out late Tuesday. Nearly dark, it was.’
    A quiet rage against Cousin Albert rose in Louise, blotting out all sense of fear or grief. So, during his stay with her, he had not spent all his time in Timothy’s office checking over with the clerk just exactly what the financial situation was; he had also been out here, planning to condemnher to live in this awful place. He knew precisely what it was like.
    With sudden understanding she realised how she had been manipulated. Albert and Mr Barnett had made her sign away her present home.
    It was so unfair. They should have explained to her what she was about to do. Consulted her. The fact that the outcome would probably have been the same did not make any difference. She had not been asked what she felt about moving out here.
    Could she not have sold this horrible cottage and bought another tiny house in a decent, civilised Liverpool street?
    No time had been allowed her to recover from her bereavement, she raged; there had been no understanding that she was distraught with grief.
    She was healthily furious, not only with Albert and Mr Barnett, but also with Timothy.
    Timothy might have had enough sense to tell her that she owned their home, when he had originally transferred it.
    Unless he had not trusted her? What a dreadful thought!
    That was it. He must have felt, like Cousin Albert, that she was not capable of dealing with the ownership of such a valuable property; in transferring the ownership to her he must simply have been ensuring that no creditor of his could ever seize his home.
    Men