Lettice & Victoria

Lettice & Victoria by Susanna Johnston Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: Lettice & Victoria by Susanna Johnston Read Free Book Online
Authors: Susanna Johnston
with a sensitive young lady.
    Lettice’s dog, a spaniel called Orpheus, slouched by a card table and Archie, a self-confessed and public loather of caninity in any form declared, not for the first time, ‘As you know, I consider Orpheus to be almost as good as no dog at all. Almost, but not quite.’
    With that he went upstairs and didn’t come down until dinnertime when Lettice gave him a loud ‘cooee’.

Chapter 2
    T hey ate dinner in the rustic kitchen – all that remained of an ancient bake-house, adorned with ornamental gourds and specimen thistles.
    ‘Archie, you have got to encourage Roland. He’s got nerves about the exhibition. He even tells me that he won’t have enough work finished in time. Have a little more
poison maison
.’
    Archie had drained his glass and held it up in a manicured hand.
    ‘Put it off. Put it off. Never work to a deadline. It destroys everything worth striving for. Your work is brilliant because of its precision, not because of dash and frenzy. Put it off.’
    Harold looked down. Lettice had appealed to Archie and he had knowingly escaped her.
    There had been deliberate cruelty in his advice and he went on in the same vein, speaking to Roland.
    ‘What possible point can there be in your having a London exhibition? It has never come to my ears that you havedifficulty selling your work. I only say this because I recognise your talent.’
    Harold drew up his gangling legs and lodged his feet on the rung of a bentwood chair. He didn’t understand why Archie was talking so wildly and upsetting Lettice, when he had been offered so little of the horrible wine. He realised that Archie found Roland and Lettice depressing since he was always contentious before going there and often silent on the way home.
    Harold stayed there because of his involvement with Archie and wondered if he had ever known how Archie had become established as a regular guest – or even if Archie knew himself. He decided to ask him  when they were in Wales.
    Lettice gave news of her other children.
    Bobby and Bobby had a daughter, also called Bobby. They were living in an artistic community somewhere in France. Lettice said that she thought the extended family was probably the best solution for nowadays.
    Archie exploded. ‘Commune! How can you allow it? Do you really mean to tell me that your son and daughter-in-law have joined a group personified by types with straggling locks, bushy beards and bare feet? Do they believe that they stand for the primitive man and the early Christian – Robinson Crusoe and Jesus Christ – the noble savage, wild men of the woods and the prophet whose kingdom is not of this world? Really Lettice. I’m ashamed of you both.’ His words were pistol shots blasting sacred air. Lettice, straining to smile, cried, ‘Archie. I’ve always maintained that you were an
enfant terrible
.’
    Harold thought about it at length before he went to sleep.
    In the morning, Archie was strutting round Harold’s bedroom .
    ‘Do you think that Victoria is being deliberately suppressed?’
    Black spirals of hair fell over Harold’s thin face. Brushing them back with a bony hand, he considered the question.
    ‘No. Oh no. I’m sure not. What an idea. Why should they? She sounds rather wonderful.’
    ‘Voices came from their room just now. I simply wondered. But no. Of course. You are right. It was perfectly frightful of me.’
    Harold was alert. ‘Archie. Don’t be bad. It makes me desperate.’
    At breakfast they were pressed to honey from the comb, as Lettice, got up to the nines for church, told them, ‘Victoria is a little better. I have tried to persuade her to stay in bed but she insists on coming down for luncheon. Do remember, both of you, not to expect to see her at her best. If she talks too much it’s just shyness and if she doesn’t talk at all then it’s shyness, too. Please be kind.’
    Everybody went to church except Harold who wanted to walk in the woods and Victoria who had

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