Something in Disguise Read Online Free

hat at a party pretends to be a child. Even the beautiful white lilac and iris could not combat the discomforting ugliness of the place.
‘Poor God,’ thought May. ‘If He is really present here, and many places like this, it must be like being a kind of international M.P. A hideous place with boring people not
meaning what they say, except when they come to some private grievance.’
    The organ came to an end, took an audibly bronchial breath and began on what was recognizably some Bach. Alice had entered the church on her father’s arm, followed by Rosemary and
Elizabeth. Heads turned and turned back to the chancel steps where the vicar stood waiting for them. ‘He’s a wonderful looking man,’ thought Gertie Mount wistfully. A kind of
cross between William Powell and Sir Aubrey Smith, she decided, as the colonel glided past her and came to a majestic halt and Leslie materialized out of the gloom beside his bride. Alice handed
her bouquet to Rosemary, who received it with operatic humility, and the marriage service began. Mr Mount, whose clothes seemed to him to be slowly strangling him at all key points, glanced
surreptitiously at the wife. She might start at any moment, but he had a nice big clean one handy: he groped in his right-hand trouser pocket, forgot about his morning coat and dropped his prayer
book. He stooped to retrieve it, but the pews were so narrow that he hit his bottom – a hard but springy blow – on the edge of the seat This had the effect of knocking him forwards, his
jaw came in contact with the pew desk and his false teeth gave an ominous lurch. He now seemed to be wedged, and was only rescued by his teenage daughter, Sandra, who hauled him to his feet and
handed him her prayer book with a minutely crushing smile. She was, in his opinion, well on the way to becoming over-educated, and terrified him. He turned to Gertie for comfort: she’d begun,
and he felt (more warily) for the hanky.
    The vicar was asking the couple if they knew any impediment to their marriage. His voice and manner, Oliver thought, gave one the feeling that he could not possibly be real – might at any
moment, in a Lewis Carroll manner, turn into a sheep or a lesser playing card: that would be an impediment, all right. He didn’t believe in marriage himself.
    Leslie was looking forward to the bit where he had his say, which he had practised privately on a corner of the golf course at home. So keen was he about getting on with the job that he
interrupted the vicar after the first question and said ‘I will’ with immense resolution, but the vicar was accustomed to amateurs and simply raised his voice a semi-tone.
Leslie’s final asseveration was far more subdued. ‘Will what ?’ muttered his Great-Aunt Lottie peevishy. She seldom had what Mrs Mount called a grip on things, and Mrs Mount
had been against bringing her all this way, but Mr Mount had said that it would be an outing for her. Gertie felt in her bag for the tin of Allenbury’s Blackcurrant Pastilles, and nearly
ruined her glove getting one out and thrusting it into Auntie’s mumbling hairy jaws.
    The colonel waited until the padre had asked the question that usually applied to fathers, nodded briskly and stepped smartly back to the front pew beside May. His actions, to Gertie, showed
that of course he had the proper respect, but he was a plain man with no nonsense about him. She was sure he had a heart of gold.
    ‘Going, going, gone!’ thought Alice wildly. Leslie’s hand was soft and dry, her own, damp and icy. Enunciating with care, he was plighting his troth: it did not sound like his
usual voice, but then these were not things that people usually said to each other. In a moment it was going to be her turn . . .
    ‘I hope she’s secretly terrifically in love,’ thought Elizabeth hopelessly as she listened to Alice’s clear, unexpectedly childish tones repeating her share of the
phrases after the vicar. But how could you be,