Read Online Choice of Evils by E.X. Ferrars - Free Book Online

not an old friend of Simon'S, so what exactly are you?’ she asked.
    ‘I'm what's generally called a plant physiologist,’ he answered, ‘and I'm an uncle of Peter Dilly's.’
    ‘Ah, so it was Peter Dilly you came to listen to - now I understand. What a charming little man he is. I'd like to meet him again. I enjoyed his talk much the most of the three. Do you think he'll be coming to The Duchess of Malfi this evening? And are you?’
    ‘I don't know what Peter's plans are, but I shall certainly be there.’ Andrew had not made up his mind till just then that he would go to the theatre that evening, but he felt that it would have been discourteous to admit it. He was still finding it difficult, however, to imagine this woman in the sombre character of the Duchess. ‘But it's only by chance I'm here. I didn't know, when I came toGallmouth, that there'd be a festival in progress, or that Peter would be on the spot/
    ‘What brought you then?’ she asked. ‘It seems a pretty dead and alive sort of place to me.’
    ‘That happens to be what attracts me to it,’ Andrew said. ‘I've been coming here at intervals over several years. It's very restful.’
    ‘Ah, I see,’ she said. ‘You come here when you want to get away from your hectic life in London. But you're retired, aren't you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Are you a Fellow of the Royal Society?’
    ‘Yes, I am.’
    ‘And you probably go to lots of their meetings and banquets and things, so you come to Gallmouth to recover.’
    ‘Well, I shouldn't say that exactly describes my life in London,’ Andrew said, ‘but I sometimes get tired of my own cooking, so I thought a break in things before the winter begins to close in on us would be pleasant.’
    ‘Ah, yes, the winter … D'you know, I really rather like the winter, though each time one comes round I say to myself, "How many more of these have you got?" I have a feeling I shall die in the winter.’
    ‘You don't do anything of the sort,’ Desmond Nicholl said in a quiet, cold voice. ‘You don't think of dying at all. And why should you? You're a quite healthy specimen.’
    ‘I tell you, never a day goes by without my thinking about it,’ she protested. ‘Being healthy has nothing to do with it. Life is so horribly dangerous. I could walk out of that door when we've had our lunch and be knocked down by a car and killed on the spot. Or our dear Simon could lose control of himself and stick a knife in my back, which is what he'd really like to do, you know. Didn't you see that last night? He hates me, he really hates me. And he's really very violent by nature, though he alwayskeeps a tight hold on it. Poor Simon, I'm really so sorry for him. And I can't forget how much I loved him once. That's when I was a little girl. You know. Professor, I've known him since I was a child.’
    'So really you've known him all your life?’ Andrew said.
    ‘Very nearly,’ she replied. ‘My father was vicar in Boringwood - that's a village in Hampshire I don't expect you've ever heard of - and Simon's father retired there after he came home from India. I'm not sure what he'd been doing there, but he became great friends with my father. But I didn't see much of Simon then. He was at Winchester, and only came home for the holidays. All the same, we made friends. He was really very good to me, and I worshipped him. He was so handsome and so good-natured. But he had a violent temper even then. Oh, my goodness, yes!’ She gave a little laugh. ‘We had a neighbour who had a son a couple of years older than Simon and much bigger, and if the two of them had the slightest excuse for it, they'd fight. And Simon nearly always came out on top, he was so much the cleverer of the two. And I used to love watching them battering each other, though I was dreadfully frightened too, but that was really all part of the enjoyment. And of course by the time I was about fifteen I was hopelessly in love with him. Did you know that children of that