Black Rainbow by KATHY Read Free Book Online Page A

out of her breast and fell with a thud onto the gravel.
    He had been a long time coming. The letter announcing his departure from London had been followed, not by Edmund himself, but by a succession of bundles and boxes and parcels. The servants speculated endlessly as to their contents, and Lina kept creeping into the room where they were placed to pick at the knots and pry at the nails. She was sure some of the parcels contained presents for her. Jane admitted this might be so, but insisted on waiting till "Uncle Edmund" came home.
    The house and gardens were as fine as Lizzie could make them. She had driven the servants till even that good-natured crew began to grumble, and one little housemaid had hysterics when criticized for leaving dust on the springs of Edmund's bed. Not that his room had been neglected; Lizzie had "turned it out" once a week, dripping tears on the furniture and floor when the war news was particularly bad. But when she heard Edmund was on his way home, it required four housemaids working for four days to clean it properly.
    Even Jane lost her cool composure and rushed from the mill to the kitchen to the garden. The books must be in perfect order to show Edmund; the damask rose he had once admired must be coaxed to bloom; she would make his favorite food with her own hands—there was one rich plum cake she alone could concoct. Lina flew around the house like a miniature cyclone, and Megan was too excited to make more than a pretense at lessons.
    Edmund's delay gave them time to accomplish all these things, even the Herculean amount of cleaning Lizzie considered necessary. On the day of his arrival, half the household was looking out the windows, on one pretense or another; and when the cry, "There he is!" went up, they dropped whatever they were doing and ran to the door.
    Just as it was in the old days, Megan thought, as she watched Edmund dismount—the adoring tenantry crowding around to greet the young lord. He had a kind word for everyone and a hearty hug for Lizzie. Then he turned to Jane.
    She had hung back a little. Lina clung to her skirts and stared openmouthed at the tall figure advancing toward her. For a moment brother and sister gazed at one another in silence. The top of Jane's smooth brown head did not even reach Edmund's shoulder; her face was turned up, as if tilted by the weight of the heavy bun at the back of her neck. Their faces were grave, and Megan's sympathetic imagination told her why; they were thinking of the man who should have been the first to greet the wanderer. Edmund's father had died soon after he left for the Crimea.
    Then Jane put out her arms and Edmund lifted her off her feet in the exuberance of his greeting.
    "You have shrunk," he exclaimed. "I told you it would happen, if you persisted in walking in the rain.... Jane, Jane, how good it is to be home!"
    "I am half an inch taller than I was when you went away," Jane protested. "It is barely possible that you are the one who has grown. But here is someone who has grown even more—comparatively speaking!"
    She lifted Lina in her arms. The child had been dressed in her best white muslin, frilled and ruffled and embroidered with flowers and butterflies by Aunt Jane's clever fingers. Golden ringlets clustered around her flushed face, and her eyes were as blue as cornflowers. The finger on which she was nervously sucking did not improve the total picture, but all in all she was a child of whom any adoptive father could be proud.
    Edmund held out his arms. His eyes were filled with tears.
    Lina shrank away. "Why is he crying?" she asked. "Why is the man crying?"
    "Because he is happy," Jane said, and laughed at the foolishness of it.
    Disconcerted by Lina's cool reception, Edmund resorted to bribery. "I am your guardian, Caroline, and I have come home to stay. There are some pretty presents for you in the parcels I sent home. Come with me and we will open them."
    An angelic smile spread over Lina's face. She toppled