Park Lane Read Online Free PDF

of him, and they are going at it once more. Another motor, maybe two, has joined both the block of traffic behind and the chorus of horns. Bea looks at her watch:five to one. Edward is quite capable of teasing her with a day’s silence if she is late, and Bea is not altogether relaxed as to what his surprise might be.
    Bea decides to walk the few yards she has left to go. She asks the driver if she can borrow his umbrella, saying he can pick it up at the front when he drops her case. She climbs out into the rain. Taking a step at a time on the wet cobbles, she steadies herself on her heels. As she passes the cart it moves up, out of the rut and on. The men behind it, dappled black from forehead to waist, turn around and slap each other on the back, then, noticing Bea, dip their foreheads in her direction.
    Bellows opens the door solemn-faced, no doubt appalled at Bea’s arrival on foot. He has a curious knack of acting as though your behaviour has let him down. Bea smiles, but obtains no reaction. Thank God Edward doesn’t play poker with the man, he’d lose the house.
    By the time Bea descends from her room washed and brushed, the door to the yellow drawing room – the morning room, Mother likes to call it, even though they all point out to her that it faces the afternoon sun to the west – is open. It has stopped raining, and from the gallery Bea can hear the sound of Edward’s voice. When she turns into the room she sees, beyond Edward, a long lean frame in chiffon and wool, one elbow on the chimney piece and a cigarette in her hand. Her father’s sister, Celeste, is standing there as if her elbow had never left its marble perch – even though Mother banned her from the house a decade ago.
    Bea doesn’t see Celeste often. Celeste’s circle is, Clemmie whispers disapprovingly, ‘Bohemian’. Still, Bea knocks into her at the odd dance and, perhaps once or twice a year, indeed barely a couple of months ago, meets her for a rather excitingly surreptitious lunch. To be fascinating, Bea thinks, a woman needs to have secrets, and her lunches with Celeste are at least one. Soplease, Bea says to herself, be damn careful, Celeste, and don’t let on.
    Celeste has her gaze upon Edward, who has pulled himself fully upright. Of course he has, thinks Bea, for Celeste has a disarming way of looking at you intently that makes the rest of the world vanish. Celeste blows a smoke ring as though she is inhaling both him and the whole room into her possession. The web of Celeste’s spell is almost visible, and it seems somehow churlish to break it, but Bea can’t spend all afternoon in the doorway. She coughs, and the two of them turn towards her. A Cheshire Cat grin stretches the dark circles under Edward’s eyes.
    ‘See, Bea darling,’ he declares, ‘a terribly grand surprise, and a delightfully wicked one, too.’
    ‘You make me sound like a piano, Eddie. Can’t I be a, well, delicious surprise instead?’ Celeste replies. She turns to Bea. ‘Darling, glorious to see you. It feels like years.’
    Bea must learn, she thinks, to lie as effortlessly as Celeste.
    Celeste blows another smoke ring and leans her shoulders back in a near-coquettish way. She beckons Bea across the room. Bea doesn’t move; she is hardly going to leap into her aunt’s arms in front of Edward.
    ‘Celeste, how perfectly glorious to see you. You haven’t changed a bit.’
    Bellows coughs. It is his turn to be standing in the doorway.
    ‘We’d better go in,’ Bea continues. ‘Monsieur Fouret—’
    ‘Heavens, is he still with you? I am surprised your mother hasn’t returned him to sender on account of some transgression or another. Or simply for being French.’
    Celeste takes a final puff of her cigarette and throws it on the fire. The three of them walk out along the gallery and into a dark green-walled dining room peppered with views of Venice. ‘Copies,’ Edward periodically says to Mother, who bristles at the word. ‘It’s true,’