The Sweet Dove Died Read Online Free PDF

Humphrey was and how much more agreeable it would have been if James had been her companion in this romantic setting. ‘A distant glimpse of a temple – perhaps a ruined temple – among trees, over still water,’ she mused. ‘I think that’s really one of my favourite sights.’
    Dear Leonora, Humphrey thought, so sensitive and impractical. He wondered how many times she had seen such a sight to arrive at the conclusion that it was one of her favourites. Suddenly – he supposed it was the contrast that brought it to his mind – he remembered his dead wife as she had been in her ATS uniform during the war, walking with him among these same trees.
    As they strolled along, Leonora keeping up a flow of admiring comments on the scene, they came upon a huge totem pole, shattering the peaceful beauty of the landscape.
    What a hideous phallic symbol, Leonora thought, but of course one wouldn’t mention it, only hurry by with head averted. There were people clustering round it, too, shouting and exclaiming, a man and two small boys accompanied by Mum and perhaps Gran in white orlon cardigans, with the bright floral prints of their dresses showing through them. How did such people manage to get time off in the week? Leonora wondered.
    ‘I suppose they must be on holiday,’ she murmured, as they walked past. She felt a little tired now – perhaps it would be possible to sit down somewhere, but when she mentioned it Humphrey thought the grass would surely be damp – there had been a heavy shower yesterday evening – and suggested they should drive somewhere for tea.
    It might not have been so damp in the depths of the wood, he thought regretfully, imagining himself reclining with Leonora on a bed of pine needles. But he soon dismissed the picture from his mind as impossible and ludicrous. A woodland seduction scene between two middle-aged protagonists could only end in disaster.
    ‘Tea ,’ he said firmly, seeing Leonora’s dark beauty against a background of chintz and home-made scones.
    Later, when they were sitting in the cafe he had remembered, he told her that it was here he and Chloe used to meet sometimes.
    ‘Your wife,’ she said, her tone reverent to conceal her boredom. She considered it a slight error of taste that he should be able to think of another woman, even one long dead, when he was with her.
    ‘One got a jolly good tea here, even in those days,’ he said brightly. ‘You know how obsessed one was with food during the war.’
    ‘Ah, the war.’ Leonora sighed, remembering her ‘secret work’ somewhere in the south of England before the invasion of Normandy. It had been spring – camellias, azaleas and rhododendrons, and brigadiers making passes at her, and even honourable proposals, among those luxuriant flowering shrubs. Oh, the marriages she could have made, brilliant marriages … Of course James would have been only four or five years old at that time, in America with his mother during those early formative years. ‘And James was just a baby then,’ she said aloud, ‘wasn’t he?’
    ‘Certainly James was a very young child,’ Humphrey confirmed, in an uninterested tone. ‘He was with his mother in the United States. His father was killed in the war, you know.’
    Of course Leonora had known. ‘And then his mother died,’ she said softly.
    ‘Yes, but that was later. This date and walnut slice is very good,’ said Humphrey, hoping to distract Leonora’s attention, ‘won’t you try a piece?’
    Leonora shook her head. The sadness of James’s life had taken away her appetite. Really, one couldn’t eat with such thoughts. That poor boy, and yet if his mother hadn’t died … ‘What a lovely afternoon I’m having,’ she said, remembering her duty to Humphrey. After all, James was dining with her this evening; she could afford to be generous.
    James approached the village hall cautiously, having first observed from a distance how the land lay. It was of course ridiculous to