Read Online The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham - Free Book Online

blinked at her and she laughed.
    â€œThat’s what they call it down ’ere,” she explained. “Gumper treason and plot. Guy Fawkes night to us Londoners, bonfire night. My old love said ’e was goin’ to live till then. ‘That’s right,’ I said, ‘go to ’eaven on a rocket, so you shall.’ But ’e didn’t. Midsummer night, more like. That’s what Saturday is, Mr. Tonker’s party. Midsummer night, and William lyin’ out there missin’ all the bubbly.”
    She rubbed soap in her eyes and distracted herself, and at that moment there was a shrill shout from Emma somewhere in the house.
    â€œFour o’clock, Dinah!”
    â€œFour o’clock!” echoed Miss Diane and rushed to put her head out of the garden door. “Four o’clock, Spurgeon!”
    â€œFour o’clock!” an answering bellow resounded from the border, and Mr. Campion, who was taken off guard, was just in time to see a man in a straw hat fling down hishoe among the lilies and sprint towards the house. He diagnosed some domestic emergency, but it seemed to be merely a matter of fetching coke from the shed to the kitchens. The operation was conducted at the double and was followed by a headlong dash with the garbage pails to the incinerator, after which the man strode away upstream from where, for some time past, there had come the sound of hammering.
    The whole incident was mildly lunatic and Campion was still astonished by it when a voice he recognised floated in from the yard, and Minnie with a boy of about sixteen came in, carrying a load of stacked zinc baths between them.
    Visitors from easy-going New York, which will suffer parading Irish and piping Scots without a qualm, were sometimes taken aback by a first sight of Minnie on her own home ground. Latter-day Rip Van Winkles had been known to pour themselves drinks with shaking hands, whilst under the impression that the classic adventure had somehow overtaken them in reverse. Minnie’s America had been handed down to her by her father, who had left that country in 1902 and had not then been considered an advanced member of his generation. Like most painters, he was a simple and direct personality of strong affections, and his favourite authors were those of his childhood: Mark Twain, Fenimore Cooper and Louisa Alcott. Minnie visited the country and kept up with her relatives there, but neither experience had succeeded in modernising her view. She too was a simple obstinate person with the memory of an elephant, who wore strange clothes. In her youth she had adopted the Mother-Hubbard as the perfect garment to suit her angularity and the eagle’s beak nose of the Straws. She always worked with a stout apron for painting, and now, after twenty-five years, these had become as normal a part of her appearance as her John bob and piercing grey eyes. Since The Beckoning Lady was the kind of place where a covered wagon might easily be standing just round the corner, the effect at times wasdisconcerting. At the moment she looked tired and a trifle harassed but it was clear that she was enjoying herself and in command of a complex situation.
    The boy was very like her and was almost as tall. His hair was a corn-coloured mat and the laughter-wrinkles were already deep across his forehead and round his eyes. They planted the baths on the stones with a clatter and Minnie held out her hand.
    â€œAlbert, how nice of you. Amanda told us you were here. There’s a frightful lot to do still. You haven’t met Westy, have you? Isn’t it a blessed miracle? He’s in quarantine for mumps. Sent home from school last night. The angels do take care of us. Now, this is Westinghouse Straw, my grand-nephew. My father married twice, you know.” She had a slow deep voice, very English in intonation.
    The youngster shook hands. “After that you just have to work it out,” he said with a hint of apology,