The Chimney Sweeper's Boy Read Online Free PDF Page B

that hung all over it in innumerable hanging baskets. The fog curtain disclosed it almost coyly, as if there were an audience on the beach longing for a glimpse of its beauties.
    Her own house was briefly revealed. It
was
her own now. Not held in trust for her to live in, not merely affording her a life interest, but hers. And his future royalties were hers, and, apart from generous legacies to Sarah and Hope, all he possessed. The will had been much more of a shock than his death. She had thought about it on these beach walks of hers and now she believed he had made this will to make up to her for what he had done. He wasn’t showing her that he had loved her after all, but that he was in her debt. He owed her for taking her life and misusing it.
    On the clifftop, Pauline had come out into the garden and was standing by the gate, waving. Ursula waved back, but less enthusiastically. Later on, she thought, she would do something seemingly out of character and take her niece to the hotel bar for a drink.
    The mist descended again quite suddenly, as she had known it would, and hid the figure of Pauline, still waving.

3

    A man believes everything he reads in the newspaper until he finds an item about himself that is a web of lies. This makes him doubt, but not for long, and he soons reverts to his old faith in the printed word.
    â€”T HE C ENTRE OF A TTRACTION
    T HREE NEWSPAPERS WERE DELIVERED TO L UNDY V IEW H OUSE every morning. Ursula had kept the paperboy on for Pauline to have something to read at breakfast, but once her niece was gone, she intended to cancel the delivery. It was something to look forward to, not seeing newspapers. She liked to look at the view of the beach while she was eating her grapefruit and her toast.
    The sea was calm this morning and a deep clear blue, not streaked with emerald as it sometimes was, and the sky was a pale, luminous, unclouded blue. The tide was out, was still going out, and where the sand was still wet, a boy of about twelve was building an elaborate sand castle with a keep and turrets and a moat. A man with his two small children was trying to fly a large red-and-white kite, but there wasn’t enough wind to lift it off the beach. He reminded her of Gerald, who had also flown kites, who had built innumerable sand castles.
    â€œHave you noticed,” said Pauline, looking up from the paper, “that no one ever points out a simple truth about unemployment. The fact is that half the unemployment is due to women working. If women didn’t work, men wouldn’t be out of work, but no one ever dares say this.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t be politically correct,” said Ursula.
    â€œDid you ever want to have a job? Apart from working for Uncle Gerald, of course.”
    â€œI once thought of taking on some baby-sitting at the hotel. They always want child-sitters.”
    Pauline looked at her to see if she was serious. Ursula’s face was quite blank.
    â€œBut you didn’t?”
    â€œGerald didn’t care for the idea.”
    â€œI’m not surprised. The wife of a famous writer looking after other people’s kids for a couple of pounds an hour!”
    â€œIt was three pounds,” said Ursula. “If you’ve finished, I’ll clear the table, because I like to do that before Daphne comes. No, sit there. I’ll do it. Read your paper.”
    When she came back into the room to fetch the coffeepot, Pauline said, “There’s a letter in here about Uncle Gerald. Would you like to see it?”
    â€œNot particularly.” Ursula had already suffered from her niece’s propensity for reading aloud, so she sighed a little before saying, “You read it to me.”
    â€œIt’s rather peculiar, quite a mystery. It says: ‘From the editor of
Modern Philately.
’ ”
    â€œThe
Times
always does that.”
    â€œPeculiar. Well, here goes. Listen. ‘Sir, I refer to your obituary of Gerald Candless,