Withering Heights Read Online Free PDF Page B

explosion. “If the review wasn’t all that complimentary about your new cookery book, Mr. H, I’d be pleased as Punch. Your recipes are for the sort of meals that taste lovely and give you a warm, dreamy feeling when you remember them years later. It’s the same with books. Shakespeare may be good for you, but like I was saying to Mrs. H earlier, it don’t warm the cockles of your heart like a nice story about a wicked housekeeperand the family ghost appearing of a nighttime at the windows.”
    Had she said that? My eyes went to the portrait of Abigail. Her serene smile promised as clearly as if she had spoken that her ghost would never show up at any of our windows. Enormously comforting! Thrilling as such things are to read about, one does not necessarily wish to experience them in real life.
    “You have a point, Mrs. Malloy.” Ben looked less like a bottle left in the middle of the floor for someone to trip over.
    “That’s the ticket.” Mrs. Malloy teetered over the chair he had vacated. “You stop worrying about being remembered five hundred years from now for your
Poulet a la
Whatsit. Go on writing recipes for the sort of food that keeps people coming back for more at Abigail’s. No one can touch you, Mr. H, when it comes to your Welsh rarebit. The one that’s a lovely shade of pink because of the diced beetroot you put in it. And then there’s the Dover sole with the Gruyere sauce and the steak-and-mushroom pie with the vermouth. Who needs anything fancier than that?”
    Tobias charged the feather duster she had discarded. At his approach it came to life and put up quite a fight.
    “You’re the voice of reason, Mrs. Malloy.” Ben smiled at her. It was good to see the light back in his eyes, but I wished I could have been the one to put it there. “How about a glass of sherry? Would you like another one, Ellie?” It was impossible to tell whether or not he was still irritated with me.
    “I think I’d rather have a cup of tea.”
    “Same here,” Mrs. M surprised me by saying. “Just the thing with that sky darkening up like it’s getting set to storm again. A good thing I gave in and agreed to stay the night or I could have got caught in it good and proper.”
    Not if she had left earlier, I thought, and immediately felt guilty.
    “In these heels”—she looked down at her spindly shoes—“I need to see where I’m putting me feet or I could trip on the bus steps and break me neck.” This reference to Madam LaGrange’s warning about the perils of bus stops should have reminded me of her other prediction.
    Having closed the window and drawn the curtains, Ben said he would make the tea and be back in a jiffy. On his way out of the room he paused to touch my hair lightly, and the world shifted back into place.
    “Was it just the magazine business that got to him?” Mrs. Malloy inquired, the moment he was out the door. “Or did the children get upset when he left them with his parents?” Here was the reason she had refused the sherry and most uncharacteristically opted for tea. She had known Ben would offer to get it, thus providing us with a few minutes of private chitchat.
    “All three of them always enjoy being with Grandpa and Grandma. They love staying in the flat above the greengrocery. They think it a great adventure to help out at the cash register and hang up the bananas.”
    “Well, I’ll tell you what I think.” Mrs. Malloy’s pious expression would have suited the vicar when leaning over the pulpit to announce that more help was needed for the foreign missions. “Children don’t need a holiday near as much as their mum and dad do. So how about you and Mr. H taking off for a few days instead of staying cooped up here?” Her gaze shifted around the room. “It can get depressing, Mrs. H, with the walls closing in and always the thought of how much dusting there is to do.”
    For which one of us? Although that might be a moot point now that Tobias had disemboweled the