Mrs. Malory and Any Man's Death by HAZEL HOLT Read Free Book Online Page A

tablecloths on the trestle tables and arrangements of autumn leaves and flowers at intervals along them. A buffet was laid out at one end of the hall with a wonderful display of food and, I was pleased to see, bottles of wine and glasses.
    “Goodness,” Rosemary said, gesturing towards a large ham and a whole salmon with a carapace of thin slices of cucumber, “how very fancy!”
    Rachel, who had been talking to Mary Fletcher, came over to greet us, and I handed her my cake.
    “A modest contribution,” I said, “to what looks like a very elegant feast!”
    “And a little something from me,” Rosemary said, giving her two bottles, “on the principle that you can’t have too much drink on such occasions.”
    “Oh, bless you both. How kind. Now, do come and mingle; most people are here now. I’ll just go and give these to Annie, who, you won’t be surprised to learn, is busily organizing people in the kitchen.”
    “Rosemary and Sheila, how lovely to see you!” Toby Parker was approaching us, both hands outstretched in greeting. His charming smile was a little different from Father William’s, being more personal and less universal—the difference, perhaps, between the temporal and the spiritual. “Ages since I saw you both.” He turned to Rosemary. “How’s Jack? Still number crunching?” To me he said, “And that clever son of yours, Sheila—has he been tempted away to some high-powered legal practice in London? Quite right—London’s a terrible place to be now, so exhausting. I just wish I could live down here always like Diana, sensible girl, and be a country gent and ride to hounds!”
    I noticed that “exhausting” was the word that sprang readily to mind in the representatives of both church and state.
    “It must be horrid,” I said. “Though, if it gets too much for you, you could always retire.”
    He laughed politely. “I might just do that. But I simply couldn’t resist coming down for the Harvest Supper. Such happy memories of it in the old days—quite different now, of course. When I was a boy it was the event of the year—all the workers on the farm and their wives and children, in the big barn; a real knees-up. Well, you can imagine—all that home-brewed cider!”
    “I imagine this will be a more formal affair,” I said.
    “Is Diana coming?” Rosemary asked.
    “Something the matter with one of the horses, but she hopes to be along later.”
    “Are you down here for long?” I asked, not that I particularly wanted to know, but somehow I always found myself making this kind of all-purpose conversation with Toby, probably because I only ever seemed to see his public face, and what else could one say to that?
    “Only for a few days, I’m afraid. There’s a rather important parliamentary committee that I’m sitting on—public transport, very boring—and I have to be back for that, but I do hope to have a little time down here before the House sits again.”
    I could sense, rather than hear, Rosemary give a little sardonic snort at this and I hastened to say, “They do seem to have put on a wonderful spread—all that marvelous food and drink. And I believe Marcus Hardy—you know, he lives at Lark Hill, just outside the village—bought an old cider press last year, so we may even have home-brewed cider!”
    “Ah, but it won’t be like the old stuff. I can remember as a boy sitting with the men in the cider house passing round an enormous jar, and the cider was really rough and had bits of goodness knows what floating around in it and you had to drink it or else you’d lose face!”
    “Telling you about the old days on the farm, is he?” Annie had joined us. She turned to Toby. “Thought you were saving all those stories for when you come to write your memoirs—that’s what you politicians do, isn’t it, when you give up? Make a bit of money selling it to the Sunday papers.”
    He gave her the MP smile, a little uneasily, I thought. “Oh, I’ve got a great deal