The Best of Friends Read Online Free
Author: Joanna Trollope
Silence.
âHello?â she said, experimentally.
There was still silence. She walked across the kitchen and looked at her budgerigar, hanging in his cage by the further window. She had won him, twoyears ago, at Whittingbourne Fair, and on his social days, he talked to himself animatedly in his tiny mirror. He seemed now to be asleep, or at least deep in thought, his tiny eyes unseeing in his green-and-yellow head.
âWhere are they?â Sophy said. She gave the hanging cage a little push, but he took no notice. Sophy went out of the kitchen and into the hall, dark always because of its panelling, and darker still just now because of the rainclouds looming at the windows. The door to the sitting-room was open. Sophy looked in. Her father was sitting there, in the gloom, still dressed for the party, in a summer suit that he had bought when they all went on holiday once, to the Veneto, and had stayed two nights in Vicenza. He wasnât reading or anything; he just seemed to be sitting.
âHello,â Sophy said, holding the doorframe.
He looked up, towards her.
âHello, Sophy,â Fergus said. He never called her âdarlingâ, even though she knew he loved her dearly. âHello.â He made a little gesture, as if he were about to hold his arms out to her but had then decided not to, after all. âI was rather waiting for you.â
Chapter Two
IN THE BADLY printed guidebook that the Tourist Information Office in Whittingbourne gave out free, The Bee House was listed under âBuildings of Historical Interestâ. It wasnât however the building that was of interest historically so much as its associations. The building was a ramble, one of those amalgams of styles and constant changes of use that produce a feeling of intense humanity and even greater impracticality. Visitors, stepping cautiously around its odd corners and abrupt switches of floor-level, would murmur about its charm and eccentricity while uttering silent prayers of thankfulness that they were not responsible for either keeping it clean or repairing its roofs. Then they would pick up one of the leaflets that were kept in a wooden rack on the reception desk, and go out into the garden to see the bee boles.
The bee boles were what gave the house its name and its place in the tourist guide. The long garden that stretched away to the north was enclosed, on its east-facing side, by a long and ancient brick wall which supported a number of espaliered fruit trees. It was also pierced a dozen times with neat alcoved recesses, each one wide enough and deep enough to have held a single bee skep made, said the leaflet, of coiled straw and, in medieval times, of wicker. Each skep would have had a wooden alighting board projecting in front of it and the east-facing wall had been chosen in the hope that the morning sun would get the bees workingearly. Hilary Wood, Gusâs mother, had tried to persuade modern bees to take up residence in these ancient dwellings, but they had resolutely rejected them in favour of white-painted chalet-style hives elsewhere and convenient for nearby fields of rapeseed.
In the bar of The Bee House hung several framed copies of historic documents. One was a fragment from the will of Adam Cullinge, in 1407, who bequeathed all his bees and bee boles at The Bee House to the churchwardens of Whittingbourne, âthe profit of them to be devoted towards maintaining three wax tapers in the church, ever burning . . .â Another document was an inventory made by a subsequent owner of The Bee House, in the late sixteenth century, which included â8 fattes of bees: 16 shillingsâ. A fatte of bees, said a note typed by Hilary and stuck on the wall below the inventory, was a hive of bees in good condition. An even later occupant of The Bee House, a tenant, had left a memorandum in a strong black hand to the effect that he managed to pay the rent solely from the sale of honey and beeswax. He had
âHello?â she said, experimentally.
There was still silence. She walked across the kitchen and looked at her budgerigar, hanging in his cage by the further window. She had won him, twoyears ago, at Whittingbourne Fair, and on his social days, he talked to himself animatedly in his tiny mirror. He seemed now to be asleep, or at least deep in thought, his tiny eyes unseeing in his green-and-yellow head.
âWhere are they?â Sophy said. She gave the hanging cage a little push, but he took no notice. Sophy went out of the kitchen and into the hall, dark always because of its panelling, and darker still just now because of the rainclouds looming at the windows. The door to the sitting-room was open. Sophy looked in. Her father was sitting there, in the gloom, still dressed for the party, in a summer suit that he had bought when they all went on holiday once, to the Veneto, and had stayed two nights in Vicenza. He wasnât reading or anything; he just seemed to be sitting.
âHello,â Sophy said, holding the doorframe.
He looked up, towards her.
âHello, Sophy,â Fergus said. He never called her âdarlingâ, even though she knew he loved her dearly. âHello.â He made a little gesture, as if he were about to hold his arms out to her but had then decided not to, after all. âI was rather waiting for you.â
Chapter Two
IN THE BADLY printed guidebook that the Tourist Information Office in Whittingbourne gave out free, The Bee House was listed under âBuildings of Historical Interestâ. It wasnât however the building that was of interest historically so much as its associations. The building was a ramble, one of those amalgams of styles and constant changes of use that produce a feeling of intense humanity and even greater impracticality. Visitors, stepping cautiously around its odd corners and abrupt switches of floor-level, would murmur about its charm and eccentricity while uttering silent prayers of thankfulness that they were not responsible for either keeping it clean or repairing its roofs. Then they would pick up one of the leaflets that were kept in a wooden rack on the reception desk, and go out into the garden to see the bee boles.
The bee boles were what gave the house its name and its place in the tourist guide. The long garden that stretched away to the north was enclosed, on its east-facing side, by a long and ancient brick wall which supported a number of espaliered fruit trees. It was also pierced a dozen times with neat alcoved recesses, each one wide enough and deep enough to have held a single bee skep made, said the leaflet, of coiled straw and, in medieval times, of wicker. Each skep would have had a wooden alighting board projecting in front of it and the east-facing wall had been chosen in the hope that the morning sun would get the bees workingearly. Hilary Wood, Gusâs mother, had tried to persuade modern bees to take up residence in these ancient dwellings, but they had resolutely rejected them in favour of white-painted chalet-style hives elsewhere and convenient for nearby fields of rapeseed.
In the bar of The Bee House hung several framed copies of historic documents. One was a fragment from the will of Adam Cullinge, in 1407, who bequeathed all his bees and bee boles at The Bee House to the churchwardens of Whittingbourne, âthe profit of them to be devoted towards maintaining three wax tapers in the church, ever burning . . .â Another document was an inventory made by a subsequent owner of The Bee House, in the late sixteenth century, which included â8 fattes of bees: 16 shillingsâ. A fatte of bees, said a note typed by Hilary and stuck on the wall below the inventory, was a hive of bees in good condition. An even later occupant of The Bee House, a tenant, had left a memorandum in a strong black hand to the effect that he managed to pay the rent solely from the sale of honey and beeswax. He had
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