Sister of the Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

spoke lightly, and it was only afterwards I was to realize how sharply the interesting scandals he referred to were to impinge on my own life.
    He had turned the car down a narrow rutted lane and now pointed to fields lying behind the bordering hedges. ‘All this is Ashmore property. The entrance to the house is further along the main road and you can get only a glimpse of it from Cherry Cottage. In the old days the Ashmores believed in keeping their menials well out of sight. ’
    ‘The present Ashmores, from what you tell me, are doing the same,’ I returned.
    He frowned. ‘Perhaps I’m prejudiced, but Vance Ashmore is not one of my favourites.’
    I was too busy scanning the hedgerows for my first I glimpse of Cherry Cottage to take more than passing heed of the fact that he singled out Vance for his disapproval.
    I gave an exclamation of pleasure as he drew up in front of a rustic gate. A path of crazy paving bordered with masses of golden forsythia and clumps of daffodils led up to a steep-roofed cottage with glittering diamond-paned windows and porch covered with starry white clematis: it looked as perfect as a gingerbread cottage in a fairy tale.
    ‘I’ll leave you here,’ Bob said hastily when he had deposited me and my cases inside the gate. I was too entranced by the beauty of Cherry Cottage to notice the speed with which he made his departure.
    When I reached the door I found it opened immediately into what was obviously the living-room of the cottage. It stood sligh tl y ajar and inside I glimpsed Averil kneeling on the floor feverishly packing a cabin trunk.
    As I came in she looked up briefly through a cloud of soft golden hair, but there was no, welcoming smile in her azure blue eyes. ‘Thank heavens you’ve arrived,’ she said excitedly. ‘I’ve just received a telegram from Sheila: she wants me to meet her tonight: it seems she’s giving a big party before we sail and I’d simply hate to miss it.’
    I let my cases drop and surveyed her in blank dismay. ‘But I understood you weren’t leaving for a few days. It will take time for you to brief me: there will be all sorts of things I’ll have to know before you go.’
    Impatien tl y Averil returned to her packing. ‘I might have known you’d raise objections. Do be reasonable! After all, you can learn the ropes as you go along, and there’s nothing mysterious about housekeeping in Warefield, I can assure you. We don’t lead a particularly hectic life down here. That’s one of the reasons I’m so terribly keen to get away: sometimes I feel I’ll die of boredom: you’ve no idea how incredibly hideous life in the country can be. Sometimes I feel I’m being buried alive!’
    ‘Then why didn’t you refuse Vance Ashmore’s offer in the first place?’ I asked in bewilderment.
    For a moment I saw her pause in her hectic packing and her back stiffen as though with shock at my words, then without answering my question she said in a slightly artificial voice, ‘I’m sure you’re dying for a cup of tea: the kettle’s boiling in the kitchen: do be a dear and fix things up for yourself, won’t you? I’d have had something ready for you to eat if I weren’t in such a desperate hurry. I ordered a taxi to call for me here in about half an hour.
    I refrained from pointing out that while she had remembered to order a taxi for herself she had forgotten to arrange for one to meet me at the station. Anyway, I realized that a complaint wouldn’t really make much impression on her.
    Feeling bewildered and frustrated, I did as she asked. The kitchen was much bigger than the living-room with an inglenook fireplace that in olden days must have blazed merrily with log fires that roared up the wide chimneypiece, but now the hearth was filled with a range on which bubbled a gleaming aluminum kettle. In the oaken dresser that seemed to have grown into the walls I found sugar and tea, but in spite of a thorough search in the cupboards and in the small