Winter Solstice Read Online Free PDF Page A

first was that she liked Oscar immensely; perhaps too much. She was well past the age of romantic love, but companionship was another matter. From their first meeting outside Dibton church, when she had been instantly taken with him, she had come to enjoy his company more and more. Time had not proved that first impression wrong.
    But the ice was thin. Elfrida was neither sanctimonious nor a lady with enormously high moral standards; indeed, all the time she lived with him, her dear dead lover had been the husband of another woman. But Elfrida had never met his wife, and the marriage was already on the rocks by the time he and Elfrida found each other, and for this reason she had never been consumed by guilt. On the other hand, there was another and not nearly so harmless scenario, and one which Elfrida had witnessed more than once. That of the single lady, widowed, divorced, or otherwise bereft, being taken under the wing of a loyal girl-friend, only to scarper with the loyal girl-friend’s husband. A reprehensible situation and one of which she strongly disapproved.
    But in Elfrida’s case, it was not about to happen. And she knew that her awareness of danger and her own common sense were her greatest strengths.
    Second was that Francesca, at twelve years old, was the daughter whom, if she had ever had a child, Elfrida would have liked to call her own. She was independent, open, and totally straightforward, and yet possessed of a sense of the ridiculous that could reduce Elfrida to helpless laughter, and an imagination that was fed by voracious reading of books. Into these, Francesca became so absorbed that one could go into a room, switch on the television, hold loud discussions, and Francesca would not even raise her head from the printed page. During the school holidays, she frequently turned up at Poulton’s Row, to play with Horace or watch Elfrida at her sewing-machine, at the same time asking end less questions about Elfrida’s theatrical past, which she clearly found fascinating.
    Her relationship with her father was unusually close and very sweet. He was old enough to be her grandfather, but their delight in each other’s company went far beyond that of the normal parent and child. From behind the closed music-room door could be heard the two of them playing duets on his piano, and fumbling mistakes brought not recrimination, but much laughter. On winter evenings he read aloud to her, the two of them curled up in his huge armchair, and her affection for him was manifested in frequent hugs and. loving physical contact, thin arms wound about his neck and kisses pressed onto the top of his thick white hair.
    As for Gloria, Gloria was a man’s woman, and so closer to her grownup and married sons than her lately conceived daughter. Elfrida had met these sons, Giles and Crawford Bellamy, and their pretty, well-dressed wives, when they turned up at the Grange for a weekend, or drove down from London for Sunday lunch. Although not twins, they were strangely similar-conventional and opinionated. Elfrida got the impression that neither of the brothers approved of her, but as she didn’t much like either of them, that was not bothering. Their mother doted on them, which was far more important, and when the time came for them to leave for London or Bristol or wherever they lived, the boots of their expensive cars loaded down with fresh vegetables and fruit from Gloria’s kitchen garden, she would stand, waving them away, like any sentimental mother. It was patently clear that in her eyes neither son could do wrong, and Elfrida was pretty sure that if Gloria had not approved of their chosen brides, then both Daphne and Arabella would have got short shrift.
    But Francesca was a different cup of tea. Deeply influenced by Oscar, she went her own way, followed her own interests, and found books and music a good deal more alluring than the local Pony Club gymkhana. Even so, she was never rebellious or sulky, and with good