The Memory of Lost Senses Read Online Free PDF Page B

asked, “Here to watch the match, are we?” And then quietly added; “Don’t worry, none of us gives a monkey’s about cricket, but perhaps we rather like certain cricketers  . . . hmm?”
    Cecily whispered, “I think I’m going home.”
    “Now? But we’ve only just arrived.”
    Cecily turned, about to walk away.
    “But, Cecily . . . Cecily,” Annie hissed.
    She glanced over her shoulder, saw Annie’s nodding gesture and, beyond, a white-clad figure striding out across the pitch, rubbing a ball against his thigh. For a while all conversation stopped as the girls focused their collective attention on cricket, without any commentary. Then, with her eyes fixed ahead, Sonia said, “I don’t suppose you know Jack.”
    “Jack?”
    “Jack Staunton.”
    “Yes, I’ve met him,” Cecily said. “I met him last week, very briefly, though I didn’t catch his name.”
    It was true. She had crossed paths with him, literally crossed paths with him. He had been heading up the track when she stepped out through the garden gate and almost collided with him. And she had known, known immediately, who he was, even before he mentioned the word “neighbor.” But so unprepared had she been that she missed the name and then stumbled over her own, reducing it to Silly Chadwick. “Cecily,” she had said again, shaking his hand and looking downwards, too embarrassed to ask him to repeat his own, too embarrassed to say anything else at all. She had swiftly turned and walked on, cringing at the clumsy introduction. But at the bottom of the track, on the bend before the ford, she had glanced back, and caught him doing the same.
    Sonia moved closer. “I was introduced to him the day he arrived. She invited us over . . . wanted him to meet some young people he’d have things in common with, I suppose.”
    Annie said, “Is he her grandson then?”
    “Well, yes,” Sonia replied, sounding vaguely amused. “But he’s only just finished at school. Because of all of his travels he’s a year or two behind—which must be rather odd,” she added, crinkling her nose. “He’s going up to univarsity in October. Better late than never, I suppose.”
    “And is he really an orphan?” Annie whispered.
    “Indeed he is,” she replied. “His father died yars and yars ago, when he was no more than a baby, and his mother”—she paused, looked around her—“committed sewicide  . . . only earlier this year,” she whispered.
    “Suicide?”
    “Sshh! Yes. Awful business, one imagines.”
    “But how do you know all of this?” Annie asked, moving closer, narrowing her eyes. “Did he tell you?”
    “No! My mother told me. She read about it in the newspaper. There was an inquest and it mentioned the name, said the old lady had returned to this country after a lifetime abroad. His father’s death was in the newspapers too, apparently. He died in a hunting accident, you know. He had just returned from South America.”
    “South America,” Cecily repeated.
    “Mm, thrown from his horse. Tragic really. Mama says the poor woman must be cursed for everyone around her to die in such tragic circumstances.”
    Cecily was about to ask the name, the full name, for no one ever seemed inclined to refer to it, but Sonia continued, “To lose all of her children, and five husbands . . .”
    “Five!” Annie repeated.
    “I believe so.”
    “And is she English?” Annie asked.
    “Oh, I should say so. Old aristocracy . . . titled family scattered the length and breadth of Europe. You know how they all intermarry. She has a palazzo in Rome, and a château somewhere in France, I believe. And of course one can see from her manner and style that she’s from a very old family. Temple Hill is quite something, I can tell you. Wall-to-wall antiques and art . . . Though Papa says old families like hers always like to have their heirlooms on display, no matter how chipped or tatty, just to remind them of who they once were.” She