Read Online The Swallow and the Hummingbird by Santa Montefiore - Free Book Online

card of illusion. The man is chasing the moon, which he will never attain. Don’t let George leave you behind, holding the cup of love like this poor girl.’
    ‘Thank you, Grandma,’ said Rita, relieved that it was over and nothing dire revealed. The only part that she remembered was the fight between her sexuality and her virtue. Her mother would be appalled to know that her own mother was encouraging sex outside marriage although she had heard it said that Megagran had enjoyed quite a colourful past before Denzil had made an honest woman out of her. Rita looked at her watch and wondered whether it would be rude to leave. After all, she had to prepare herself for the party.
    Mrs Megalith was aware that her granddaughter hadn’t paid much attention. She had watched her eyes glaze over for the second and third card. Unfortunately, the first card had diverted her attention from the two other more important ones. She took off her glasses and stood up. ‘I suppose you need to slip into your glad rags for the party,’ she said with an impatient sniff.
    Rita nodded. ‘I’d love to stay, but it’s getting late.’
    ‘Yes, yes. Quack quack jabber jabber and all that. Well, if you must. But don’t disregard the cards, Rita, or you’ll make a grave mistake.’ Mrs Megalith wondered why she bothered with such an unenthusiastic sitter. ‘If you ignore my advice, my girl, it will be at your peril.’
    ‘I won’t. Look there’s the swallow again.’ Megagran was suitably distracted so that they talked about the swallows all the way round to the front of the house where Rita had left her bicycle.
    ‘I’ll see you tonight,’ she said, waving at her grandmother, pedalling as fast as she could up the drive and out of sight.
    Trees wandered into the house at the same moment as his wife alighted at the foot of the stairs in a pretty blue dress printed with cornflowers. His hands were dirty from handling the sticky leaves of his precious walnut trees. One of his favourites was the large Juglans Negra that had been planted beside the house about three hundred years before with the intention of catching the summer flies in the leaves before they flew inside. It was tall and majestic and produced the sweetest nuts in the autumn. He had planted forty-seven varieties in the last thirty years and, although most took at least twenty-five years to produce fruit, he was excited at the recent discovery in France of a variety that produced fruit in only three years. Sadly, the war had thwarted his plans to investigate further.
    ‘Our guests will be here very soon and you haven’t even bathed,’ said Faye. She looked at the chaos in the hall and was glad the party was in the barn. The hall table was covered with papers, books and the laundry she had intended to take up to her bedroom before she got distracted by Johnnie standing on a chair removing all her scores of music and photograph frames from the lid of her piano. Trees nodded at her and rubbed his hands together purposefully. ‘Is everything ready in the barn?’ she asked.
    ‘Yes, I’ll go and change.’
    ‘The barbecue lit?’ she added as he passed her. He nodded again. ‘Good. It’s not much, only twenty or thirty people at the most. I’ve asked the village and who knows, maybe some of George’s old friends will turn up. It’s just a gesture to welcome him home. I want him to feel appreciated. We can all raise our glasses, there’s plenty of cider.’
    It was a windy evening. The sun had disappeared behind heavy clouds and it looked as if it might rain. Faye raised her eyes to the sky and hoped that it would at least stay dry for the party. Her attention was drawn to a flock of starlings that flew across it like a waft of black smoke, diving and dancing their aerial evolutions, and she thought of George in his Spitfire. She walked over to the barn, which stood on the periphery of the farm nestled among a cluster of apple trees. It was used for storing hay at harvest