The Beckoning Lady Read Online Free PDF

up for London, and they were roaring with laughter over a game they’d invented. Some woman had written to this morning’s paper to say that her cat was so clever that she always had to spell things in front of it. Tonker was chanting ‘the m-o-k-e s-t-i-n— . .’ and Minnie was trying to shut him up because they were passing the Miss Farrows, and giggling so that the tears were streaming down her nose, you know how they do.”
    Mr. Campion sighed. “They sound all right. Why does Minnie maintain that ass? Exercise?”
    Prune gazed into the middle distance. “She says a car is out of the question.” She paused and added inconsequentially, “There are fourteen gold frames still in packing-cases in the granary behind the barn.”
    In the silence which greeted this news, vaguely ominous in a countryside which can boast the highest percentage of rare lunatics in the world, Rupert, who had come up unobserved on springing feet, laid a bunch of wilted greenery on his father’s knees.
    â€œFor you,” he said politely.
    â€œKind,” conceded Mr. Campion, “and thoughtful. A curious collection. Who sent it?”
    The boy was at the ballet age. He raised his thin arms and danced a little, whilst thinking no doubt of duller means of expression.
    â€œA man,” he said at last and waved vaguely towards the heath.
    â€œRupert went off on his own whilst Lugg was in the Post Office talking to Scatty, and when he turned up again he had these with him. He says someone gave them to him to give to you,” Amanda explained as she leant forward to take one spray from the bunch. “We thought it could be a message, but this is the only one I know—cypress. That means—” she hesitated, “—oh, something silly and unlikely. Death, I think.”
    â€œMourning,” a voice at her elbow corrected her, and Charlie Luke sat up suddenly, surprising everybody. For a moment he looked magnificent, poetic even, like the hero in the painting casting aside the restraining garlands of the nymphs. And then the cheerful roar of his personality emerged, starting up like the sudden sound of traffic in a radio programme. “Just a moment, chum, this is right in my manor.”
    His long hand closed over the bunch of leaves and his bright black eyes glanced round the group as he included Prune gently into the party.
    â€œWhen I was a kid in south-east London I had a botany mistress,” he announced, sketching her in in silhouette with his free hand. “She was the first woman I ever noticed wasn’t straight all the way up. We all had a crush on her and I used to carry her books.” He favoured them with a smug adenoidal smile, crossed his eyes slightly and sucked in his breath. “We used to bring her flowers, pinch them out of the park when the keepers weren’t looking. She never knew, poor girl. She was most respectable, and a little bit soft, I think, looking back. Well, she had a book about the language of flowers, and I, being smart as paint, got the name of it and borrowed another copy from the public library.” His teeth shone for a second in his dark face. “
That
ended in tears,” he said. “Well now, what have we here? Rhododendrons. I don’t know what that is. Monk’s-hood. God knows what that means either. Wait a minute. Escoltzia. That’s more like it. That means ‘do not refuse me’. I always had a bit of that in. And pink. Pink.” He looked up. “A pink means ‘make haste’. Mourning? Do not refuse me? Make haste? Sounds like the same old story, guv’nor. Someone is broke again and unusually restrained about it. That’s my translation.”
    Amanda rose and went into the house and a minute later leant out of the casement beneath which they sat. She had a white book lettered in gold and very tattered, in her outstretched hand.
    â€œI knew we had one long ago,” she