The Empty Frame Read Online Free PDF Page B

believe a word of it. It was quite obvious to him that this kind of thing must have happened before and she’d got used to it. Her studied matter-of-factness did not fool him at all.
    â€œI’m very interested in breakfast,” announced Sam, suddenly smelling a faint bacon smell which he decided must be coming up the chimney flue. The sandwiches and buns of the night before now seemed a very long time ago.
    â€œWell, get ready and come down. We’ll be in the hall. When there are just the two of us we usually eat in the kitchen but you’re a good excuse to do things properly. I’m afraid the Colonel doesn’t like the way I slob around in my gardening things.”
    While they were cleaning their teeth, Floss said to Sam, “Do you think Mags is all right?”
    â€œSeems to be. Why?”
    â€œI’m sure he was crying again, in the night. It woke me up.”
    Sam shrugged, then made a great business of rinsing and spitting. He half-believed that a noise had woken him too, the voice of someone in distress. It hadn’t sounded at all like Magnus, it had sounded too adult. But he was a very sound sleeper and he had finally concluded that he was almost certainly dreaming. He’d snuggled down in the bed until he’d fallen asleep again.
    Floss had lain awake for some time too, but the sound she’d thought was Magnus had faded away in the end. The other thing she remembered was feeling very cold. “Do you think Cousin M has got any hot water bottles?” she said, as they climbed back up to Dove, to collect Magnus for breakfast. “My feet were like ice, last night.”
    â€œYou could ask her,” said Sam. Then he added, “My feet were cold too. I put some socks on. It’s funny, how it suddenly went very cold. It was cold down in the Great Hall as well. And yet our dormitory’s a warm little room compared with the others, according to Cousin M. That’s why she’s put us up there. She said that Colonel Stickley was cross about it, apparently. He told her off. He said we should have been in one of the portakabins.”
    The long oak table by the fireplace was set for breakfast with a checked cloth and neatly folded napkins. As Cousin M seated them all Colonel Stickley came in with a loaded tray. He presented an interesting contrast with Cousin M who was wearing her grubby gardening clothes of the night before. He looked very formal and very smart in a tweed suit with a waistcoat and a watch chain across it, a silk handkerchief tucked into the top pocket and brown brogue shoes polished to a mirror gloss. “He’s a bit of a smoothie, isn’t he?” Sam whispered to Floss, as they sat down. “What is he doing frying breakfast for us lot? Don’t they have servants in a place like this? Where’s the cook?”
    Cousin M said, sticking spoons into pots of honey and marmalade and manhandling a very large teapot, “Let’s have a few introductions. Cecil, this is Sam, Floss and Magnus. This is Colonel Stickley, children.”
    Embarrassed, and unused to formal introductions, the three of them made vague mumbling noises and took refuge in their bowls of cornflakes. “Stick insect,” thought Sam, watching the colonel’s long legs arrange themselves neatly under the table. The old man did not smile, nor did he look in their direction. The business of the moment was breakfast and he was concentrating on that.
    Magnus, who was sitting with his back to the fireplace, thought he knew why Colonel Stickley was ignoring them all. It was because of the episode the night before. He’d been quite friendly in the end, in a stiff, grandfatherly way, helping him up to bed, but he was very different this morning. Magnus was determined to talk to him in private but he would have to find the right moment.
    He chewed his cornflakes and ran his eyes along the rows of portraits. The Lady Alice Neale, in her black dress, was