Free The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton by Elizabeth Speller, Georgina Capel

interrupted him. ‘We know, we lived through it.’ But Patrick didn’t seem to hear her.
    ‘Silence. Nothing lived, not a bird, not the smallest creature in the undergrowth. Paint peeling off doors and windows. Nobody came to the front door. I remember walking round to the terrace. Last autumn’s dead leaves had blown against the french windows, and the urns by the steps had cracked open and black earth spilled out. The remains of our wonderful wisteria had been ripped away by wind, lying broken across the flags.’
    When he ran out of words, Eleanor said with surprising gentleness, ‘It must have been a shock.’
    Patrick looked at her. ‘Everything was gone, you see. Things I’d dreamed of from a Crete blasted by summer heat. My mother’s rose garden. I especially remember that. The croquet lawn ... I know, I know. I expect you’re thinking: what about old Digby? What about the gallant men of Easton? Here Patrick is, with a melancholy tale of dead flowers and, as Julian would be the first to point out, Patrick would be less horticulturally sensitive if he’d been through what the other Easton men had in the war.’
    ‘Julian has never once even thought that,’ Frances said sharply. ‘You couldn’t fight. That’s all there is to it.’
    But Laurence thought, watching, that that wasn’t all there was to it.
    ‘And, selfishly, how glad we are that you didn’t,’ Lydia added. ‘So that at least you are here today. Part of Easton again.’ After a long pause she said, ‘We did try, you know. Especially at first.’
    ‘We burned the rose arches because we were cold,’ Frances said fiercely.
    Patrick shook himself. ‘I’m sorry, Lydia. I was being abominably ill mannered. It was meant to be a tribute to you. I could never have imagined how hard it had been for everybody at home until I saw Easton. It was my yardstick, all the years I was away.’
    Eleanor seemed about to say something but she bit her lip. Frances stayed silent.
    ‘I really should go and unpack,’ Patrick said, when the silence had dragged on too long.
    ‘Of course,’ Lydia said. ‘We’ve put you in the blue room. Your old room. I hope you’ll find it comfortable.’ Some spirit returned to her eyes as she added, ‘And pleasingly unchanged.’
    Patrick stood up and looked around at the others. ‘I’ll see you all at dinner,’ he said. ‘And, Laurence, I hope you’ll tell me about our church.’
    ‘I’d forgotten how rude Patrick can be, ‘ Frances said when the door was hardly shut. ‘Where was he in the war when we were desperate for help? Not thousands of miles from home, reading “Home Thoughts from Abroad” in Greece. He was just thirty miles away, cataloguing broken pots in Oxford.’

Chapter Five
    Laurence had agreed to meet Patrick the next morning at the church. He went the back way, intending to have some time there alone, and passed a pretty woman sitting at a table in the butler’s pantry, cleaning silver. As he paused in the doorway she started to rise. On seeing that she was very pregnant, he said, ‘No, don’t get up,’ but she was already on her feet.
    ‘Susan Eddings, sir. David’s wife,’ she said, and gave him a smile.
    He went out into the stable yard and crossed to the church. He paused at the carved arch and marvelled. There was such life and mischief in it. Once inside, with the door thudded shut behind him, he felt he was in his own territory. He ran his hand over the stones by the door and found a switch. It was by no means dark but when the light came on, although he could see clearly within its circle of illumination, it seemed to cast the corners into deeper shadow.
    He stood just inside the door, getting the feel of the place. He could mentally remove the accretions of the last half-century and see the simple barn-like stone building this had once been. There were no tombs visible and, more unusually, no wall plaques. He walked towards the altar and lifted up the corner of the linen