The Honours Read Online Free PDF Page B

tour?’
    â€˜That’s very kind of you, Doctor, ah – ’
    â€˜Please, call me Titus.’
    â€˜We’ve only just arrived. Delphine needs to unpack her things. She has private study to be getting on with.’ She turned to Delphine. ‘Don’t you, dear?’
    Delphine scowled.
    Dr Lansley faced Delphine, as if noticing her for the first time. His head had a slight rightward kink, weighed down by the deaf aid, but he was not old – his eyes were ravenous, alert, and beneath his slick dark hair his posture shivered with the concentrated tension of a mousetrap. He looked her up and down.
    â€˜Hello,’ he said.
    â€˜Hello,’ said Delphine.
    He held her gaze a moment longer, then turned back to Mother.
    â€˜Well, we’ve got a lot to get through but since we’re on the subject of families I suppose this is as good a place to start as any.’ He took Mother’s hand and led her across the Great Hall, their footsteps sarcastic applause. Delphine watched them go. Mother shot a look over her shoulder. ‘Now this fellow is Sir Robert Stokeham – good chum of Pitt the Elder, apparently.’
    Dr Lansley stopped before a gilt-framed portrait the size of a billboard, lit on either side by electric lamps. As he continued talking,Delphine edged towards a doorway. ‘Look how they’ve composed the scene around him: the matchlock, the faithful gundogs, the quill and documents lying oh-so-conveniently in the background. You can just imagine, can’t you? “Yes, do come in, I’m just cleaning my hunting rifle and – oh look, what’s this on the desk? A frightfully important letter from King George the Third? How scatterbrained I am!”’
    The Doctor’s whinnying laughter faded as she entered a long corridor lined with south-facing windows. She walked in and out of the light, enjoying the cool lakes of darkness.
    Why had Daddy insisted they come to this stuffy old place? Surely, if he wanted to get better, the best place for him was home. She stopped beside a door, tried the handle. It was locked.
    Pinned to a corkboard beside the door was a typewritten timetable:
    S.P.I.M. ACTIVITIES
    Monday:
    9 a.m. – morning orientation
    10 a.m. – breakfast
    11 a.m. – true work (M) / hidden steps (F)
    12 a.m. – luncheon
    1 p.m. – archery
    2 p.m. – true work (M) / hidden steps (F)
    4 p.m. – wakefulness drills
    5 p.m. – dinner
    6 p.m. – private study time
    9 p.m. – discussion
    11 p.m. – supper
    There were similar lists for Tuesday to Friday, with minor variations: ‘surgery’ on a Wednesday afternoon, ‘fencing’ instead of ‘archery’ on Tuesday and Thursday, and a 6 a.m. slot on Friday called ‘dawnbath’.
    Delphine followed the corridor until it opened onto a spacious music room. Her sandals slapped against worn, waxed boards. Sunlight from four windows converged on a dusty harpsichord. On a stand above the harpsichord’s double keyboard sat some handwrittensheet music: The Shadowed Way – Sequence 15 . The corner of the page was initialled: I.P .
    Mother had forced Delphine to take piano lessons. Just thinking about the tak-tak-tak of the metronome made her throat tighten. She rested an index finger on middle C. The key colours were reversed: the majors ebony, the sharps and flats ivory. The key sank; a nasal, spidery twang died beneath the lid.
    She entered a wider, longer corridor. As far as she could tell, she was in the west wing, heading north. On her left were tall windows, on her right, white statues of men in laurel wreaths and togas, pottery fragments, a bull’s head in alabaster. She came to some double doors. She listened at the keyhole. Nothing. She tried the door knob. The door opened.
    The room was thick with the sweet, rank stench of dead flowers. Huge drapes smothered the windows. As her eyes adjusted she saw a billiard table, a leather