LIGHT A PENNY CANDLE
LIGHT A PENNY CANDLE
‘A really marvellous book. I couldn’t put it down’
Philippa Toomey, The Times
‘A warm, Irish, tearjerkingly readable brew’
Yorkshire Post
‘An enjoyable book and what fun to read’
Time Out
‘Evocative and chatty: it brims over with warmth and vitality’
Exeter Press
‘Poignant, funny and seductive’
Daily Express
‘Charming: one of the sunniest novels in a decade’
Sunday Independent
‘Generous, warm and perceptive … a compassionate, absorbing, megawatt read’
Jilly Cooper
‘A massive, powerful novel’
Tribune
‘The most enjoyable book I have come across for a long time’
Huddersfald Daily Examiner
‘A fine moving novel. Miss Binchy is a true storyteller’
‘Miss Binchy writes beautifully’
Success
Punch
‘This very fine novel deserves every rave review it has received’
Publishers Weekly
CORONET BOOKS Hodder and Stoughton
Copyright ŠMaeve Binchy 1982
First published in Great Britain 1982 by Century Publishing Co. Ltd.
Coronet edition 1983 British Library C.I.P.
Binchy, Maeve
Light a penny candle. (Coronet
books) I. Title 823’.914[F] PR6052.I7728
ISBN 0-340-33784-2
For dearest Gordon with all my love
The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which this is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Printed and bound in Great Britain for Hodder and Stoughton Paperbacks, a division of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, Mill Road, Dunton Green, Sevenoaks, Kent (Editorial Office: 47 Bedford Square, London, WC1 3DP) by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk. Photoset by Rowland Phototypesetting Ltd, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
It had been very dull and matter-of-fact in the coroner’s court. No great raised bench with wigged judges, no dock, no uniformed police calling down the corridors for the next person to appear. It was actually quite like an ordinary office; there were books in glassfronted cases, and lino on the floor -at one corner it had definitely been nibbled or chewed by something.
Outside, the world was going on normally. Buses passed by, no one stopped to see them. A man in a taxi read his newspaper and didn’t even raise his eyes as the little group came out on to the street.
Both the women wore black, but then they would have worn black anyway if they had been going somewhere formal. Aisling wore a black velvet blazer over a grey dress. It was an outfit that made her copper hair look even more coppery than usual. Elizabeth wore her good black coat. She had bought it at a January sale two years before for half price and the sales woman had said it was the only genuine bargain in the store. ‘It’ll take you anywhere, my dear,’ she had said, and Elizabeth had liked the sound of that… it reminded her of a magic carpet.
Although the rest of the world took no notice, the little group watched them for a moment. Elizabeth, putting her hand up over her eyes as she turned the corner, came out on to the steps leading down into the street. Aisling stood on the steps already. They looked at each other for a long time -probably only seconds, but that can be a long time.…