Mrs. Malory and A Time To Die Read Online Free

for. Simon is their son, and more like his aunt (whom he’s devoted to) than either of his parents. He’s an accountant and looks after the books at the stables.
    “Hello,” Rosemary said. “Lovely to see you. Pull up a couple of chairs, Simon. There’s plenty of room here.”
    “Well,” Esther said, flopping down into a chair and arranging a collection of plastic bags round her feet, “I’ve never known it so crowded. You can hardly get into some of the trade tents. I’m sure the girl in the produce tent didn’t pack that honeycomb properly; she was so busy.” She bent down and rummaged in one of the bags. “No, it seems to be all right, but it’s in the bag with the smoked-trout pâté and the wild-boar sausages, and you wouldn’t want honey all over those , now would you? Simon, I’ll have a gin and tonic if you can get to the bar.”
    “How about everyone else?” Simon asked.
    Rosemary and I shook our heads, and Charlie said, “I’ll wait till lunch, thanks all the same.”
    “It gets worse every year,” Esther went on. “I don’t think I’ll come again. It’s not what it was—not like the old days. It’s getting too commercial—and not a proper band, just taped music and all those motor bikes doing acrobatics or whatever it is they do. Anyway, it’s nice to see you both. How have you been keeping? I saw Jilly just now, Rosemary. She had her arm in a sling. Has she broken it? And I didn’t expect to see Michael here, Sheila. I thought lawyers never took a day off—too busy making money!” She laughed. “Did you see Jo and that horse of hers? She really is getting too old for all that, Charlie. I don’t know why you let her do it.”
    Knowing Esther of old, none of us felt it necessary to answer what were obviously rhetorical questions. Fortunately, Simon came back with the drinks, so she was obliged to stop talking while she drank her gin and tonic.
    “Well, you’ve taken a day off,” Rosemary said to Simon, smiling. Simon used to work for Jack’s firm of accountants when he first started out and Rosemary has always had a soft spot for him. We both feel sorry for him having to cope with Esther. Gordon has more or less given up and, at home at least, has gone into a kind of monosyllabic retreat, giving all his energies to outside activities like the Rotarians and the local council.
    “I usually take a week of my leave around now,” he said. “I’m going to spend a few days in London.”
    “Theaters and galleries?” I asked.
    “This and that,” Simon said. “I haven’t decided yet.”
    “Oh, Simon’s not a one for museums and all that,” Esther broke in. “We used to take him to all sorts of things when he was little. Do you remember, Simon, when we used to stay with Aunt Mavis?” She turned to me. “She’s Gordon’s older sister, married a consultant—orthopedics, always pays well!—and they have a house in Richmond, huge great place; must be worth a fortune now. No,” she went on, “Simon never took any interest in that kind of thing. Vicky, now, she loved it all, but then she’s always been the clever one.” Vicky is Simon’s sister and their mother’s favorite. “She got a first, you know, at Oxford—such a pity she never did anything with it, going into the BBC like that.”
    “But she’s done awfully well,” Rosemary said. “She’s a producer now, isn’t she?”
    “Yes,” Esther said, “but only radio .”
    Vicky is very ambitious and simply couldn’t wait to go away to London, without the slightest qualm about leaving Simon to bear the brunt of things at home. I do feel sorry for him. He’s so good with both his parents and doesn’t really have much of a life—just work and home and doing things around the stables. I know he likes being there with Jo and Charlie, so I suppose that’s something. He did have a nice girlfriend, Julie Phillips, the daughter of one of the partners of his firm, but her job took her away to London and