Strange customs

THE train was slowing. Augustine Brown looked again at the letter in her hand. Exciting news! her sister Cordelia had written. “An unexpected guest at the hotel: Maria Mironova. Exciting news indeed.

OF course, Edwina imagined seeing him everywhere. It was only natural in the circumstances, she supposed, but surely that was just wishful thinking? After all, it simply couldn’t really be Laurence. S

HELLO!” A young woman with red curly hair bounded up as Millicent and Barbara headed to the church, laden with fruit, flowers and foliage. Observing her brightly coloured sweater, hand-knitted chunky

YOU’RE not to touch a single thing in here,” the woman in the kitchen said. She had that look, the look of a servant who thinks herself a cut above the rest. She was all stain-free apron, all hands on

I WAS a nightmare in the early days of my marriage, I admit it. I’d met Johnny on a skiing holiday in Courchevel, where we’d both gone with groups of chums. Johnny was the most daring of us and the be

IF you didn’t do it, who killed your husband?” a voice in the crowd yelled, as Celia was rushed down the building’s back steps and into a waiting car. With the press shouting her name and camera flash