Read Online A Country Marriage by Sandra Jane Goddard - Free Book Online Page A

– had finally and actually come about.
    They were nearing the ford now, it being the point at which the steep, moss-covered slopes of the farmhouse roof – wedged securely at either end between substantial chimneys, their scalloped pots posing at precarious angles – disappeared momentarily among the treetops. A few steps further on, though, when they turned from the lane onto the track, gaps in the beech hedge started to afford tantalising glimpses. There were pale, creamy-grey elevations; a flat, shallow porch overshadowed by the dense foliage of a damask rose that appeared to be in competition with a tangle of ivy to be first to the eaves; a pair of stone-mullioned windows either side of the front door, their tiny diamonds of glass offering disjointed reflections of the rampant garden, while on the floor above, three sets of casements acted as heavenly mirrors to the white-mottled blue of the sky. Certainly there was nothing like it in Nettley Wood.
    ‘Don’t nobody ever use the front door?’ It was only as the question left her lips that she thought to consider the politeness of asking such a thing.
    ‘Not that I know of.’
    ‘Seems a shame, that,’ she nevertheless felt it safe to add, plodding along beside him. ‘ʼTis a real lovely house, though.’
    ‘Handsome enough the first time you see it I suppose, although legend has it that it was built from ill-gotten gains.’
    ‘Oh?’ This was an interesting discovery: skeletons in the wardrobe at Summerleas Farm? And since it was he who had sown the seed, then surely it wouldn’t be beyond the pale to enquire further. ‘How’s that then?’
    ‘Well, the tale as told to me has it that when the dilapidations of the first house were beyond repair, the Strongs of the time were keen to replace it with summat… a little grander… so they went and helped themselves to the ruins of Marcombe Abbey, which supposedly accounts for why all these blocks of stone are different sizes.’
    Skeletons indeed. Or was he teasing her? A glance to his face told her nothing.
    ‘Do you think it’s true ?’
    ‘Well, no one knows for certain but Granmer Strong always said the reason that the house was draughty as a cow barn was on account of God exacting his revenge.’
    ‘Oh!’
    ‘And no one in their right mind argued with Granmer Strong.’
    Perhaps it was true, then. In a way, she hoped that it was because it made them all feel a little less perfect; tarnished their otherwise stainlessness. She looked up from her cogitations. They were rounding the gate into the yard.
    ‘Well, well, if it isn’t the newlyweds!’ Her heart sank. It was Annie and she was carrying a china jug towards the back door, her observation directed solely towards George. ‘Finally out of that bed then. Comfy, is it?’
    ‘Been up and working since dawn. Ain’t no rest for the wicked, as well you’d know.’
    ‘Huh.’
    Did George truly not notice the scorn to the woman’s tone or was he just choosing to ignore it? Well, if it didn’t trouble him , then she would try not to let it trouble her, either. The sense that Annie had made a point of snubbing her persisted, though, the only remedy she could conjure being to distract herself and so as she followed George towards the door, she cast her eyes up at the back of the house. With its hotchpotch of small and anonymous windows, this side was much plainer than the elegant façade to the front, almost as though offended by the necessarily dirty and inelegant nature of business conducted in the yard, the building had decided to turn its back. Her musings, however, were interrupted by a commotion ahead of her and when she looked back down, it was to see that George had collided with someone coming out through the open doorway.
    ‘Robert, how many more times must I point out that if you raised your eyes from your boots, you wouldn’t walk into so many things?’
    ‘Aye, sorry George.’ It was the voice of a young lad, albeit unusually soft and