Amenable Women by Mavis Cheek

Author:Mavis Cheek [Cheek, Mavis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: English, Fiction, Historical, Tudor Period, Royalty
ISBN: 9780571238941
Google: NRYgAQAAIAAJ
Amazon: B00AVEVX3S
Publisher: Faber
Published: 2008-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

The only person who did not know, who must never know, was Hilary. It was a secret to be tucked away much as Flora had tucked away that video. She left Hilary alone for a while in the fear that with all this heightened awareness going on she just might blurt it out; have a touch of the Tourette’s and come out with a stream of bad language and a vivid description of the Pink Pike’s soppy ruffles and floating orange thing. When she was a little more in control and the disappointment of Ewan not so acute, she rang her, rapping her knuckles on the table thrice before picking up the phone, to remind herself to say nothing.

‘You sound muted,’ said Hilary, with only a faint trace of told-you-so. ‘Was Paris disappointing after all?’

Flora did not rise. If the two of them were ever going to fill the void then rising was not helpful. Instead, when Hilary said, ‘I wish I’d come with you,’ Flora said – with some feeling, thinking about Ewan and using the bruising she felt, that she wished Hilary had come, too. ‘Perhaps we’ll have a little holiday together next year,’ said Flora. To which Hilary, programmed, said dourly, ‘Well I can’t afford it. Now.’

‘Ah well,’ said Flora, risking the old parental saw, ‘we’ll see

. . .’ And then rapidly changed the subject. ‘How have you been getting on?’ Hilary gave Flora a short history of her feelings and they talked about Edward for a little while and Hilary had a little cry. Flora decided to grasp the nettle and said, ‘I’m looking forward to getting down to your father’s history. It looks very interesting.’ Hilary made a noise. Flora rushed on. ‘It only needs a tweak or two,’ and crossed her fingers.

‘Hmm’ said Hilary doubtfully. ‘Well, tweaking’s fine but you won’t run away with yourself and do something silly with it now, will you?’ As if Flora was likely to get out her crayons for a good scribble. Still she did not rise. ‘No – just put it in order and finish researching a few things and so forth.’

‘Just collate them sort of thing?’

‘That sort of thing. With a touch of focusing.’ ‘Just a touch?’

‘Oh yes.’ ‘Good for you’.

‘Thank you, Hilary,’ she said, meekly. ‘I shall be Dorothy to his Wordsworth.’

Hilary made another noise that might or might not have been approval, and Flora said she would give her daughter a ring in a few days – perhaps there would be some news from the calligraphy people – and put down the phone. Talk about walking on eggshells but at least the bonding had begun. Do anything silly – indeed – how dare she even think of saying it? On the other hand there was nothing like a bit of anger to stoke the fires of enthusiasm. I’ll show you, my girl, she thought, and I’ll show him, too. It was going to be a two-glass night, Ewan’s Dilly or no Ewan’s Dilly.

Settled, she began looking at the novels so kindly dug out for her by Myra.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.