The Flowering Thorn by Margery Sharp Read Free Book Online Page A

Lesley was thinking. ‘To get rid of him and be free!’ It was what she longed for with her whole soul.…
    â€œSeriously, why not, darling?” asked Elissa again.
    Lesley looked up, for the question started a curious train of thought. If with her whole and sovereign soul, then why not, indeed? What was it that could prevent her? And examining her soul more closely, Lesley at last became aware that the general state of its opinions was by no means what she had been assuming. There was a very definite feeling, it appeared, in favour of holding on: a feeling so powerful and unexpected that she could liken it only to a minor revolution. She thought, ‘If I don’t see this thing out I shall have something rotten inside me for the rest of my life.’ Rotten like an apple—the brown decaying core under the firm red skin.…
    And aloud she said,
    â€œNo good, my dear. The boats are burned. I shall take an attractive little cottage somewhere, not too far from Town, and have people at the week-ends. It might really turn out rather amusing.”
    Elissa regarded her with a contained astonishment. Unlike some other of Lesley’s friends, she had never hesitated to express an absolute belief in the story of Pat’s parentage; but the strain on her faith was growing momentarily heavier. She reached for her bag and took out a powder-box.
    â€œYou’re amazing, my dear,” she said sincerely. “ I couldn’t do it, not even with Yogi. When shall you go?”
    â€œAs soon as I can. Poor Toby’s still in Paris, waiting to come home. And … Elissa.…”
    â€œWhat, darling?”
    â€œDon’t cut me off with a shilling.”
    For the first time in an intimate friendship of six years’ standing emotion touched them. With genuine self-forgetfulness Elissa left her nose unfinished and put out a long, narrow hand.
    â€œDarling! Of course not! We’ll all come down and see you in shoals. I adore the country really, if there’s anything to go for. And I know what I will do, darling—I’ll give you all my old records to take away with you.”
    As well as she could Lesley disguised the bitterness of her answering smile. She had been without her gramophone for the last five years—ever since going to the Beverley, in fact, where the latest electric models were built into soundproof walls; but Elissa’s memory was notoriously bad. And feeling already a little like a charitable institution, Lesley kissed her friend on either cheek and walked uneasily home to Toby’s Yellow House.
    4
    The news that Lesley Frewen was looking for a cottage automatically enriched her acquaintance with more writers and painters than she had ever known before. They brought one another to the Yellow House, they gave studio parties from Hampstead to the King’s Road, they hovered, in short, like bees round a honeysuckle: and in the pocket of each was the five-year lease of a cottage on the Welsh border. Or such at any rate was the impression left on Lesley: who also formed the opinion that painters as a class (even more than writers) were extraordinarily reckless about signing agreements.
    To this point she herself attached the utmost importance; and on a lease of that length would have turned down the Trianon. Accessibility from Town, furniture with the cottage, a monthly tenancy—such were her essential requirements. Next in order ranked indoor sanitation, bathroom and electric light: a telephone she was prepared to put in herself. Only long before the telephone made its appearance, the writer or artist of the moment had always drifted disconsolately back to the bar, leaving Lesley (except for an increasing familiarity with modern art) exactly where she started. After agreeably wasting about three days, therefore, she again sought the counsel of age. Not from Mrs. Bassington, of course, whose counsel had arrived unsolicited, and remained largely unread,