Today's Reading
The three of them worked companionably until night began to fall. Flyte tackled the kitchenware, putting it into boxes, ready for transport. As of tomorrow, the house would sit empty.
He was saying goodbye to his childhood. At the age of sixty-five, he supposed it was time. But why was it so difficult to face up to?
It was going on for eight when they had to stop, but much of the sorting had been done, and the removers would have to deal with the rest. They had spent a full hour putting colourful tags on bits of furniture to indicate their disposal—Oxfam, the Fayre, the rubbish bin—and highlight the items which were, in fact, going into storage.
Beatrice was clearly tiring. They'd found the brandy bottle and some juice glasses and had said good night to each other over a nightcap.
He forgot to carry the still-wrapped paintings to his car until Beatrice called out after him. He supposed he must take them. He could not see his way to a polite refusal—she already had a house full of mostly unwanted belongings.
At this point he was weary and had little curiosity left to see what was inside the parcels. Having remembered his uncle's taste in art, he'd lowered his expectations. He had a drive ahead of him back to the Master's Lodge and wanted only a hot shower to wash off the dust of the day's work.
He decided he would one day pick out the best of the paintings to keep as a memento of Beatrice's kindness, putting paid to another chapter in his life.
It was as he was finally taking his leave that she thrust an old briefcase into his hands.
'Papers,' she said briefly. 'I haven't had time to sort through them all, but you'll know what to do.'
He doubted that. 'Surely, anything private, you'd best—' 'I thought of leaving it with the solicitor,' she said. 'But you're family—all I've got now. You do as you think best.' Rather than stay and argue the point he kissed her cheek, gave her a gentle hug, and took his leave.
CHAPTER TWO
SIR FLYTE DISPOSES
The weeks passed and Sir Flyte was absorbed back into his normal routine. The latest influx of students had begun arriving for Michaelmas term, and again he marvelled at how they managed to be so much the same and yet so different every year. Their failed attempts at nonchalance, at being thought 'cool', were touching in their sameness, however. They could not, any of them, believe their luck at being where they were, the hard work of getting there nearly forgotten.
There was one young man from somewhere in the vast wildernesses of America—upstate New York, the master thought it was—who stood out for his looks alone, but also because he seemed to regard his place at the college as no less than his due. Sir Flyte, immediately taking against him, looked up his file and saw he was Rufus Penn, a graduate student from Yale, twenty-three years old. He would be attached to the Department of the History of Art, reading under Professor Bailey.
God help him. 'Old Bailey', as he was known behind his back, was kiln-hardened by decades of drumming artistic discernment into young brains. No amount of bluster ever got past him. Flyte wondered how young Rufus would fare under his tutelage.
He thought he might keep an eye on young Rufus. Beatrice's paintings—or rather, Finneas's—he'd tucked into a little-used cabinet in his study, where they sat forgotten, along with the briefcase. His expectations for the paintings were now so very low he hadn't given them a thought. And as for whatever papers were in the briefcase, he imagined it would take hours to sort through them all before throwing most of them away as rubbish.
He'd visited Beatrice at Elderwood—dreadful name—to make sure she'd got settled in, and when she asked about the paintings, he'd not understood at first what she was talking about. He had mumbled something to the effect he was finding them quite interesting. He wasn't sure he'd fooled her.
'We never had them appraised, but Finneas thought the girl might be worth a bob or two,' she'd said.
'I'll have a closer look,' he'd promised.
Then came the day the awful news arrived: Beatrice had passed away that morning. She'd been sitting at breakfast with her new friends and had suddenly excused herself, saying she didn't feel well. An hour later a member of staff had found her in her room.
Her kind heart had simply given out.
It was a peaceful death, they kept telling him, and he supposed that was a mercy, but once again he had failed to visit her as often as he'd intended, and once again he was plagued with regret and remorse that she'd died alone.
This excerpt ends on page 12 of the hardcover edition.
Monday we begin the book Killing Time by M. C. Beaton; R.W. Green.
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