Ellis Peters - George Felse 03 - Flight Of A Witch Read Free Page B

generation cuts them off from their roots, they have grandparents for parents. These were not even young grandparents at heart, but dim, discouraged and old. Sometimes gleams of wistful scholarship showed in Beck, and brought a momentary eagerness back to his face. Mrs Beck kept up with village society, and dressed like a county gentlewoman, but for God’s sake, what good was that when county gentlewomen were themselves a generation out of date, living anachronisms, museum pieces even here, where the past, the genuine past, was as real and valid as tomorrow?
    At first he had thought, with his usual healthy confidence in his own charms, that he would bring a breath of fresh air into Annet’s enclosed life, and provide her with the young company she needed. But in a week or two he had found that she was, in fact, almost never in, and appeared to have gallingly little need of him. She had a job that took her away during the day; she acted as secretary to Mrs Blacklock at Cwm Hall, a privilege which gave great satisfaction to her mother, if she herself accepted it without noticeable emotion. The lady needed a secretary, for she ran, it seemed to Tom, everything in sight, every local society, every committee, every charity, every social event. Nothing could take place in and around Comerford without Regina’s blessing. Her patronage of Annet, therefore, was balm to Mrs Beck’s heart. Annet, as Tom heard from various sources – but never from Annet! – would have liked to uproot herself from this backwater and go and get a job in London, but the Becks were terrified to let her, and stubbornly refused to consent. Maybe because they knew they were hopelessly out of touch with her, and were afraid to let her out of their sight; maybe because she was their ewe Iamb, and they couldn’t bear to part with her. She was safe with Mrs Blacklock. Regina was inordinately careful and kind. Regina never let her come home alone if she was at all late, but sent her in the car. Regina wouldn’t let her strike up any undesirable acquaintances, Regina saw to it that she knew everyone who was presentable and of good repute.
    For God’s sake, thought Tom impotently, she was eighteen, wasn’t she? And intelligent and capable, or the Blacklocks wouldn’t have kept her. And did she behave as if she needed a chaperone?
    She lived a busy enough life. Choir practice on Friday nights, dances in Comerbourne on Saturdays, or cinemas, and Myra Gibbons from Wastfield usually went with her. Their escorts to dances were vetted carefully; Mrs Beck had old-fashioned notions. But the sorry fact remained that Annet had no need of Tom Kenyon. There wasn’t a young man in Comerford who hadn’t at some time paid tentative court to her. There wasn’t a young man in Comerford who had got further with her than he found himself getting.
    Remote, alien and beautiful, Annet floated upon the tide of events, submitted to parental control without comment or protest, and kept her own secrets. He didn’t know her at all; he never would.
    The rest revolved about her. They had made him welcome, adopted him readily into their activities, found him a part to play; more than she ever had. Yet he saw them only by her light, at least those nearest to her: the Blacklocks, the vicar with his hearty voice and his uncertain, deprecating eyes, the Gibbons family, all the population of Fairford. Lucky for him that some of the denizens of his Sixth lived in Comerford, and their parents opened their doors to him readily: Miles Mallindine’s young, modern parents, Dominic Felse’s policeman father and pretty, shrewd, amusing mother. Policeman was the wrong term, strictly speaking; George Felse was a Detective-Inspector in the Midshire CID, recently promoted from Detective-Sergeant. The progeny of these pleasant couples tolerated him and kept their lordly distance, behaving with princely punctilio if they were left to entertain him; the parents welcomed him and never worried him.