Green Harvest (Heron Saga Book 5) by Pamela Oldfield

Author:Pamela Oldfield [Oldfield, Pamela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2015-08-11T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

The Colonel lay in the large high bed and stared round the familiar room. The bedstead was highly polished brass and from the small wooden canopy above him heavy velvet drapes reached to the floor. He looked down at the shape of his own body beneath the sheets and felt frail, almost intangible. ‘I’m fading away’, he thought. ‘Soon I shall be gone and perhaps then Christina will come back and sleep in this bed.’ She had moved out several years ago, ostensibly to give him more room but he was well aware that was not the true reason. There was only one thing to be done and he had done it. He allowed himself a wry smile of satisfaction. Yes, one day she would find out what he had done about it. He was not a malicious man, or so he believed, but her behaviour towards him had been less than charitable and he could not find it in his heart to forgive her. She had taken a lover and had made little effort to conceal the fact from him, seeming to delight in the small hints she dropped from time to time which hurt him more than he would admit.

He sighed, wishing the bedroom faced the sun, but it was on the cool side of the house and by the middle of the afternoon the sunlight had gone and the mahogany furniture looked dark and sombre. He found it depressing. The floor was of polished wood, with rugs scattered over it, and at the end of the bed was a chaise-longue upholstered in rich brocade and heavily fringed. He could only see the top of it but remembered it well, for he had given it to Christina on their tenth wedding anniversary. ‘Oh, Christina, you have not been a good wife. Not a good wife at all.’

There was a mahogany dressing-table against the far wall with a chair in front of it, but Christina never sat there; it was never used. He was bedridden — a stupid, hateful word but terribly apt. His world had shrunk to this one dark bedroom which various vases of flowers did little to brighten. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly but he no longer looked at it, for his eyesight was blurred. It chimed on the hour and that was enough for him.

He wondered why Vinnie had not come and thought wistfully of the young woman with the golden hair. She was almost beautiful and would become a handsome woman. He liked to watch her as she sat by the window reading to him, and sometimes her words were lost as he fancied himself a young man again — a young man with a maid. It all seemed a long time ago. He thought of his own Eva, vivacious and wilful but with a loving heart. Christina must make sure she married well, she deserved only the best. She and Julian would be home tomorrow and he was looking forward to seeing them both again.

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