Read Online Ashworth Hall by Anne Perry - Free Book Online

an extra guest and require that a room be prepared for him, and one for the following day for the young lady who was expected.
    After that she joined the other women in a gentle stroll around the gardens in the late sunshine, showing them the maze, the orangery, the long lawn with its herbaceous borders, now full of chrysanthemums and late asters, the water lily pools and the woodland walk with its ferns, wild white foxgloves, and then back through the beech walk and ending in the rose garden.
    Afternoon tea in the green room offered the first opportunity, and necessity, for conversation. Until then, comments on flowers and trees had been sufficient. Emily had walked with Eudora and Iona, Charlotte had followed a step or two behind with Kezia. It had all seemed very agreeable.
    Now, in the green room, with its French windows onto the terrace and the grass sloping down to the rose garden, the fire crackling brightly and the silver tray of hot crumpets and butter, delicate sandwiches and small iced cakes, it was impossible to avoid speaking to each other.
    The maid had passed the teacups and withdrawn. After the exercise Charlotte was hungry and found the crumpets delicious. It was not easy to eat them in a ladylike fashion and not drip hot butter onto the bosom of her dress. It required a degree of concentration.
    Kezia looked at Emily gravely. “Mrs. Radley, do you think it will be possible to purchase a newspaper in the village tomorrow—if I sent one of the footmen for it, if you wouldn’t mind?”
    “The Times is delivered here every day,” Emily replied. “I expect we have already arranged to have several copies sent, but I will make sure that it is so.”
    Kezia smiled dazzlingly. “Thank you very much. That is most generous.”
    “I don’t imagine there will be much news of Ireland in it,” Iona observed, her eyes wide. “It will be all English affairs, English social news and theaters and financial dealings, and of course a certain amount of what is happening abroad.”
    Kezia returned her stare. “The English Parliament governs Ireland, or had you forgotten that?”
    “I remember that even in my sleep,” Iona replied. “Every true Irish man or woman does. It’s only you who want to remain in the English pockets who let yourselves forget what it means, the shame and the grief of it, the hunger, the poverty and the injustice.”
    “Yes, the whole of England is riding on Ireland’s back, I know that,” Kezia said sarcastically. “So small as Catholic Ireland is, it’s no wonder it finds the weight too much! You must work like galley slaves to keep us all going.”
    Emily leaned forward to say something, but Eudora spoke first.
    “The hunger was to do with the potato blight,” she said firmly. “And that was neither Catholic nor Protestant. It was an act of God.”
    “Who is neither Catholic nor Protestant …” Emily added in.
    “ ‘A plague on both your houses!’ ” Charlotte quoted, then wished she had bitten her tongue.
    They all turned to stare at her, eyes wide.
    “Are you an atheist, Mrs. Pitt?” Eudora asked incredulously. “You don’t follow Mr. Darwin, do you?”
    “No, I’m not an atheist,” Charlotte said hastily, the color burning up her cheeks. “I just think to watch two supposedly Christian peoples hating each other over the nature of their beliefs must make God absolutely furious and exasperated with us all It’s ridiculous!”
    “You wouldn’t say that, you couldn’t, if you had any understanding of what the real differences are!” Kezia leaned forward, her face filled with emotion, her hands clenched on her deep-wine colored skirts. “Great evils are taught: intolerance, pride, irresponsibility, immorality of all sorts, and the great and beautiful truths of God, of purity, diligence and faith are denied! Can there be a greater evil than that? Can there be anything more worth fighting against? If you care about anything at all, Mrs. Pitt, you surely must care