I, Richard - Elizabeth George [5]
Frances's hair was gray. Not that stunning white that some women are blessed with but battleship gray. She had a lot of it, which was fortunate, but the dullness of its colour made her look dour at even her best moments. And this not being one of her best moments, she looked pretty much the worse for wear.
“Amazing what lack of sleep can do to one, isn't it?” Noreen Tucker murmured with great meaning as the Clearys approached the rest of the students after posing cooperatively—at least on Sam's part—for Polly's picture. “Ralph, you haven't forgotten your nuts and chews, have you, sweetie? We don't want any crises in the hallowed halls of Abinger Manor this morning.”
Ralph's answer comprised a downward motion with his thumb in the direction of his waist. This was easily interpretable: The plastic bag in which he kept his trail mix was pluming out of his safari jacket like the tail of an infant marsupial.
“If you feel the shakes coming, you have a handful of that right away,” Noreen instructed him. “No waiting around for permission from someone, you hear me, Ralph?”
“Will do, will do.” Ralph meandered over to the lunch bags next to the Queen's Gate and huffed his way down to pick two of them out of the wicker basket.
“That guy'll be lucky to make it to sixty,” Cleve Houghton said to Howard Breen. “And what're you doing to take care of yourself?”
“Showering only with friends,” Howard replied.
They were joined then by Victoria Wilder-Scott, who steamed in their direction in her khaki and madras with her glasses perched on the top of her head and a three-ring binder clutched to her bony chest. She squinted at her students as if perplexed by the fact that they were out of focus. A moment later, she realised why.
She said, “Oops, the specs! Right, then,” and lowered them to her nose as she continued breezily. “You've all read your brochures, I trust? And the second chapter in Great Houses of the British Isles? So we're all perfectly clear on what we're going to see at Abinger Manor? That marvelous collection of Meissen that you saw in your textbook. The finest in England. The paintings by Gainsborough, Le Brun, Turner, Constable, and Reynolds. That lovely piece by Whistler. The Holbein. The rococo silver. Some remarkable furniture. The Italian sculptures. All those wonderful period clothes. The gardens are exquisite, by the way: They rival Sissinghurst. And the park… Well, we won't have time to see all of it, but we'll do our best. You have your notebooks? Your cameras?”
“Polly has hers,” Noreen pointed out. “I believe that makes any others redundant.”
Victoria blinked in the direction of their class historian. From the first, she'd made no secret of the fact that she approved of Polly's zeal, and she only wished more of her students were willing to throw themselves into the Cambridge experience in like manner. To Victoria, that was the trouble with agreeing to teach these summer sessions in the first place: They were generally flooded by well-to-do Americans whose idea of learning stopped at watching television documentaries from the comfort of their living room sofas.
“Yes, well,” Victoria said and beamed at Polly. “Have you documented our pending departure?”
“Get over by the gate, you guys,” Polly said in answer. “Let's have a group shot before we take off.”
“You pose with the others,” Victoria said. “I'll take the picture.”
“Not with this camera,” Polly said. “It's got a light meter fit only for an Einstein. No one can figure it out. It belonged to my grandpa.”
“Is your grandfather still alive, then?” Noreen asked archly. “He must be… what, Polly? Terribly old. Seventy perhaps?”
“Not a bad guess,” Polly said. “He's seventy-two.”
“A real antique.”
“Yeah. But he's a tough old geezer and completely full of—” Polly stopped herself. Her gaze