Untimely Death

Начало книги

Exmoor, where the action of this book is represented as occurring, is, thank heaven, a real place, inhabited by living men and women. It should therefore be made clear beyond the possibility of doubt that the localities and characters here depicted are purely imaginary and bear no relation whatever to any existing place or person.

C.H.

The holiday had been Eleanor’s idea in the first place. Holidays for Francis Pettigrew signified first and foremost strange beds and a strange bed meant, for the first night at least, waking up in the small hours instead of sleeping through till dawn. None the less, as he lay wakefully watching the shifting pattern of the moon-shadows on the wall, he was prepared to concede that it was an excellent idea. Nowadays, he acknowledged, not without shame, it would be difficult to find any departure from the monotony of their rather humdrum joint existence that was not due to an idea of Eleanor’s. More and more, with advancing years, he had tended to resign the initiative in affairs to his still young wife. It made for peace, and so far he had had no reason to regret it.

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