The Empty House by Rosamunde Pilcher Read Free Book Online

fallen into the sea. And Tom's got to be at the office at nine in the morning and it really is getting bitterly cold. What do you say? Have you had enough? Have you had fun?"
    "Such fun," said Virginia, reluctant to leave.
    But it was time to go. They walked in silence, away from the firelight and the noise, up the slopes of the fields towards the farmhouse.
    Now, only one light burned from a downstairs window, but a full moon, white as a plate, sailed high in the sky, filling all the night with silver light. As they came over the wall into the farmyard, a door in the house opened, yellow light spilled out over the cobbles, and a voice called out across the darkness. "Tom! Alice! Come and have a cup of tea or coffee—something to warm you up before you go home."
    "Hallo, Eustace." Tom went towards the house. "We thought you'd gone to bed."
    "I'm not staying down on the cliffs till dawn, that's for certain. Would you like a drink?"
    "I'd like a whisky," said Tom.
    "And I'd like tea," said Alice. "What a good idea! We're frozen. Are you sure it's not too much trouble?"
    "My mother's still up, she'd like to see you. She's got the kettle on . . ."
    They all went into the house, into a low-ceilinged, panelled hall, with a flagged slate floor covered with bright rugs. The beams of the roof scarcely cleared the top of Eustace Philips's head.
    Alice was unbuttoning her coat. "Eustace, have you met Virginia? She's staying with us at Wheal House."
    "Yes, of course—we said hallo," but he scarcely looked at her. "Come into the kitchen, it's the warmest place in the house. Mother, here are the Lingards. Alice wants a cup of tea. And Tom wants whisky and . . ." He looked down at Virginia. "What do you want?"
    "I'd like tea."
    Alice and Mrs. Philips at once busied themselves, Mrs. Philips with the teapot and the kettle, and Alice taking cups and saucers down from the shelves of the painted dresser. As they did this they discussed the Barnets's party, laughing about the girl who thought the cow was a bull, and the two men settled themselves at the scrubbed kitchen table with tumblers and a soda siphon and a bottle of Scotch.
    Virginia sat too, wedged into the broad window-set at the head of the table, and listening to, without actually hearing, the pleasant blur of voices. She found that she was very sleepy, dazed by the warmth and comfort of the Penfolda kitchen after the bitter cold of the outdoors, and slightly fuzzy from the unaccustomed draught beer.
    Sunk into the folds of her coat, hands deep in its pockets, she looked about her and decided that never had she been in a room so welcoming, so secure. There were beams in the ceiling, with old iron hooks for smoking hams, and deep window-sills crammed with flowering geraniums. There was a huge stove where the kettle simmered, and a cane chair with a cat curled in its seat, and there was a Grain Merchant's calendar and curtains of checked cotton and the warm smell of baking bread.
    Mrs. Philips was small as her son was large, grey-haired, very neat. She looked as though she had never stopped working from the day she was born and would have it no other way, and as she and Alice moved about the kitchen, deft and quick, gossiping gently about the unconventional Barnets, Virginia watched her and wished that she could have had a mother just like that. Calm and good-humoured with a great comforting kitchen and a kettle always on the boil for a cup of tea.
    The tea made, the two women finally joined the others around the table. Mrs. Philips poured a cup for Virginia and handed it to her, and Virginia sat up, pulling her hands out of her pockets and took it, remembering to say "Thank you."
    Mrs. Philips laughed. "You're sleepy," she said.
    "I know," said Virginia. They were all looking at her, but she stirred her tea and would not look up because she did not want to have to meet that blue and disconcerting gaze.
    But eventually it was time to go. With their coats on again, they stood, crowded in