The Haunt Read Online Free Page B

so quickly that he had wondered if she actually ever had any. They had come back later.
    In the first days of their marriage there was nothing she would not do for him, nothing of herself – her body and her emotions – which she would not show for him. In all innocence. If there was any sin in their passion it was only what other people would see in it. Life together had been as close to life in Eden as they were ever likely to get. Once, much later, he was unwise and unhappy enough to ask her if it had been as idyllic for her. He wanted to hear her say so, to admit there had been that wonderful time. But she had said, ‘We were such babies,’ and emptied Eden out with the bathwater.
    He propped the portrait ( Nina complaisant was how he thought of it) against the wheel of the cart, turning it to confront the fibreglass urns and the horse-trough. Crawford, coming across the yard, averted his eyes.
    ‘What happened to the Sabines?’ asked Charlie.
    ‘What?’
    ‘The statues that were here.’
    ‘They weren’t Sabines. It was a bacchanalia. She got rid of them.’
    ‘Where is she, actually?’
    ‘Westminster, lobbying an MP.’
    ‘What about?’
    ‘Extinction. She wants it stopped.’
    Charlie laughed, Crawford glowered. He thrust a piece of paper at Charlie: it was a cheque for thirty guineas. He picked up the portrait and stared into it.
    ‘Where will you hang it?’
    ‘I shall burn it.’
    ‘You can’t do that!’
    ‘I can, I’ve paid for it, it’s mine to do as I like with.’ Crawford’s jowls trembled. ‘I shall like to burn it.’
    *
    Mildred Gascoigne had brought her folding chair to an unfrequented part of the hotel garden to watch the graceful passage of white sails across the bay. But her eyes had grown heavy; she was seeing only a crow stooping about in the mud. The crow turned over the mud like a connoisseur. There was rather a smell which Mildred attributed to weed festooning the keels of some beached boats. A bitter taste in her mouth indicated that she was out of sorts. She had not come here to go through it all again, she had come for her health – a change, a rest – not anticipating the gaiety and care-freedom most people sought in a holiday. She folded her chair and made her way back to the hotel.
    A girl was on the terrace, edging between the wrought-iron tables and the sunbrellas. She came to the top of the steps and looked down at Mildred. Mildred said, ‘Can I help you?’
    The girl’s appearance was unprepossessing, not to say slovenly. It implied, Mildred thought, sovereign disregard of anyone else’s opinion, but of course nowadays it was a cult with young people to make the worst of themselves.
    The girl spoke without preamble. ‘Who was that I just saw in a wheelchair?’
    ‘There is a disabled gentleman staying here,’ Mildred said guardedly.
    ‘Name of Piper?’
    ‘Indeed no!’ When Mildred had asked, in the nicest possible way, who her fellow guests were, and seen his signature in the hotel register – ‘Maurice Piper’ – that fine calligraphic script, she had experienced a shock of pure joy. She said, ‘Do you know him?’
    The girl shook her head. ‘But he’s here? Piper, I mean?’
    ‘You must ask Mrs Clapham. She is the proprietress.’
    ‘Who are those two wheeling the old boy?’
    Mildred said sharply, ‘I understand Mr Eashing is an antiquarian. Two of the guests have volunteered to take him for a walk.’
    ‘Are there any rooms vacant?’
    ‘I’m not privy to the functioning of the hotel.’ Mildred turned away. ‘Enquire at reception.’
    *
    She put on her floral silk to go down to dinner. It was suitable for a minor social occasion, and the pre-prandial display here was not exactly dazzling. This was no five-star hotel. The brochure described it as ‘for connoisseurs of peace and plenty, set in secluded grounds with private foreshore, in the reaches of the River Fal, overlooking the beauty of the creeks. A warm welcome and the finest