Talk of the Village Read Online Free PDF Page A

might as well put on the clothes I'm wearing tonight at the reception. Wish it could be my tweed suit. Bloody cats.'
    'It wouldn't have been suitable anyway. People like us have to show the villagers the right way. You need your funeral suit love. With that nice spotted tie Bianca bought you for Christmas.'
    'I'll look like a dog's dinner. You know I don't like that suit. I should never have let you persuade me to buy it.'
    'Men in your position need to look smart. Whatever would they think if you went on telly with a ginger tweed suit on? Right country bumpkin that would make you look.'
    'When I ordered that tweed outfit you said it would make me look like a country squire.'
    'Well it does, but the telly people wouldn't see it like that would they?' Sheila concentrated on her nail varnish. One stroke down the middle of the nail and then one each side. This pale apricot would look splendid with her new dress. She couldn't wait to put it on. She'd never bought anything in Thorns & Curtis before, but one did have to set standards in the village. So easy to let things slide. The clothes that Caroline Harris wore, considering she was only a rector's wife, were unbelievably beautiful. Still, she had been a doctor all those years so she must have earned a lot of money in the past. And she did have style. Those twins, though, they must be hard work. Hardly any sleep at all some nights. They were lovely babies. Amazing how like Peter the little boy was. They say that about adopted children, how they start to resemble their new parents as they get older. But they must only be about eight weeks old at the most. Wonder what Harriet Charter-Plackett will wear tonight. Another of her Sloane Street creations no doubt. Still, wait till they see me in my outfit.
     
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    Sheila got up from the dressing table now her nails were dry and took the dress out of the wardrobe. She had little pot pourri bags hanging from each coat hanger to keep her clothes fresh. She bought them from a local girl who made anything and everything, edged with lace. Sheila was always popping in for something. One of her best customers she was. The dress was made of lime-green flowered brocade with a pleated peplum around the back which went flat as it came over the hips and across her stomach. It had a stand-up collar with large revers which crossed over just below where her cleavage began. Either side of the collar below her collar bones was a neat design of pearls sewn around the shape of one of the brocade flowers. She'd seen Ron look askance when she'd tried it on in the shop. She knew he didn't like her to display herself, but the dress was so right she couldn't resist.
    She laid it on the quilted white satin bedspread and slipped offher neglige revealing a dumpy figure clothed in a Marks & Spencer slightly-too-tight underslip. When the dress was on, she turned this way and that inspecting herself in the mirrors on her wall-to-wall wardrobes. Yes, it was just right for the occasion, and just right for church in the summer, too. She'd make their heads turn. They were all beginning to accept that she was the lady of the village now. Her flower arranging and her organisation of the Village Flower Show had given her a real solid position in village life. They couldn't manage without her in Turnham Malpas now, no siree. Her black strappy high heels were uncomfortable but they'd soon wear in.
    'You're ready too soon Sheila.' Ron yawned.
    'I know. I thought I'd go and sit downstairs and give my shoes a chance to wear in a bit. There's a nice programme on the telly I can watch.'
    'I wanted to see the sport.'
    'Well, you watch it up here and I'll go downstairs. I'll
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    spoil my dress if I lie on the bed.'
    Sheila let the dogs into the garden seeing as she and Ron would be out for a long time at the reception. That Pericles was a right card. Seemed to really enjoy being able to race about instead of being all stiff and starchy with that prim Miss Hipkin. She made their