Read Withering Heights for Free Online Page A

understandable question. It would be the only excuse to call a woman of middle years Melody.
    “Tone-deaf. Always was. Of course there’s no saying as how she hasn’t taken up the tambourine or one of them play-themselves pianos in the last forty years. It’d be comforting to find out she’s got more in life than her typing job for that solicitor.” Mrs. Malloy continued to make inroads on the generous slice of chocolate cake on her plate.
    “You must go and see her.” Ben strode over to the windows and back. “It doesn’t do to let these old quarrels go on and on. And it will make a nice trip for you and Ellie.”
    “What about you?” I set my cup rattling back in its saucer.
    “I’d be a third wheel.”
    “No, you wouldn’t.”
    He came and perched on the arm of my chair and placed a hand on my shoulder. “As you said, it will only be for a few days and I could use that time to start getting recipes together for another book, before I lose my nerve and decide I’m a has-been.” His laugh brushed my ear. Obviously he wanted me to take a lighthearted view of things. To be a good sport. Instead, I felt hurt and in no mood to don the sea-foam green nightgown anytime that night. Only for Mrs. Malloy’s sake did I put on a good front.
    “We could leave in a couple of days.”
    “Why not tomorrow?” He returned to the coffee table to pour more tea.
    Couldn’t he get rid of me fast enough? Not being carvedout of stone, I did the only thing a woman could do—cut myself the largest slice of cake that would fit on my plate.
    “It would make for a bit of a rush.” Mrs. Malloy pursed her purple lips. “And of course I do want to look me best so as to look ten years younger than . . . well, look nice for Melody, that is. But I suppose if we was to set off late-ish in the morning or early afternoon, I could manage to get meself organized.”
    “Don’t you want to phone or write to her first?” I asked.
    “She’d find reasons not to see me.”
    “You can’t be sure of that.”
    “Better to catch her on the hop.”
    “That’s settled, then.” Having finished with the teapot, Ben sat down on one of the sofas and stretched his legs, crossing them at the ankles with an elegance of movement that should have charmed me back to good spirits.
    “You didn’t tell me much about what happened at your parents’,” I said, addressing the ceiling, “other than that they were well and pleased to see you and the children.”
    “Mum and Pop were pretty much as usual.” Ben shifted Tobias out from behind his head while balancing his cup and saucer deftly in his other hand.
    “What did they have to say?”
    “The usual sort of thing. This, that, and the other. Who’d said what to whom after church on Sunday. You know how they are.”
    “It’s interesting,” I told the pair of candlesticks on the mantelpiece, “that a man can explain in excruciating detail to a fellow enthusiast how he screwed the knob back onto the bathroom door, but he can’t describe to his wife anything above the barest minimum of what happened during a visit at which she wasn’t present.”
    “One of them quirks of nature.” Mrs. Malloy looked ready to expound on this but, perhaps sensing my mood, closed hermouth. Ben, however, seemed blindly unaware that I was irritated. Probably his mind was otherwise occupied, concocting a recipe for a rejuvenated version of bubble and squeak that would leave the reviewer for
Cuisine Anglaise
begging for a personal taste test.
    He cupped his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “Mum put on a great lunch when we arrived. Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, and all the trimmings. The conversation mostly revolved around Tom and Betty winning the lottery and no one hearing from then since.”
    “Just who are Tom and Betty, if I may be so bold as to inquire?” Mrs. Malloy had her nose, along with her pinky, elevated as she sipped her tea.
    “The Hopkinses,” I said. “Tom is Ben’s cousin.