The Fall and Rise of Lucy Charlton Read Online Free PDF Page A

winter days which never got light, the fog thicker than shadows.
    His whole body had tightened up by now, the way it did when confronted by any crisis. He had grown used to it, it would first do that and then he would go cold and see the situation with such precision and foresight that he could have led his men anywhere and they would have followed him.
    ‘My mother always says your mother’s death was quite sudden, your father wouldn’t talk about it, he was devastated. He had lots of friends and they tried to help him many times over the years but he didn’t listen. He just went on grieving. There’s nothing left, don’t you see, because of theway that he behaved. Is that clear enough for you?’ Toddy coughed and stuttered and said, ‘I didn’t mean it to sound like that, Joe. I don’t know how else to put it, I’m sorry. I was dreading you coming home even though I thought you would have known long since. After all, France isn’t so very far away.’
    Joe supposed that depended on how you looked at it; now it seemed like the end of the earth.
    From somewhere beyond the library doors Joe could hear laughter, as though the people who were staying for dinner were moving through the hall into another room, probably the dining room. Doors opened and closed, the conversation loud one moment and subdued the next. Toddy looked in the direction of the noise as though he longed to be there.
    Things had been bad all his life really, Joe admitted to himself now. His father, unlike most men, had never got over his wife’s death. His father had had plenty of women since, Joe thought cynically, but they were not the kind of women one married.
    At that moment the library doors opened and a lovely young woman stepped inside. She was pretty, dark-haired and brown-eyed, with generous lips and a soft, sweet face. She had a slender figure and was wearing a cream dress that accentuated her shape. She was smiling with pleasure and then she saw him and the smile went.
    Joe would have gone forward, but she stepped back when she recognized him. He greeted her, but his lips were as stiff as wood. She didn’t reply and turned her gaze to her husband.
    ‘Are you coming back to the party, darling? Everyone isgoing in to dinner.’ She went out without another word. Joe kept his eyes on the door, thinking she would come back in and somehow make things better, but nothing happened.
    ‘Where’s Angela?’ The one thing which would save his day from total ruin. He looked eagerly at the door as though she might suddenly appear. Even if she couldn’t tell him that everything was all right, she would help, she would comfort him, be there for him, and after they were married he would feel better than he had ever felt in his life. He would have someone all to himself, somebody to come home to, and he would somehow manage to live with his father’s death, awful though it was; he would learn to come to terms with it just as many thousands upon thousands of people had had to do in this dreadful war. If she was there, by him, if they could be together, then he could manage anything.
    ‘She’s not here,’ Toddy said.
    Joe didn’t understand that. She must be here; this was her home. Her parents lived here, it was the family London base, and during bad weather she would not have been anywhere else, especially at this time of the year. And besides, he thought, she would have been waiting for him to come home, she would want to know that he was here. He couldn’t wait another moment to see her.
    Toddy sighed and then looked straight at Joe and said, ‘My father has sent her away. You must understand, Joe, that you and Angela can’t be married.’
    Joe stared at him. What on earth was he talking about?
    ‘She couldn’t possibly marry you now. My father would never allow it.’
    ‘But – we’re engaged,’ Joe said, idiotically.
    He was still searching the door as though it would open at any second and she would come into the room and fling