The Storms of War by Kate Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

started from her chair and stood frozen against the wall. And then Thompson stepped forward and was trying to prise Michael’s hands away when Sir Hugh sprang up and grasped Thompson’s hair. ‘You’re nothing but a servant!’ he was shouting. ‘How dare you touch me?’ Smithson leapt forward. Thompson turned.
    No one could agree what happened next. Emmeline and Verena thought Thompson was about to punch Sir Hugh; Celia and Rudolf thought he put up his hand to defend himself. They were saved a fight: Jonathan ran around the table, threw Thompson aside and managed to get his arms around Sir Hugh.
    ‘This has got to stop!’ he said.
    Sir Hugh looked at them all, his hair across his forehead, his face red and angry. ‘I am at a loss why I ever came here.’ He coughed for breath, holding his chest. ‘You are below my observation.’ He looked over at Emmeline, who was still standing against the wall. ‘I am most sorry for you, Miss de Witt. You seem like a pleasant young lady, caught in a disgraceful family. I wish you goodbye. The rest of you are no better than animals.’
    He turned and left the room. Smithson hurried after him
    Emmeline looked around the table and burst into tears. She swept her hand out and her jelly glass fell to the floor. ‘What have you done?’ She ran around them and out of the door. Rudolf started up.
    ‘Leave her,’ said Verena. ‘Leave her to weep. Sir Hugh will return. It is just a little disagreement.’
    Rudolf looked over at Jonathan. ‘I apologise, Mr Corrigan.’
    Jonathan shook his head, still standing over by Thompson. ‘Nothing to apologise for.’
    Verena sat up very straight. ‘Thompson, I suggest you depart this instant.’ He nodded and turned to leave the room, dragging his leg so painfully that Celia could not watch.
    Rudolf dropped his head into his hands.
    ‘I’m going to bed,’ said Celia. She left the table without asking and strode past them all, trying to walk tall when she wanted to sink into the floor. She could not bear to stay in the house a single moment longer. She crept down the corridor and out of the back door by the servants’ quarters. Emmeline’s voice echoed behind her. She hurried out into the garden.
    The air was cool on her face and arms. She sat for a while, just letting it drift over her. The same air that they would have breathed a hundred, two hundred years ago. The trees were sweeping the water of the pond, gently. There was no other noise. She began to walk towards her spot under the willow.
    Behind her, the lights of Stoneythorpe Hall glittered through the darkness. Her parents would be moving about inside, talking over the evening as her mother poured her father a glass of brandy. Rudolf would be saying that it would come to nothing, as he always did. She walked on.
    The garden looked like a different thing at night, cool and angry, the magnolias and roses showing spots of colour through the gloom, the grass shimmering with rain. There was something magical about it. By day, it was a neatly trimmed piece of grass, edged with her mother’s prize flowers – hydrangeas, rhododendrons, camellias. At night, it erupted into disorder. The flowers grew greater and stranger, the trees bent and strained towards the moon, the shot light of the stars picked out cruel veins of colour on the petals. If you stayed there too long, Celia imagined, it would capture you and turn you into something. At night, the rockery where she sat sedately watching Michael play cricket became a stage where goblins might dance when no one was looking. The fairies hid from her, peeking through the trees, their eyes sparkling like beads. The flowers bent to stare at her, the roses clattered up to the sun and laughed. The insects crawled out from under their stones and grew large. She crept around, quietly.Even though she knew she was too old, she hoped to catch an unsuspecting fairy. If she caught one, it would grant her wish. For things never to change.
    ‘Well,