Read Online For the Good of the State by Anthony Price - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Anthony Price
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that he could never go back there. ‘Please lead the way … Faith.’
He followed her into what seemed for a moment like cool darkness, smelling of furniture polish and the old-house-damp which so often rose from deep cellars beneath. Then he was at the foot of an oak staircase, looking up towards a window ablaze with stained-glass sunlight.
And Panin , he thought— Nikolai Andrievich Panin— who was another world away from David Audley here and these two females-of-the-species, but also in the same world that he and Audley both inhabited outside it.
‘Tom—’ Faith Audley accepted the diminutive as of right, having been quite properly unimpressed with ‘Sir Thomas’ even before she’d had a clear view of him ’—we have to go through the kitchen because we’ve lost the key to the French windows in the dining room. David says he hung it up, for the winter … but heaven only knows what he actually did with it … It’ll turn up one day, of course … He’s down in the orchard making one of his bonfires—making a bonfire is one of the two jobs he’s good at … the other is making compost heaps—‘ She threw her domestic prattle over her shoulder as she led him down a short passage towards a stone-arched doorway ’—bonfires and compost heaps are major scientific operations, according to him, and I’m not allowed to touch either of them—‘ Beyond the door lay a huge kitchen, dominated by an equally huge table, scrubbed pale with time and elbow-grease ’—which is ludicrous really, because I’m the scientist in the family, and David doesn’t really know why one wire must go on one terminal—‘
She was already opening another door while Tom was still taking in the kitchen’s weird mixture of ancient-and-modern, between its smoke-darkened beams and stone-flagged floor, and the gleaming plastic gadgetry of electric cooker and microwave and dish-washer, via a middle-aged solid fuel Aga stove, with a museum-array of copper saucepans and a blackened fireplace furnished with an iron turning-spit which could have roasted a whole pig to celebrate the news of any battle of the Wars of the Roses, if this household had been on its winning side.
‘Tom—?’ Faith Audley’s voice issued from the half-light of another passage.
‘Coming!’ Damn the Wars of the Roses ! Tom shook his head.
Another short corridor, with a laundry room on one side and a larder on the other, and other doors—for the extremes of boiler and freezer, maybe—?
Tom blinked as the light streaming through the last door hit him, and stepped out of the house in Faith Audley’s wake, following her under another stone archway which had never started its life in a kitchen garden wall, its crudely defaced heraldic shields reminding him of the bigger arch above the barn doors.
Then the full sun hit him as he emerged from the archway into a little courtyard at the back of the house, with a stone well-head in the centre of it and a fine view of the high downland away across a coarse winter lawn in the foreground.
But no sign of Audley—? He frowned towards the man’s wife.
‘This is the first good day we’ve had, when it hasn’t rained much—’ She wasn’t looking at him, but at the grass ‘—but does he prune the roses? Oh no! ’ She turned to him at last, sniffing the air as she did so. ‘ He has to make a bonfire … and if the wind stays in this direction … we shall get the benefit of it—’ She swung round to look at the house ‘—in fact, I’d better go and close all the windows before it’s too late—excuse me, Sir Thomas— Tom … But I’ll put the kettle on for a cup of tea while I’m about it. David will be here directly.’ She indicated the nearest of a group of dirt-stained white ironwork chairs. ‘He knows I was bringing you here.’
Tom wondered what Research and Development had passed on to Audley about him, in preparation for this meeting. Whatever it was, it ought to be about him, not
He followed her into what seemed for a moment like cool darkness, smelling of furniture polish and the old-house-damp which so often rose from deep cellars beneath. Then he was at the foot of an oak staircase, looking up towards a window ablaze with stained-glass sunlight.
And Panin , he thought— Nikolai Andrievich Panin— who was another world away from David Audley here and these two females-of-the-species, but also in the same world that he and Audley both inhabited outside it.
‘Tom—’ Faith Audley accepted the diminutive as of right, having been quite properly unimpressed with ‘Sir Thomas’ even before she’d had a clear view of him ’—we have to go through the kitchen because we’ve lost the key to the French windows in the dining room. David says he hung it up, for the winter … but heaven only knows what he actually did with it … It’ll turn up one day, of course … He’s down in the orchard making one of his bonfires—making a bonfire is one of the two jobs he’s good at … the other is making compost heaps—‘ She threw her domestic prattle over her shoulder as she led him down a short passage towards a stone-arched doorway ’—bonfires and compost heaps are major scientific operations, according to him, and I’m not allowed to touch either of them—‘ Beyond the door lay a huge kitchen, dominated by an equally huge table, scrubbed pale with time and elbow-grease ’—which is ludicrous really, because I’m the scientist in the family, and David doesn’t really know why one wire must go on one terminal—‘
She was already opening another door while Tom was still taking in the kitchen’s weird mixture of ancient-and-modern, between its smoke-darkened beams and stone-flagged floor, and the gleaming plastic gadgetry of electric cooker and microwave and dish-washer, via a middle-aged solid fuel Aga stove, with a museum-array of copper saucepans and a blackened fireplace furnished with an iron turning-spit which could have roasted a whole pig to celebrate the news of any battle of the Wars of the Roses, if this household had been on its winning side.
‘Tom—?’ Faith Audley’s voice issued from the half-light of another passage.
‘Coming!’ Damn the Wars of the Roses ! Tom shook his head.
Another short corridor, with a laundry room on one side and a larder on the other, and other doors—for the extremes of boiler and freezer, maybe—?
Tom blinked as the light streaming through the last door hit him, and stepped out of the house in Faith Audley’s wake, following her under another stone archway which had never started its life in a kitchen garden wall, its crudely defaced heraldic shields reminding him of the bigger arch above the barn doors.
Then the full sun hit him as he emerged from the archway into a little courtyard at the back of the house, with a stone well-head in the centre of it and a fine view of the high downland away across a coarse winter lawn in the foreground.
But no sign of Audley—? He frowned towards the man’s wife.
‘This is the first good day we’ve had, when it hasn’t rained much—’ She wasn’t looking at him, but at the grass ‘—but does he prune the roses? Oh no! ’ She turned to him at last, sniffing the air as she did so. ‘ He has to make a bonfire … and if the wind stays in this direction … we shall get the benefit of it—’ She swung round to look at the house ‘—in fact, I’d better go and close all the windows before it’s too late—excuse me, Sir Thomas— Tom … But I’ll put the kettle on for a cup of tea while I’m about it. David will be here directly.’ She indicated the nearest of a group of dirt-stained white ironwork chairs. ‘He knows I was bringing you here.’
Tom wondered what Research and Development had passed on to Audley about him, in preparation for this meeting. Whatever it was, it ought to be about him, not
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