Free The Care and Management of Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

know.”

Chapter 4
    It has been said that the essence of all good breeding is tact. A tactful woman is essentially a woman who knows how to adapt herself to varying circumstances, who has that keen perception which enables her to see and do what is best upon occasions when discrimination between the wrong and right methods of action is necessary.
    — THE WOMAN’S BOOK
    K ezia lay awake, uncomfortable, tossing and turning in the armchair. Despite her exhaustion, sleep did not come easily. She felt tormented, as if her thoughts were conspiring with the coiled springs of upholstery. She felt prodded and poked in body, mind, and soul. The crowds at Buckingham Palace had overwhelmed her; she had put her arm through Thea’s as her friend shouldered her way into the mass. She saw a man with his wife and sons, a length of string joining them lest they became separated among the surrounding bodies pressing together. This was not many people, this was one, a massive being buoyed on by the promise of a fight. The boys’ capped heads reached their mother’s narrow shoulders, with the youngest—perhaps an inch shorter than his brother—tiptoeing to see over the heads of men. There was yelling and shouting, a sound that from a distance was like the wheeze of a kettle left on the stove at night. But as they’d drawn closer, the crescendo seemed to reach down into the ground, only to ricochet up through Kezia’s body. She’d felt assaulted; if this were civilization, what had happened to civility? And now, as the grainy light of morning fingered the curtains, the noise was growing again, with newspaper vendors calling out once more, baying like wolves in the night. It was later, when she bought two newspapers at Charing Cross Station, that she wondered if she’d been caught up in a play, a school pantomime. The front pages of both papers said little of the still-new declaration of war. There were small columns of advertisements and square private announcements to temper the grand pronouncements of patriotism; that the nation would be filled with fresh courage in the face of a fight.
    But for now she waited, wondering when Thea might wake, so that they could have tea together before she departed for Kent and the farm. If she could, she would have left earlier, would have crept around the room gathering her things. She would have penned a quick note, words chosen with care to pour oil on the troubled waters of their friendship. Perhaps she had not understood Thea. Perhaps she could have been more accommodating, more . . . what? While they were moving through the crowds, Thea had searched among the faces, on occasion jumping up to gain a better view. It was in front of the palace gates that she had found what she was looking for—a gathering of pacifists shouting their message. Thea stepped forward, nodded to her friends—Kezia could tell at once that they were all known to each other—and took a banner from a woman struggling to grasp a megaphone at the same time. Having relinquished the additional burden, she began to shout her message.
    Peace is the only worthy fight!
    Be a soldier of peace, now!
    March into the battle for peace!
    Kezia had never seen Thea so filled with passion, her eyes alive in the madness of the moment, calling out her message, raising her fist as if to fight. Kezia wanted to pull her back, wanted to feel the muscle of her arm through her jacket, wanted to drag her away, out of the crowd. She wanted peace and quiet. She wanted to be back in her father’s study with only the grandfather clock’s tick-tock, tick-tock punctuating their conversation. She wanted to hear his smooth voice, never raised to counter a point; softened, even, when he felt she was wrong. She wanted to hear the farm, the cows coming in for the milking, a deep lowing as they moved at a deliberate pace, full udders swinging from side to side. Kezia wanted to know the dinner was in the oven, and that Tom would be home soon. She was