"Friesner, Esther M - ss - A Beltaine and Suspenders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

don't look at me that way, Tilly! You know I'd die before disdaining your
sainted mummy's devotion to what's expected of her in this world. In fact, I'd
give a good deal to meet her. Admirable woman. She saved those poor little
guttersnipes from the German bombs all the same, whether she did it out of
Christian charity or because it went with the image of lady of the manor."

"They were just so . . . unsanitary." Telemachus shuddered. He daubed at a badly
faded section of the mural with a camel's hair brush. "So precocious, too."

"Don't tell us again about how your mother caught a pair of them making the
beast with two backs in the pergol." Olivia strolled up to the scaffolding and
rested an elbow on the wooden frame. Telemachus gave a small squawk to feel the
timbers shake ever so slightly and Olivia desisted.

"How could they?" Telemachus shook his head, patting his bedewed brow dry with a
folded pocket handkerchief. "They were only infants!" A hot flush overwhelmed
his sallow cheeks. "And I do not wish to discuss such--such carnal matters while
we are under this sacred roof!"

"Don't fret about Miss Drummond's choice of language for my sake, Telemachus,"
the vicar replied with a superior chuckle. "I am quite understanding, even if
the Church is not. Back to the soft. It always proves to he too much for your
urbanized souls, no matter the age. The ancient fertility of the land. The Great
Mother's siren song. I'm not at all surprised. Your neck of the woods is rife
with nodes of chthonic power, Telemachus. Doesn't a day go by that some young
sprig of a folklorist isn't discovering a strangely isolated village in the
hinterlands whose inhabitants still cling stubbornly to the Old Religion, bound
to the earth by more than a tenant's agreement, serving arcane and ageless
deities, worshipping the fructifying forces in ways that aren't quite C. of E."
He lifted one corner of his perfect lips in a knowledgeable smile. "Don't look
so altogether scandalized, it's only good business practice to familiarize
oneself with the competition."

"Oh, for pity's sake!" Exasperation made Olivia's cheesy complexion acquire just
the hint of color along the hatchet-blades of her cheeks. "The Great Mother had
no more to do with it than my mother. These so-called 'kids' Tilly's mum caught
having it off in the pergola were a hot young village stallion of about twenty
and the sixteen-year-old sis of one of the Blitz babies. She had dugs like a
pair of V-l's and the morals of a Corn Goddess! Lady Battle-Purfitt doused the
pair of them with the contents of her watering can, hauled them off to the
village church, and stood guard over'em with a loaded reticule until the banns
were read and they were safely married." She strode the length of the nave like
Nelson traversing the deck of the Victory, then added, "Besides,
Kingsfield-on-Ouse is hardly the fertility-mad hinterland you're so daft for.
It's in Sussex!"

Father Herrick's classically handsome face remained impassive. "So is this other
village I've been talking about. Lies within hailing distance of Kingsfield, as
a matter of fact, in a thickly forested part of the mountains, or so my sources
say."