Good Behaviour by Maggie O'Farrell, Molly Keane Read Free Book Online Page B

Nannie. ‘Oh, there you are Mrs Brock. I’ve just packed those two into their
     beds. Shouldn’t disturb them if I was you. Richard’s settled down nicely now and Sholto too – what an imp that boy is.’ She
     stood with her back to the door until Mrs Brock, again defeated, passed on towards the schoolroom. She felt, rightly, that
     she was betraying Richard. She had not spoken a word to the Captain in defence of
The Children’s Golden Treasury of Verse.
The lie involving
Robinson Crusoe
she could neither defend nor understand. She had not attempted any protest or defence of herself either. The whole affair
     was left in a polite miasma of unspoken suspicions, a net that held her helplessly ignorant and servile. Nothing had been
     stated, so what charge could she answer in this polite world?
    ‘Oh, Mrs Brock—’ Walter fluttered and hovered over her supper tray. ‘It’s not true you’ve –’ he brought it out with difficulty
     – ‘you’re leaving us?’
    ‘Well,’ she said with brittle valour, ‘the best of friends must part, mustn’t they, Walter?’
    ‘But tomorrow—’
    ‘Tomorrow?’
    ‘Yes. Tomorrow – we heard in the hall the Captain had ordered the car for the early train.’
    ‘Yes, yes, of course. I’d forgotten that was the arrangement.My suitcases will be ready for you by nine o’clock, Walter.’ She sat down neatly behind her supper tray: hot soup, a glass
     of wine, a wing of chicken under a silver lid. Strawberries. Walter still hovered.
    ‘Everything all right, Mrs Brock?’
    Oh, if he would only go before he saw her frightened tears. ‘Yes, thank you, Walter. Everything. Absolutely perfect, thank
     you.’
    ‘Thank
you
, Mrs Brock.’
    So neither of them cried. No convention was embarrassed. She would eat her supper, keep up her strength before setting into
     the business of her packing. It would be a struggle to fit in all Lady Grizel’s gifts. She decided to wear the bulkier of
     the Busvine suits; a bit hot perhaps for the time of year, but that other gift, the hat, Tagel straw and roses, would produce
     quite the right summery effect.
    By midnight, all her belongings packed and parcelled up, the anaesthetic busy-ness yielding to the horrid truth of her expulsion,
     she stood and shivered in the tidied emptied schoolroom. Relief from something near to despair and exhaustion came through
     her own practical reservation of the glass of wine from her supper tray – port wine too. Walter must have considered the sad
     occasion merited something more fortifying than the usual glass of hock or Beaujolais.
    Mrs Brock sipped, and gradually warming from her stunned and wounded state to a livelier interest in future possibilities,
     she decided to open the Captain’s envelope and assess her financial situation. Counting bank notes is never less than reviving.
     Captain Massingham and Lady Grizel had been wildly, uncalculatingly generous. But after a recount andanother sip or two of port her appeasement and relief were transposed into a new doubt. Perhaps all this overpayment was only
     compensation for a meagre and demeaning testimonial? She unfolded the thick blue writing paper with its tiny printed heading,
     and she read avidly: she read how kindly, how adorably kindly, they thought of her … patient and understanding … interested
     in racing … a strong swimmer … musical … tactful … highly recommend … leaving us as our sons go to their preparatory school.
    Mrs Brock lifted her bowed head and looked radiantly about her. She was back in those days when her schoolroom, besides being
     a seat of happy and simple learning, had been (warm in its own mystique) a refuge and sorting house for lost and treasured
     objects, as well as a bureau of inspired racing information. That was before her study of the wretched form book and her reliance
     on misinformed correspondents had upset her daemon. Unforgettable happy female hours had passed here, while exquisite knitting
     flew