i f6c06dd9cf3fe221 by Unknown (the false prince .TXT) 📕

thought Kate, once she was married it wouldn't matter; she could let her see the doctor occasionally, if this were really the reason for her unusual behaviour. But not so much as before. No, that wouldn't do, she had been far too fond of him; but just now and again wouldn't do any harm.

She was feeling that everything would settle in its groove. What a fool she had been to worry so much. Her mind flashed back to last Christmas Eve. What would have happened had the priest and Connie not come in when they did. Now, she told herself, you've been through all that before. Stop dramatising things! Whatever happened was only in your imagination. She looked at her mother lying dozing on the saddle.

How old she looked, and ill. If only she could take her with them, away from this house and him. Her ankles overflowed over her slippers, the swelling seemed to get

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worse every week. Kate wished she were staying over Christmas, she would have been able to make her rest. But the Tolmaches had decided that, at last, they were too old for hotels. With the war being on, they had said, the hotel would likely be overcrowded and noisy anyway, and it would be nice to have Kate spend her last Christmas with them.

So she was returning tonight; it was no hardship, she could never have too much of their company . only she knew how much her mother looked forward to this week alone with her . and then there was Annie.

As Sarah lay, she kept muttering to herself. It sounded, to Kate, like a single word, a name being repeated, but it was unintelligible. She's tired and worn out, thought Kate. I'll let her sleep as long as possible, there'll be no one coming in before tea-time, unless Connie comes. The thought of her cousin aroused a slight uneasiness in Kate's mind. Why. had she ceased calling these past two months? Her mother, who had grumbled that she was never off the door-step, was now wondering why her visits had stopped altogether. Perhaps, thought Kate, it's be cause I demurred about going to Peter's wedding. She and Pat had been invited to her cousin Peter's wedding, and when in an effort to evade what she knew would be a drinking bout, she had said she thought she would be unable to get off that week-end, Connie had caused quite a scene and accused her of thinking herself to be a cut above them all now. So she had gone, and sat in the packed front-room, watching whisky and beer being drunk in such quantities as to ensure that everyone was having a real good time. Her refusal to touch anything had only made Connie more firm in her belief that "Kate was looking down her nose at them all'. It was in his endeavour to turn Connie's spleen from her that Pat had laughingly drunk all Connie had pressed on him, and, not being used to it in quantity, for as he was wont to say he could 'take it or leave it', he was soon quite befuddled, if not actually drunk. At four o'clock in the morning it was impossible for him to attempt the three miles walk home. There he had sat, smiling broadly at everyone and powerless to use his legs.

Kate told herself she was glad she had seen him in drink and witnessed his reactions to it, and she was amazed, and not a little pleased, that he hadn't followed the usual course of his countrymen and become fighting mad.

The house had been full with the family alone, there being ten of them in the four rooms, so, when it was decided that they couldn't possibly go home until Pat had sobered up, Kate found herself sharing one of the two beds in the back room, lying between two of her young cousins.

Pat, amid screams of laughter, had been assigned to a cupboard which ran under the stairs. Apparently this had often been used as a spare bed space and a straw mattress had been made to fit it. Kate had rebuked herself for feeling disgust of her cousins, for, after all, she had told herself, they were her people, and had it not been for the Tolmaches she would have found them, if not likeable, at least amusing, but the only impression they left on her was disgust. After the wedding Pat seemingly thought as she did, for he blamed them for having made him drunk and spoke bitterly of drink, swearing he had tasted his last.

She had laughed at him, and although she was glad he intended to drink no more she thought he had taken the effect of his lapse too seriously, for in the weeks that followed he was at times openly hostile towards the Fawcetts as a whole, and Connie in particular, going so far as to walk out of the kitchen whenever she came in.

Kate could find no reason for this. Had he made a spectacle of himself when drunk she could have understood his attitude. Sometimes she thought that Connie did not like the idea of her marrying. She was five years Kate's senior and anything but attractive, being inclined to fat and, as her own father was won't to say, 'wore too much on her hat and not enough on her chest'.

Kate, in the quiet peacefulness of the kitchen and the knowledge of the home that was soon to be hers, in the love that Pat showered on her, and in the deep friendship and kindness . yes, and love of the Tolmaches, felt it in her heart to be sorry for her cousin and her vain, and all too obvious, attempts to attract