The Devil's Mask Read Online Free PDF

business for nothing.’
    â€˜What’s he got you doing?’
    â€˜This and that,’ Sebastian sighed, then picked out a flurry of notes.
    I traced a line in the dust on top of the piano. Did Sebastian think I would not be interested in the detail? The line became a snake. There could be no deeper reason, could there?
    â€˜When is Father going to employ a proper cleaner?’ I asked. ‘Either Mrs Watson’s eyes are failing or she’s working on the basis that you three are blind to her efforts.’
    â€˜She’s loyal, and a bit of dust never hurt anyone.’ Sebastian played a loud chord. ‘Since when did you grow so fussy?’
    A dog barked downstairs. Hearing my father clunk down his stick and mutter the dog into silence, I felt a sudden surge of tenderness towards Sebastian, and ridiculous for questioning his reticence to discuss business. He simply doesn’t care much for work. Like me, he’d no doubt prefer to spend his time doing something else. Composing songs, perhaps. He, however, has never been granted the option to go his own way. Nobody stood between me and the door.
    Claws clicked and faded, moving from the rug and down the flagstone hall. Dog and master were on their way to the study. I left Sebastian and went downstairs. My father seldom uses the house’s formal reception rooms; when not in Bright & Co.’s counting house he is most often to be found here, cocooned in memorabilia. Framed contracts, deeds and bills, and a pair of etchings showing planters in Barbados adorn one wood-panelled wall. Opposite there’s a fox-head hung with its milky eye to the window. I stood in the doorway and watched as Father drew a pipe from his jacket pocket, thumbed it full of tobacco and struck a match. The flame painted his square, balding brow, the implacable nose, the boxer’s chin. I took a step into the room and, as the flame died, made out the broken capillaries which reddened his weather-worn cheeks. The walleyed fox-head had belonged to the quarry of his first hunt, killed some thirty-five years ago. He still shoots throughout the season and rides out with the Aust foxhounds most weeks.
    Seeing me now, Father sucked hard on his pipe, advanced, clapped me on both shoulders, turned in a circle, then threw himself into his favoured armchair. He settled himself. Only then did the smoke explode from his nostrils.
    â€˜You need a haircut,’ he said.
    I resisted the temptation to flatten my curls. It is unnerving, this ability of his to home in on a person’s sensitivities, no matter how trifling, and jab at them with a pin.
    â€˜They have good barbershops in town. So something else must have driven you up the hill. The wine. For the wedding. I’ve already said it’ll be my pleasure to furnish it.’
    Upstairs, Sebastian’s piano recital faltered, stopped, then took off again.
    â€˜No reason or excuse. I just thought I’d call in.’
    Father raised his eyes to the yellow plaster ceiling above us and smiled. ‘Well, it can’t have been on account of the entertainment.’
    â€˜How’s business?’
    The smile stayed in place – perhaps registering the out- of-character nature of the question – until he saw fit to draw deeply on his pipe again. Smoke rolled from his mouth. Finally he said, ‘Passable, since you ask. Profitable, even. The same can’t be said for Cartwright, Dudley and those other poor fools who stuck at the African trade to the bitter end. But for the more progressive traders, such as us, dealing in humdrum commodities, sugar, tea,’ he waggled his pipe, ‘and good old tobacco, all’s well. It’s a miracle, really. The predicted apocalypse for all merchants just hasn’t happened. So yes, we’re rubbing along. There’s certainly enough fat on the hog’s back to contribute to the grand celebration; if the Alexanders will allow our help, that