Scarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy Read Free Book Online Page A

two other boys from this area have a ready-made business to walk into, and you have Joe making girls’ dresses over in London and Tom making cakes and pastries. It would drive you to an early grave.’
    Maura hated it when he got grey with worry. ‘Haven’t I told you to stop getting your blood pressure all het up over him,’ she warned. ‘He’s like all young people, just looking out for himself. Just wait until he has a couple of children, then he’ll be round to the door pretty fast wondering can he work in the business.’
    ‘You may be right,’ JT nodded, but in his heart he didn’t think that he was ever going to see either of his boys ask him to put the words Feather and Son over his builder’s yard.

    Muttie Scarlet woke with a start. Something good had happened last night, and he couldn’t remember what it was. Then it came back. He had drawn a horse in the pub sweepstake. That was all. Most people would be pleased about this. But to Muttie, who was a serious betting man, there was no skill or science in that kind of thing.
    You just bought a ticket for a raffle and then twenty-one people got a horse, you couldn’t even choose your own animal. He had something called Lucky Daughter. No form, nothing known about it, total outsider, probably had three legs. Lizzie didn’t understand it at all. She had been pleased for him, said he’d have all the thrill of the race without having to put a week’s wages on a horse.
    Poor
Lizzie
. It was awful trying to explain anything at all about horses to her. And she was very sure that nothing
she
earned ever ended up at the bookmaker’s. But to be fair, she
did
put the food on the table and didn’t ask him for much from his dole money. Muttie hadn’t known a week’s wages for a long time. He had a bad back. But still and all, it wasn’t too bad to get out of bed and bring
Lizzie
a mug of tea. She’d be going out to people’s houses later to clean, to clear up their New Year’s Eves for them.
Lizzie
was a great support to them all, the children in Chicago and to Cathy. Muttie smiled to himself as he often did over the fast one that their Cathy had done, grabbing Neil the son and heir of Oaklands, Hannah Mitchell’s pride and joy. Even if he hadn’t liked the boy, Muttie would have been overjoyed at that marriage. Just to see the hard, hate-filled face of Hannah at the wedding was vengeance enough for all that she had put poor Lizzie through up in that house. But Neil himself, as it happened, was a grand fellow. You couldn’t meet a nicer lad in a month of Sundays. It was odd the way things turned out, Muttie told himself as he went to make the tea.

    Hannah and Jock Mitchell woke at Oaklands.
    ‘Well,’ said Hannah menacingly. ‘Well, Jock, it’s tomorrow now. You said you’d decide “tomorrow”.’
    ‘God that was a good party.’ Jock groaned.  I feel it not exactly in my bones, more in the front left-side of my head.’
    ‘I’m not surprised,’ Hannah was terse. ‘But there’s no time to talk about your hangover. We are talking about those children. They are not staying another night in this house.’
    ‘Don’t be hasty,’ he pleaded.
    I’m not being hasty. I was very patient when you and Neil said they had to stay last night. I was a saint out of heaven, not breaking every bone in their bodies when I saw the wreckage they had achieved in here. That jacket of Eileen’s will never clean, you know, never. God knows what they managed to smear into it…’
    ‘Best thing if it doesn’t. Makes her look like a vole,’ Jock whimpered.
    ‘You’ve done enough for Kenneth over the years…’
    ‘That’s not the point.’
    It is the point.’
    ‘No, it’s not, Hannah. Where else can they go? They’re my brother’s children. He seems to have abandoned them.’ He winced with pain.
    ‘It’s too much,’ Hannah protested. ‘And they were very rude, both of them, no apology, saying I’d said they could have any room and they had chosen