Two for Sorrow Read Online Free Page B

something came up unexpectedly.’ Celia hurried over to the window, looking apologetic, and Josephine stood to greet her.
    â€˜It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Please don’t worry. We can do this another time if you’re too busy.’
    â€˜No, no—it’s nice to see you. And quite frankly I’m desperate to snatch half an hour away from committees and fund-raising and politics, so you’re actually doing me a favour.’ Shegestured to Josephine to sit down, and took the chair opposite. ‘You know about the charity gala next week? Of course you do—you’re friends with Ronnie and Lettice Motley, aren’t you? They’re making such a lovely job of the clothes. But Amy Coward seems to think I’ve got nothing else to do except plan for it and, as she’s the only reason we’re getting Noël for the evening, I have to be so careful not to disillusion her.’
    Josephine laughed. ‘You must have inherited a lot of that sort of work after Lady Cowdray’s death. I can’t imagine that this is an easy place to run—not smoothly, anyway.’
    Celia gave her a wry smile. ‘Is it that obvious?’
    â€˜Not at all. But with so many successful women in one place, it stands to reason that egos will clash sooner or later.’
    â€˜If it were just about personality, that would be fine, but it’s a little more serious than that—it goes back to the very principles that the club and the college were founded on. Have you seen today’s Times ?’ Josephine shook her head. ‘The letters page is full of complaints from nurses about money being raised in their name and used to fund facilities for people who have never been near the sick in their lives. None of them mentions the club by name, but we all know what they mean.’
    â€˜Surely it works both ways—don’t the subscription fees help to support the College of Nursing?’
    â€˜Of course they do, but the purists choose to forget that. If we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves split right down the middle—and I don’t know how the club or the college will survive if that happens.’
    Having joined with a foot in the nursing camp but since abandoned that for another career, Josephine found it all too easy to see both sides of the argument. ‘Where do you stand?’she asked, nodding to Geraldine as she sat down at the next table and trying to ignore her grin.
    Celia sighed. ‘Oh, I’m all for mixing things up a bit. Lady Cowdray always said that women get far too narrow-minded if they don’t spend at least some of their leisure hours with people from other professions, and I’m inclined to agree with her. Anyway, I feel obliged to fight for her original vision, but I fear that it’s not going to be easy. And to cap it all—this is just between you and me, you understand—we’ve got an outbreak of petty theft on our hands. A couple of members have reported things going missing. Nothing very valuable—a scarf here, a bit of loose change there—but distressing, nonetheless, and I’ve had to involve the police. Discreetly, of course. Ah—here’s Tilly with our drinks.’ Josephine looked round and saw a young waitress carrying two large gins over on a tray. ‘I took the liberty of having these brought up for us. If you want me to relive the story of the Finchley Baby Farmers, I’ll need some Dutch courage, and I refuse to drink on my own.’ She glanced at the papers on the card table. ‘Is that what you’d like me to look at?’
    Josephine nodded and pushed the typescript over to Celia, marvelling at how easy it was to slip back into the old teacher-pupil relationship. She looked on as the older woman read slowly through the pages, and thought back to the first time she had ever heard the names Amelia Sach and Annie Walters. It was during the summer of her final