The Courtyard Read Online Free PDF

position as mistress of Nethercombe and wondered how she had reacted to Henry’s suggestion – not for a second did Gussie think that the idea had come from Gillian – that Gussie should spend Christmas with them. How dear it was of him to think of her. She sat down at once to reply to the letter promising herself that, when it was done, she would allow herself the luxury of a telephone call to Nell to tell her the good news.
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    GILLIAN, WHO WAS PLANNING to fill Nethercombe with as many friends as she could for Christmas, was surprised though not particularly put out when Henry told her that Gussie had accepted his invitation. She raised her eyebrows at him.
    â€˜Won’t she feel rather out of it?’ she asked. ‘I mean she’s a bit old, isn’t she? To fit in with our friends?’
    â€˜Gussie’s a friend too,’ said Henry, who was wondering who all these friends might be. ‘I’m very fond of Gussie. Always remembered to have a present waiting for me when I went back to school. Good presents, too.’
    â€˜Lovely for you.’ Gillian gave a mental shrug and rolled her eyes a little. Touching excursions to the past were not her forte but she had decided to be tolerant about Henry’s passion for anything ancient and decaying, even when it extended to his relatives.
    â€˜Well, it was,’ said Henry, eyes turned inwards to dormitories, first nights back, the misery of being away from Nethercombe. ‘Those are the things that make all the difference. People remembering you.’
    â€˜If you say so.’ Gillian spread marmalade with a lavish hand and crunched toast.
    Henry, brought back to the present by the crunching, smiled at his wife.

    â€˜There was a green woodpecker on the bird table this morning,’ he said. ‘Wonderful birds. And a nuthatch. The cold weather brings them in.’
    Gillian swallowed her toast and poured some coffee. If it wasn’t antiquities or Gilbert and Sullivan, it was the Natural World. She sighed and stirred in sugar, wondering if she might persuade Lucy to meet her for lunch in Exeter. Life at Nethercombe wasn’t as exciting as she’d hoped. Henry had a small circle of friends, mostly other landowners, who weren’t her sort at all and, apart from occasional dinners with this little group, he never seemed to go anywhere or do anything. He worked hard on the estate, she was prepared to concede that, but he was perfectly content to spend the evenings reading or watching television or listening to music. Gillian was biding her time. She had great schemes for the redecoration of the house and then she planned to entertain on a grand scale: no point in having a house the size of Nethercombe if you didn’t use it. In the summer she would have parties round the pool that was built on a little natural plateau of ground below the house. Backed on three sides by towering rhododendron bushes and falling away to the meadow on the fourth it was an enchanting spot. It only needed a few things done to it to make it perfect for parties. So far, her suggestions had fallen on deaf ears but it was just a question of time. She was much too clever to try to rush him. Now, as he finished his eulogy on the family of long-tailed tits he’d seen up in the beech walk, she smiled at him and pushed back her chair.
    â€˜I’ve got to dash up to Exeter,’ she told him. ‘Really boring. Poor old Lucy’s got some sort of drama going on and she’s asked me to meet her. Can’t let her down. So I shan’t be here for lunch.’
    â€˜Right.’ Henry stood up too. ‘Poor Lucy. Give her my regards. Drive carefully.’
    She gave him a quick kiss and he watched her go, still dazzled with the speed with which she did everything, darting hither and thither, laughing at things which her friends said that were outside his comprehension, making him feel slow and stolid beside her. It