Spare Brides Read Online Free PDF

cousins on Cecily’s side. I lost count of how many there were running feral. I think Beatrice had a wonderful time. She was certainly kept very busy. It was chaos.’
    ‘How is Samuel?’
    ‘Oh, you know my brother. Sammy never complains. Doesn’t say much at all.’
    ‘Quite.’ Nobody did. It wasn’t done. Still, such a cruelty: both legs and an arm. It was the arm that seemed most brutal; it meant crutches were out of the question. Sarah had heard it said, in such cases, that it was a comfort that the man had married and fathered before he’d gone to war, and she supposed it was, but she’d never been able to bring herself to utter those words to Cecily. Nothing seemed much of a comfort to Cecily.
    ‘How about you? How was your Christmas?’ she asked with genuine curiosity.
    ‘Lovely.’ Lydia hesitated, then added, ‘A little quiet.’ Sarah read between the lines and surmised it had been ghastly.
    ‘Did you stay in Hampshire, at Dartford Hall?’
    ‘No, we went to the in-laws at Clarendale. My parents joined us there.’
    ‘You ought to get a shorter table for the dining room when you move into the earl’s place,’ suggested Sarah. ‘I know the one they have now. It must be ridiculous for family affairs. Six adults around a table designed for twenty. I imagine it’s difficult to be festive, impossible to pull a cracker.’
    Lydia giggled and squeezed her friend’s arm. Sarah had correctly imagined the sober scene: grandparents-in-waiting looking at their offspring, wondering when there would finally be news.
    ‘You’re terrible to talk about my father-in-law’s demise in that way, but you’re right. Next year I must invite friends for lunch, or at least tea.’
    ‘Believe me, I’m not in any way looking forward to the old earl’s death, but it will be convenient when you are in West Sussex too. Clarendale is just a twenty-minute ride from ours; we’ll be neighbours!’ smiled Sarah.
    ‘Maybe next year there will be a child to coo over,’ added Lydia, elaborating on the imagined pleasures.
    ‘Wouldn’t that be lovely?’
    ‘Yes.’ Lydia bit her lip and Sarah watched some of her beauty leak out and puddle at her feet. ‘I’m seeing another doctor on Thursday.’
    ‘Are you? Who?’
    ‘Doctor Folstad. In Harley Street. Came here from Norway. Has a fabulous record.’ Lydia didn’t look at her friend as she said this, because there was such a terrible feeling of déjà vu around the conversation that she couldn’t face it head on. There had been countless doctors with fabulous records.
    ‘Wonderful.’ Sarah rallied.
    ‘Isn’t it?’
    ‘He might have the answers.’
    ‘I’m very hopeful.’
    ‘Good show.’
    ‘Would you come with me?’ Lydia now allowed herself a swift glance at her friend’s face. ‘You could stay in Eaton Square with us, or if you didn’t want to be away from the children, I could have a car sent for you. Or I’ll buy a train ticket if you prefer.’
    ‘Certainly I’ll come.’
    ‘Thank you, Sarah. Thank you very much.’
    ‘Chin up.’
    ‘Absolutely.’ Relieved that she’d made the request and secured some support, Lydia beamed and threw back her champagne. She put the empty glass on a side table and reached for a fresh one. Lydia was honest with herself. She was not one of those women who hankered to hold an infant; she did not coo into prams or sniff babies to drink up their scent. Any child of hers would naturally spend many hours in the nursery and be significantly more intimate with his or her nanny than with any other soul on earth, at least in the early years. If it was a boy, he would go away to school at eight. She did not see a child as an extension of herself, or her property, or even her right. Her desire for a baby wasn’t raw and instinctual, but more to do with an insidious, illogical but essentially real worry that without one she was nothing. She was useless. Pointless. What was the point of a woman like her if it was not to