Читать книгу Falling Angels - Tracy Chevalier - Страница 19

It is funny how things happen. Daddy always says that coincidences are usually nothing of the sort if only one studies them carefully enough. He proved his point today.

I was looking out of my window when I saw a girl standing in hers across the way, brushing her hair. I had never seen her there before; two spinsters used to live in that house but had moved out a few weeks before. Then she tossed her head and shrugged her shoulders, and I realised it was Lavinia. I was so surprised to see her that I simply stood and stared.

I hadn’t seen her for so long – not since the Queen’s death over two years ago. Although I had asked Mummy several times if we could meet, she always made an excuse. She did promise to ask at the cemetery for the Waterhouses’ address, but I don’t think she ever did. After a time I stopped asking because I knew it was her way of saying no. I didn’t know why she didn’t want me to have a best friend, but there was nothing I could do, except to hang about in the cemetery whenever we visited, hoping the Waterhouses would choose to visit then too. But they never did. I had given up on ever having a best friend. And I had not met any other girls who would like to go around the cemetery with me the way Lavinia did.

Now here she was, just across the way. I began to wave, and when at last she saw me she waved too, frantically. It was very gratifying that she was so happy to see me. I signalled to her to meet me in the garden, then ran downstairs to tell my parents about the amazing coincidence.

Mummy and Daddy were already eating breakfast and reading the papers – Daddy the Mail, Mummy the St Pancras Gazette. When I told them who our new neighbours were, Daddy was not amazed at all but explained he’d told the Waterhouses about that house.

Mummy gave him a peculiar look. ‘I didn’t know you were so friendly with them,’ she said.

‘He contacted me at the bank,’ Daddy said, ‘quite some time ago. Said they were thinking of moving to the area and did I know of any property. When that house came up I told him about it.’

‘So now we are to be neighbours in life as well as in death,’ Mummy said. She cracked the shell of her egg very hard with a spoon.

‘Apparently he’s a fine batsman,’ Daddy said. ‘The team could do with one.’

When it became clear that there was no coincidence, that Daddy had led the Waterhouses here, I felt strangely let down. I wanted to believe in Fate, but Daddy has shown once again that there is no such thing.