A House Divided: An Easterleigh Hall Novel Read Online Free Page B

right when she said that when Evie, Ver or Gracie set their minds on an idea, everyone had to fall in. You could add Bridie, he thought, because using horses for the wounded had been her project. Why didn’t they all get out of this backwater and really live?
    He ambled along in the wake of the kids, as he’d come to think of them over the last year. Like puppies, they were, barking up the wrong tree, carrying on about the awful fascists. Couldn’t they see what was being achieved on the continent? At the rear of the marquee, Ron Simmonds, who was a partner in the hotel, was waiting with Mr Harvey. Tim had always thought the butler was a great old bloke, but his mother had put him right on that. Interfering old tyrant, she’d called him, but not as bad as Mrs Moore.
    She’d been amazed when she heard that Mr Harveyhad married Mrs Moore at the end of the war. How she’d laughed; it had made him uncomfortable. In fact, his mother’s laugh was one of the things he didn’t quite like about her. It didn’t sound real, whereas Gracie and his aunts . . .
    Ron called, grinning, ‘In your own time, then, Tim old lad. Just you forget that we’ve a load of thirsty people in need of sustenance.’ By his side, at the trestle table, Mr Harvey poured champagne carefully into fine crystal glasses, the bottle wrapped in a damask napkin, each glass tilted, his hand rock steady.
    Tim picked up a tray of full glasses, and entered the marquee through the rear flap. Ron called, ‘Take the left-hand section, if you would, Tim. Go as far as the cake table. Bridie and James are each taking the other two thirds, with others roaring about with the canapés.’
    The marquee was huge and decorated with white hyacinths and myrtle, for constancy and love, or so Gracie had explained. The fragrance was heavy, contained as it was in the marquee, but as always he could smell the grass beneath the floor, though he could never understand why.
    He gave a small bounce, and the floor didn’t even creak. Grandpa Forbes and Tom Wilson, the old blacksmith, both of whom had devised false limbs for the wounded, had done a good job when they created the interlocking wooden sections ten years ago. The difficulty had been getting a tight enoughfit. It had fascinated Tim, so Grandpa had let him help. That’s when Jack had thought he’d make a really good design engineer. He was, and all.
    Tim skirted the top table, holding the tray on his fingers, and entered the fray, smiling at the guests, who snatched the glasses as though they had been stranded in a desert. Within two minutes he was back outside, replenishing, then he turned on his heel, and re-entered. This time he reached as far as Edward Manton, Gracie’s brother, who was also the vicar. Edward seemed awkward and nervous, but then, when wasn’t he? A drink would do him good.
    ‘Have a few bubbles, Uncle Edward.’
    Edward muttered, ‘Thank you, Tim. So kind.’ He took the last glass and ran his finger down it, leaving a line through the condensation. He looked up thoughtfully. ‘Thank you for escorting Gracie down the aisle. It made it such a lovely family occasion, one that warmed my heart.’
    Tim smiled back, noticing that Edward still wore his cycle clips. What a silly old beggar; because it wasn’t a family occasion, was it? If it had been, they would have invited his mother and Heine. Typical, his mother had said on his last trip, and he could see that it was. The family was so tightly bound together that they didn’t live like individuals. He felt the sense of suffocation deepen; it was a feeling that increasingly threatened to overwhelm him.
    Gracie was circulating on the right-hand side and chatting to Annie, who held a tray of canapés. Anniesaw him, waved, and joined him. ‘How’s it going your side, bonny lad? Mine are being laudably abstemious with the caviar; all waiting for Bridie and Evie’s little miracles, not to mention that amazing cake. Their food is something to behold,