An Almond for a Parrot: the gripping and decadent historical page turner. Wray Delaney

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ are true.’

      Hope told me to leave her alone so to pass the time I set about making a pack of cards with the letters of the alphabet on them. Shadow, a wig on legs, trotted into the drawing room, sniffed each card then looked up at me as if waiting for a question.

      Kneeling down, I asked, ‘When will Hope be married?’

      Placing a paw on each card he spelled out ‘SIX YEARS’.

      Impossible, I thought. Perhaps my question was too difficult. I tried another. ‘Will Mrs Sitton ever give her consent?’

      The little dog spelled out ‘NO’.

      I was about to ask another question when I heard someone behind me and Mrs Truegood said, ‘Tully, what are you doing?’

      I turned round to see my stepmother looking perplexed.

      ‘I wanted to see how clever Shadow is,’ I said standing up. ‘But his answers are puzzling.’

      Just then, Mr Crease came in and Shadow went straight to him, wagging his tail. Mrs Truegood let out a small scream.

      Her voice no more than a whisper, she said, ‘Crease, what trickery is this? Stop it this instant.’

      ‘I can assure you, madam,’ he said, ‘this is not my doing. I thought I was the only one able to see Shadow. But Tully has a gift. She saw him when she was but a child and again at the wedding breakfast. Even I can’t do what she can. She has the power to make him visible to others.’

      I didn’t understand and I understood less as Mrs Truegood backed towards the door.

      ‘Crease, stop this,’ she said again with more urgency. ‘Whatever conjuring tricks you may have developed, sir, you should not be meddling in the black arts.’

      ‘Madam, do you want me to ask him a question?’ I asked for surely they were making jest of me.

      ‘No!’ She paused and stared at me as if I was a stranger, then said, ‘Yes.’

      ‘When will Mrs Sitton agree to the marriage?’ I asked.

      Shadow spelled out ‘NEVER’.

      Mrs Truegood put her hand over her mouth. ‘Where is Mr Sitton?’ she said slowly to the dog.

      ‘AT SEA,’ he spelled out.

      The door opened, Hope entered and saw Shadow. She let out a most terrible scream and the little dog hid under a chair, while Mr Crease picked up my cards and handed them back to me.

      ‘Go to your chamber, Tully,’ said Mrs Truegood. ‘Stay there until I call for you.’

      She ushered me from the room. I felt wretched for I hadn’t meant to displease her in any way. Whatever I had done, I knew it was serious. That night, Mercy did not come into our bed and I felt I was being punished. Prue brought me a tisane, I drank it, and the bedroom door, for the first time, was locked.

      I woke the following morning with a throbbing head and knew even before I was fully conscious that something was wrong. The house had a quietness to it, the bricks holding themselves tight together, bracing for the storm within and the rain without.

      I went to dress, only to find that all my fine clothes had vanished right down to the last stocking and pin. All that was left was the rag of a dress I had been wearing when Mrs Truegood first came to the house. All calmness left me. I tried to open the door but found it still locked.

      It was noon by St Mary-le-Bow on Cheapside when Cook opened the bedchamber door. The silence was broken by my father bellowing at the top of his voice in the way he had before matrimony had tamed him.

      ‘Cook! More wine, woman!’ he shouted. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

      ‘Where’s Mercy? Where is everyone?’ I all but screamed.

      ‘Gone,’ was all she would say. ‘Gone.’

Chapter Ten

       Tarts, The Common, or Country Fashion

       Take a fresh cream cheese, made the preceding day, or only made five or six hours before; mix a bit of butter and a few eggs with a little salt; make the paste pretty thick, and the top the same; bake it without glazing the top crust or border.

      I could not make head or tail of what had happened and why my stepmother and stepsisters had vanished. Surely Mercy wouldn’t have left me behind?

      Only three of Mrs Truegood’s servants remained and I begged them to tell me where she had gone, but they ignored my pleas. I asked for my clothes back but one of the footmen said my things had not been touched.

      ‘Then where are they?’ I asked and to that there came no answer.

      They gathered together all that belonged to their mistress and departed, taking the yellow canaries too. I decided I would follow them but my father took the precaution of locking all the doors after they’d left.

      ‘Don’t think that you have any sympathy from me,’ he bellowed. ‘You have brought this on yourself.’

      ‘How? Please tell me how?’ I said, but he would not.

      Perhaps, I thought, Mrs Truegood had spied on Mercy and me and been so horrified by what she had seen that she had taken her daughters away.

      I hoped that Cook might have some inkling as to what had passed but she seemed to know nothing.

      ‘And my clothes are gone,’ I said.

      ‘The master had me sell them this morning,’ she said. ‘All hope is gone.’

      ‘And Mercy, too,’ said I.

      ‘Butter and salt,’ she said. ‘Butter and salt.’

      ‘What does that mean? You always say it and it means nothing.’

      ‘Butter and salt in the right proportion means a good life. Too much salt and all is ruined.’

      Like so much of what Cook said, this only possessed a pepper grain of sense and brought little comfort.

      Until Mrs Truegood had arrived, my life had been filled with nothing more than half-formed dreams, but never had I felt as desolate as I did then. The memory of the handsome stranger was now but a patch of blue sky vanishing among thunderous clouds. And the thought that I would never see Mercy again near broke my heart.

      It was not long before the house went to rack and my father to ruin. Cook fell back upon her grubby apron and untidy ways. Even the spit-roast dog had vanished along with all the other conveniences and Cook whiled away the hours turning the spit, roasting and burning the meat in equal measure. Thirsty work, she said, that was only eased by gin.

      Many times I thought of running away but my father took to being my jailer with more vigour СКАЧАТЬ