Free Green Darkness by Anya Seton

this one’s a blasted nuisance. Name of Napoleon, or so the gardener said when we had to get help to stop the bird’s pecking at his reflection on the car door. Conceited, aggressive bird, like all males.”
    She gave Harry a sideways look. He responded with an amorous chuckle and ran his finger slowly down her bare arm.
    “I’ll snap Napoleon for you,” offered Igor to Sue, “but those iridescent blues and greens have been done to death. Too blatant. Still, they might suit
you,
Duchess. Shall I try them in a cocktail frock?”
    Myra shrugged. “Thanks, dear Igor, but I don’t pay two hundred guineas for any cocktail frock, blatant or not, save your genius for the film stars.” She had almost added, “the Americans,” but even Myra’s egotism was penetrated by something odd about Mrs. Taylor and her daughter—their total silence, and on Celia’s small face a strained haunted look. Myra received a singular impression—a memory of one of the crofters’ wives on her father’s estate in Cumberland, a woman Myra’s mother always referred to as “tragic,” though Myra had never known why. Anyway, the woman had drowned herself in the River Irthing, and the ten-year-old Myra had heard snatches of the adults’ pity and horror. Myra disliked uncomfortable memories and dealt with this one briskly.
    “The pubs must be open by now!” she said. “Let’s go and get fortified for the journey back to Medfield!”
    They grouped themselves as before in the two cars and drove to the nearby village of Ivy Hatch.
    By seven o’clock they arrived at Medfield Place. Richard came out of the house to greet them. “Enjoy yourselves?” he asked cordially. He was already dressed for the evening, and looked very handsome.
    Myra instantly forgot Harry and gave Richard her lazy smile. “We missed you, darling,” she drawled. “I hope you built a
divine
pigsty!”
    “Quite,” he agreed. “A sanctuary for super-sows. Celia, you seem a bit fagged, but I’m afraid the Bent-Warners’ll be here shortly.”
    “Oh, yes,” she answered after a minute. “I’ll go and change.” The Bent-Warners? Who were the Bent-Warners? But, one must please Richard. There was danger in displeasing Richard.
    Celia turned and mounted the steps into the house, treading very carefully as though uncertain of her balance.
    Richard watched her, frowning; when they entered the house he drew Lily into his study. “Anything wrong with Celia?” he asked. “She acts very strange.”
    Lily hesitated. “I don’t think so. Not really. She had a kind of fainting spell at Ightham Mote . . . but Dr. Akananda says she’s all right. I thought maybe it was . . .” She stopped, a flush sprang up on the plump, slightly rouged cheeks.
    Richard’s gaze hardened. His eyebrows drew together. “You thought it was pregnancy? I assure you it’s not. Nor do I consider that Hindu an adequate medical opinion. If she’s not better when I go up, I’ll get old Foster from Lewes.”
    “That’s a good idea,” Lily murmured, dismayed by his tone, and also by his leaving her so abruptly, standing on the study’s faded oriental rug. He acts that way because he loves her, Lily thought, and men can never bear illness. It was stupid to be hurt, or to magnify a fainting spell, stupid to catch some of the confused fear she now felt in her daughter. Lily shut her eyes and strove to clear her thinking. In her many religious questings she had once come across Sir Thomas Browne, and might have summed up her faith by one of his aphorisms, “Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us.” She stood now, trying to
feel
the interior sunlight, the glowing comfort which had never before really failed her—but it did now. And being a woman of action, she mounted the great oaken stairway and knocked on Akananda’s door.
    He opened the door instantly and said without surprise, “Oh, Mrs. Taylor. Come in.” He was wearing a white silk dressing gown, and his