Night Music Read Online Free Page B

little sign of leaving. In fact, they had shown little sign of mourning. As the drink had slipped down, the stories of Samuel Pottisworth had become steadily less reverential, until the greyed woollen long johns he had worn even into summer, and his rather fruity suggestions to the pretty young health visitor had become conversational currency.
    No one was quite sure whose idea it had been for the party to transfer to the big house. But somehow, fuelled by increased merriment, and an explosive burst of laughter, the french windows had been opened. Laura was trailing after her husband when she saw where the straggling group was going.
    Outside the air was unusually warm and still thick with the calls of wild creatures and the swinging beams of the torches; the woods were alive with feet slithering down banks, the rustle of the first leaves of autumn underfoot, and the squeals of the older ladies as they tried to negotiate their way in the gloom.
    ‘And he wasn’t beyond making a pass at my wife,’ said Matt. ‘Filthy old bugger. Mind yourself on these planks, girls.’
    ‘Matt,’ said Laura, as she passed him, ‘don’t.’
    ‘Oh, come on, love. You’re not going to tell everyone he was an angel.’ He winked at Mike Todd, who was holding his glass aloft as if afraid he might spill his wine. ‘Everyone here knows what he was like, don’t they, Mike?’
    ‘I don’t think it’s right,’ she said.
    ‘To speak ill of the dead? I’m only telling the truth. Aren’t we, everyone? It’s said with affection, right?’
    ‘Still . . .’
    The house loomed before them, illuminated by moonlight that bounced palely from the still water of the lake. In the blue glow, the building seemed spectral, less solid than in daylight, the mist rising from the earth so that it could almost have been floating. The red-brick slab of its eastern wall gave way to Gothic windows, the later additions to north and south dressed in a more traditional Norfolk flint. Above the huge bay window that marked the master bedroom, two sets of battlements looked out over the lake. It was grand but unlovely, a strange, contrary building, not unlike its previous owner. But it had potential. Laura found herself suppressing an involuntary shiver. The Big House. The one she would re-create, where she would spend the rest of her life. The one that would show her parents, everyone, she had been right to marry Matt.
    ‘Look at it,’ came Matt’s voice. ‘He would have let it fall to bits around him.’
    ‘I remember when his parents had it,’ said Mrs Linnet, who was clutching Asad’s arm. ‘Beautiful, they kept it. There were stone peacocks here and here, and boats on the lake, and all along that border they had the most beautiful roses. Proper scented ones, not like you get nowadays.’
    ‘It must have been quite something,’ said Asad.
    ‘Beautiful, this house could be again, in the right hands.’
    ‘I wouldn’t like it. Not out here in the middle of all these woods.’
    Laura looked at her husband, who was standing a little apart from the group, lost in thought, head tilted back. There was something rested about his face, she thought. As if long-held tension was melting away. She wondered briefly whether that expression was replicated on her own features, and decided it probably wasn’t.
    ‘Actually, Matt.’ It was Derek Wendell, the solicitor, his voice quiet. ‘Can I have a quick word?’
    ‘Did I tell you about the time he was going to sell the thirty-acre field? The one by the old barn?’ Mike Todd was beside him, his voice booming theatrically in the dark. ‘Got offered a good price, well above what he’d asked. Everything was set to go through and then he met the buyer at the solicitor’s office.’ He paused for dramatic effect. ‘Di sas ter.’
    ‘Go on, Mike.’ Laura was giggly. She had been drinking all afternoon, which was rare for her. Usually she limited herself – it was no fun to wake up with a hangover.
    ‘He