Free The Flight of Swallows by Audrey Howard Page A

relax, but she merely answered politely.
    ‘Oh, no, Mr Armstrong, I wouldn’t dream of altering anything in your home.’
    ‘It is to be your home too, Charlotte,’ he answered roughly.
    ‘No. Oh, yes, I see what you mean but everything seems to be lovely so . . .’ Her voice trailed away as though she were in a dream, a hazy unreality that had nothing to do with Charlotte Drummond. That’s how she felt, as though she were watching some other girl drifting through this beautifully furnished, lavishly carpeted house, looking at pictures hung on plain walls, pictures of the sea and tiny boats and vague outlines of buildings, a galleon on fire reflected in water, the sun rising, or perhaps setting over water, all delicately framed.
    ‘I’m fond of Turner,’ he told her quietly.
    ‘Really, they’re lovely.’
    ‘And that’s Constable, all of them only prints, of course,’ pointing to a picture that seemed to be nothing but clouds with blue and grey and greens and she bent forward to peer at it, the first time she had shown an interest since she had stepped from the carriage.
    ‘Do you like it?’ he asked her.
    ‘I know nothing of art, I’m afraid.’
    It was the same wherever he took her. One lovely room after another, all furnished not in the Victorian style which was heavy and overpowering but in an earlier period she did not recognise but which was light and airy and uncluttered. She followed politely in his wake as though he were a guide in a museum and behind her Kizzie did the same but she was fascinated and thrilled with what she saw and believed that when Miss Charlotte was this man’s wife and herself again she would like it too.
    ‘Have you any preference for a colour scheme or a particular piece of furniture in this room? It will be your bedroom . . .’ and mine too, though he did not say so. ‘It looks out over the garden at the front of the house and has its own bathroom through here . . .’ opening a door that led into a magnificent room which even Charlotte found amazing despite her stupefied state. It was large, square, with two decorative windows set with panes of coloured glass. Beneath one of them was a large white bath on fluted legs, adorned with gleaming brass taps from which water spouted as he demonstrated. There was a holder across it containing scented soap, a loofah, snowy white face-cloths and next to it a white-painted towel rail covered with thick white towels. On another wall stood a white hand-basin, again with soap, this time in the shape of a shell, with brass taps and supported by fluted, decorative sides. Over it hung a large plate-glass mirror with an etched border. The floor and the walls were all done in glossy white tiles painted here and there with blue flowers. The water closet had a plain wooden lid but was itself decorated with the same pale blue flowers and the high-level cistern above it had a china chain-pull.
    The luxury of it took Charlotte’s breath away and she had a fraction of a second of pleasure, for though she did not want to marry this man and be parted from her brothers it seemed there would be some compensation for doing so! During the school holidays her brothers would be able to stay with her, and perhaps, since she was to have a rich husband, they could have horses. She would be able to do so much for them, give them a life they had not had with their father.
    ‘Is it to your liking?’ Mr Armstrong asked her diffidently and she was not to know that he was the least diffident man in the world and that he had the strongest desire to take her by the shoulders and shake her until her glorious hair fell about her. She was tearing his heart from his chest with her neutral acceptance of her surroundings, which he was offering to her with more love than he could ever have imagined himself feeling. It was not that she was inattentive. Her eyes moved from one object to another but never looked at him. She glanced behind her every now and again