Free I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows by Alan Bradley Page A

with a kiss-my-nelly look on my face. I’d show her a thing or two about acting!
    My eyes must have bugged out of their sockets. Dressed in the green silks she had worn when she played the part of Becky Sharp in the Dramatic Society’s production of
Vanity Fair
, Feely was standing in front of a small round table, putting down a letter, picking it up, and putting it down again.
    She would do this most delicately, then with a jerk of hesitation—and then with a sudden thrust, as if she couldn’t stand the sight of the thing. She was rehearsing her appearance—or at least the appearance of one of her hands—in
Cry of the Raven
.
    “I was chatting with Phyllis,” I said casually, stretching the facts a little. “She and Desmond Duncan are doing a scene from
Romeo and Juliet
on Saturday night, here in the foyer. For charity.”
    “No one will come,” Daffy said sourly. “In the first place, it’s too close to Christmas. In the second, it’s too short notice. In the third, in case they haven’t thought of it, no one’s going anywhere in this weather without snow-shoes and a Saint Bernard.”
    “Bet you’re wrong,” I said. “I’ll bet you sixpence the whole village turns out.”
    “Done!” Daffy said, spitting on her palm and shaking my hand.
    It was the first physical contact I’d had with my sister since the day, months before, that she and Feely had trussed me up and dragged me into the cellars for a candlelight inquisition.
    I shrugged and walked to the door. A quick glance before leaving showed me that the hand of Becky Sharp was still mechanically picking up and putting down the letter like a clockwork wraith.
    Although there was something pathetic about her actions, I couldn’t, for the life of me, think what it was.
    Halfway along the corridor, I became aware of angry voices in the foyer. Naturally, I stopped to listen. I am both blessed and cursed with Harriet’s acute sense of hearing: an almost supernatural sensitivity to sound for which I have sometimes given thanks and sometimes despaired, never knowing until later which it was to be.
    I recognized at once that the voices were those of Val Lampman and Phyllis Wyvern.
    “I don’t give a tinker’s damn what you’ve promised,” he was saying. “You’ll simply have to tell them that it’s off.”
    “And look like a bloody fool? Think about it, Val. What’s it going to cost?—a couple of hours at a time of day when we’re not working anyway. I’m doing it on my own time, and so is Desmond.”
    “That isn’t the point. We’re already behind schedule and things are only going to get worse. Patrick … Bun … and we’ve only been here a day. I simply don’t have the resources to keep shoving shipping crates around so that you can do your Faerie Queene impression.”
    “You heartless brute,” she said. Her voice was cold as ice.
    Val Lampman laughed.
    “
The Glass Heart
. Page ninety-three, if I’m not mistaken. You never forget a line, do you, old girl?”
    Incredibly, she laughed.
    “Come on, Val, be a sport. Show them you’ve got more in your heart than meat.”
    “Sorry, old love,” he said. “No can do this time.”
    There was a silence, and I wished I could see their faces, but I couldn’t move without giving away my presence.
    “Supposing,” Phyllis Wyvern said in little more than a whisper, “that I told Desmond about that interesting adventure of yours in Buckinghamshire?”
    “You wouldn’t dare!” he hissed. “Come off it, Phyllis—you wouldn’t
dare
!”
    “Would I not?”
    I could tell that she’d got on her high horse again.
    “Damn you,” he said. “Damn you and damn you and damn you!”
    There was another silence—even longer this time, and then Val Lampman suddenly said:
    “All right, then. You shall have your little show. It won’t make much difference to my plans.”
    “Thank you, Val. I knew you’d come round to my way of thinking. You always do. Now shall we go upstairs and join