After the Armistice Ball by Catriona McPherson

Author:Catriona McPherson [McPherson, Catriona]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781780334073
Publisher: Constable & Robinson

Chapter Eleven

I saw it immediately this time, of course. Added to the fact of Mrs Duffy’s redecoration, it was so obvious that I felt some shame for not seeing it before. Because really, how could these dowdy stripes and sprigged muslins have been freely chosen by the same woman who had turned her drawing room at Drummond Place into an ice-cube?

I resolved to subject the idea to my harshest criticism while dressing, and see if it was still standing up by the time I was done. I was late already, but since Grant was in far too foul a temper to be let loose on my hair, I saved myself a good twenty minutes by pulling on a silk turban instead. Thank heavens for turbans in the evening. I hoped they would stay in fashion for ever, or at least until I was old enough to go on wearing them whether they were in or out. I pulled a couple of curls out at the front and tried to make them rest against my forehead, but this was wasting time. I still could not see any flaw in my discovery and could wait no longer to tell it to Alec, nor to quiz him on how he had wrested the album away from Clemence.

When I joined him and Hugh, moreover, I could see from his dancing eyes that he was bursting to tell me. Hugh, though, was well away on the relative merits of dry-stone walls and hedges and I had to wait until we were sitting down to dinner before I got in.

‘Tell me, Alec,’ I said, ‘to what do we owe this pleasure?’ For I could not imagine on what pretext he had insinuated himself into my household at less than a day’s notice. Hugh is not antisocial but he needs to be led up quite gently to the idea of a single visitor; they require so much more attention than does a crowd of twenty.

‘Came to see a horse,’ he said.

‘Uncommonly decent of you to take the time too,’ said Hugh. I, with a wife’s keenly attuned sensitivity, understood this to mean that Hugh had mentioned something in passing at Croys and meant nothing by it, so was now more than a little surprised to have it followed through. However, from his tone I also divined that he found Alec Osborne agreeable company and did not therefore mind too much.

‘I find myself with time to fill,’ said Alec. ‘I was expecting this week to be the run-up to a wedding, you know.’ Hugh gulped and turned to me beseechingly.

‘Have you seen any of the family since we left Gatehouse?’ I asked, knowing he had and wanting to know more.

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Alec. ‘Lena is still away of course, but I spent the day with Clemence yesterday. She’s bearing up terribly well, and I took three good friends of Cara to visit which I’m sure helped. She seemed very much soothed by them.’

That explained it, I thought. Clemence

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