Read Online An Indelicate Situation (The Weymouth Trilogy) by Lizzie Church - Free Book Online Page A

gentle man kicked her viciously in the shin.
    ‘You horrible woman,’ shrieked Will, hitting out at her with all his might. ‘You horrible woman. I hate you - you did that on purpose. I saw you stepping on it. You have trampled it underfoot and have broken the mast right off.’
    At great risk to his personal safety, the ex cessively nervous assistant bent down to ret rieve the now sorry - looking article from beneath his customer’s feet. He looked at her steadily as he did so and handed it up to her .
    ‘I hope you will be able to mend it again, ma’am ,’ he said , and marched them quickly and determinedly over to the door .

Chapter 8
    Whereas Mrs Stav eley, who had contributed well over half of the money required to purchase the house in Grosvenor Place, could only be afforded one room to herself on the second floor of the building , and her son, whilst he remained her guest, grudgingly allowed the small est guest bedroom next door at a rental which would not have disgraced the very best room that Scrivens’ Boarding House had to offer , Mr Wright and his family occupied the whole of the remainder of the hou se with the exception of a tiny , cupboard - like room at the rear of the first floor , overlooking the yard , which had been allocated to Maggie as her own personal chamber. The children were housed across the corridor from Mrs Staveley on the second floor – the twins in two small rooms of their own and the younger c h ildren in the nursery next door - ostensibly to enable the remainder of the first floor to be taken over by the schoolroom and the larger guest bedroom but more likely to enable their papa and mama to achieve a good night’s sleep in their comfortable suite a t an acceptable distance from their noisy brood . Officially, of course, Mrs Staveley also had free rein over the public rooms on the ground floor but since her removal to Weymouth she had very soon determined on the pleasantness of her apartment on the top floor, with its splendid view over the waters of the bay , when compared to the rowdy downstairs accommodation with its view o ver the road . So she had already got much into the habit of remaining upstairs unless she had particular reasons for going out.
    The situation of Maggie’s chamber, di rectly to the rear of Mr Wright ’s personal dressing room, and sharing a wall with it, provided her with many a delightful yet agonising moment of imagination as she could hear the gentleman clatter ing about – opening and closing drawers a nd door s – as he washed and robed himself in the mornings and disrobed himself at night. S he was constantly mindful of him sleeping not three yards from her self   – and not only because of the gentle snores emanating from his charming wife reclining next to him in their giant double bed . The thought of him so close to her quite robbed her of sleep for hours.
    Despite her normal reluctance to vacate her room, it appeared that Mrs Staveley had decided that it would be only polite to accompany her niece on a return visit to Miss Brewer a little way along the Esplanade, for on the Friday after the dinner, at about a half after two , she was to be seen in her best visiting clothes ventur ing slowly and rather stiffly down the staircase to the ground floor of the house . She sat herself down patiently in the drawing room whilst the lady of the house settled her bonnet at just the required angle in front of the alcove mirror in the hall. Mrs Wright was actually fe eling a little out of curl at Mrs Staveley’s inconsiderate decision to join her on the visit . After all , it had entailed her in getti ng a servant to organise a chair for the old lady, who would have been quite unable to walk the few hundred yards to Gloster Row on her own , and the c hair, of course, would cost at least a sixpence, which she felt that she could very ill afford to waste . Maggie had just released little August a into the capable and most welcome hands of a music master