The Storms of War Read Online Free PDF Page A

sending her to Winterbourne and hiring Mr Janus (and his predecessors every summer before) if they really only wanted her to get married?
    ‘You’d have to make your own tea if you lived in Paris.’
    ‘I can make tea, thank you.’ Although really, she had to admit to herself, she rather hoped that she would be the type of rich lady intellectual who would have everything done for her, so she could think only of books.
    ‘Not once seen you do it.’
    ‘And since when did you know it all?’ She hopped over to the other side of the ornamental canal, hoping she sounded brave, hoping he would not dare her to go to the kitchens and show him.
    ‘True. Never.’ He nodded, and then stepped back so that she could walk up the path first. ‘Looking good, the Hall,’ he said.
    ‘Is it?’ Celia looked up at the back of the house.
    ‘Your father had the roof done again while you were away. He redid the windows and the guttering. It must have cost him a fortune.’
    She gazed at the windows and they did look shinier. ‘I suppose it was to impress Sir Hugh. I wish Father would stop building.’ As soon as they had moved in, Rudolf had set about what he called modernising the house. He had repainted it, put up new wallpaper and even installed electric lights in the parlour, the dining room and the front hall. Verena, however, tended to decline to turn them on, and the staff were afraid of them – Smithson told Celia that they had heard that an electric light in a house near Winchester had burst and cast yellow stuff all over the entire company under it, and they were burnt quite to a cinder. Rudolf had also recently installed a telephone in a special small booth in the hall, even though no one had yet used it and Verena complained bitterly about the expense. Celia sometimes crept to look at it when nobody else was around. She would pick up the receiver and speak into it. ‘Hello,’ she whispered. ‘Is there anyone there?’ The line crackled and fizzed; no one spoke.
    ‘I think the place looks better for all his work. If you’ve got the money, why not spend it, I say?’
    Something caught her heart then, and she could not help herself. She pulled his hand. ‘Tom.’ She could almost feel urgency flooding between her lips. ‘You will never leave. Promise me you won’t leave.’
    He looked up at the sky, away from her. ‘I won’t. I don’t have anywhere to go. You will, though. You’ll go somewhere else.’
    ‘No. Say it to me, promise me. If we leave, we go together.’ She stared at the grime on the back of his hand, begging him to answer.
    ‘Life is different for me.’
    ‘What makes you so sure? Please, Tom. Promise me you won’t leave.’
    He shifted on to the other foot. ‘I promise. Things will always stay the same.’
    That was enough. She pulled her hand free and took three steps away. ‘Race you first!’ she cried at him, waving, and then gathered her dress in her hand and began running, hurtling headlong to Stoneythorpe.
    Thompson was coming towards them, dragging his bad leg behind him, his souvenir from the Boer War, he said. The rest of the family were no longer sitting at the back of the house. Tom and Celia were running so fast they almost crashed into him.
    ‘Hello, miss,’ he said. ‘I was looking for you. Your father asked me to tell you. There has been a change. They have returned inside and they are not taking tea.’ He looked at Tom. ‘He asked me to convey his apologies.’
    ‘What do you mean, there is no tea?’
    ‘That is the case, miss.’
    She was about to protest again, but Tom put his hand on her arm. ‘Don’t, Miss Celia. There is no space for me when Sir Hugh might be near, that is all. It is not Mr Thompson’s fault.’ His voice was calm but his face was red with fury.
    ‘Why did my father not wait to explain?’ Celia demanded. ‘It’s unfair. He should be here to tell us.’
    Tom squeezed her arm harder. ‘I’m going back now. Good day, miss. Wishing you a