"Jo Walton - Farthing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Walton Jo)

because of you, and IтАЩve never given a damn about those people one way or the other and you should
know that.тАЭ

For a moment he kept on looking pained. Then he smiled and hugged me, and for the time being
everything was all right again.

He took my hand and we walked out into the garden, where MummyтАЩs ghastly bash was now in full
swing.

What I was thinking as we walked out there was that David and I really did have a tremendous amount in
common, books and music and ways of thinking about things. I donтАЩt mean usual ways of thinking,
because IтАЩm scatterbrained and not really very bright while David is tremendously clever, of course. But
time after time weтАЩll come to the same conclusions about whether something is sound, starting from
different places and using different methods of logic. David never bores me and he never gives me the
feeling that other tremendously brainy people IтАЩve known have given me of leaving me streets behind. We
can talk about anything, except perhaps some of the trickier bits of our own relationship. There are some
things best left to the subconscious, after all, as David himself says.

I gave his hand an extra squeeze just because I loved him, and he looked down at me, for once not
picking up what I meant but thinking I wanted something. So I put my face up to be kissed, and that was
how we snubbed stupid insensitive Angela Thirkie, who was married to the most boring man in England,
who everyone knows didnтАЩt even want her, he wanted her sister, by kissing like newlyweds on the lawn
when in fact weтАЩd been married eight whole months and really ought to be settling down to life as old
respectable married people.

But anyway, when I heard that Sir James Thirkie had been murdered, thatтАЩs the first thing I thought of,
Angela Thirkie being mean to David the afternoon before, and IтАЩm afraid the first thing to go through my
mind, although fortunately I managed to catch the train before it got out of the tunnel that time so I didnтАЩt
say so, was that it well and truly served her right.
2



Inspector Peter Anthony Carmichael had been vaguely aware that Farthing was a country house in
Hampshire; but before the murder he had only really heard of it in a political context. тАЬThe Farthing Set,тАЭ
the newspapers would say, meaning a group of loosely connected movers and shakers, politicians,
soldiers, socialites, financiers: the people who had brought peace to England. By peace was meant not
ChamberlainтАЩs precarious тАЬpeace in our timeтАЭ but the lasting тАЬPeace with HonourтАЭ after weтАЩd fought
Hitler to a standstill. The Inspector included himself in that тАЬweтАЭтАФas a young lieutenant heтАЩd been one of
the last to get away from Dunkirk. HeтАЩd cautiously welcomed the peace when it came, although at that
point heтАЩd had a sneaking fondness for crazy old ChurchillтАЩs fighting rhetoric and been afraid Hitler
couldnтАЩt be trusted. тАЬThis Farthing Peace isnтАЩt worth a farthing,тАЭ Churchill had wheezed, and the
newspapers had shown him holding up a farthing mockingly.

But time had showed that the Farthing Set were right. The Continent was the Continent and England was
England, and old Adolf admired England and had no territorial ambitions across the Channel. Nine years
had been enough to test the terms of the Farthing Peace and show that England and the Reich could be
good friends. The Farthing Set had been vindicated and stayed at the centers of power. And now there
had been a murder in Farthing House, so Farthing changed its meaning for him again and Inspector
Carmichael found himself being driven through a green, peaceful, and very beautiful England on a Sunday