Far Horizons by Kate Hewitt Read Free Book Online Page A

already, but clearly it was not enough, or at least not what he wanted.
    “Why should I hire a man when I have a son?” David demanded.
    Harriet couldn't answer. This argument had been going on for months. Ian was desperate to continue his lessons. He'd a far better head for books than cows or corn. Harriet continued to stand between him and their father, in an attempt to keep him with the tutor in Tobermory for as long as possible. Now she wondered just how long that would be.
    David looked like he wanted to argue, but then with a sigh he shook his head and retired to one of the front rooms of the house that he used as his study. Harriet sank tiredly into the rocking chair by the fire. She reached into her apron pocket as she had several times already that day to feel the bundle of letters Allan had returned. They were both a comfort and a wound.
    Would it always be like this, she wondered as she gazed into the orange embers of the fire. Would the rest of her life be spent waiting, smoothing over the ruffled waters of this family while dreaming of the day when she’d have her own?
    Since the death of their mother, Harriet had always stood between David and her siblings. It wasn't easy. Ian and Eleanor were both sensitive children, and David had turned into a sour, embittered man when his beloved wife had been taken from him in childbirth.
    It was only catching the glimpses of the loving father she remembered that kept Harriet strong, determined to bind her family together with ties of love. Yet those glimpses had become rarer, and the recent knowledge of her father’s refusal to consider Allan’s suit made her wonder how she could continue to endure.
    Eleanor came around the corner of the kitchen, her toes peeking from underneath her nightgown, one tawny plait lying over her shoulder. “Will you read me a story, Harriet?”
    “You can read them yourself,” Harriet protested, but Eleanor simply held her hands out in mute appeal. Harriet knew it wasn’t the stories, but rather the closeness, that both of them cherished. Smiling tiredly she rose from the rocking chair.
    “All right, then.”
    Upstairs, with her knees drawn up to her chest, her nightgown tucked neatly around her ankles, Eleanor looked younger than her eleven years. Harriet felt a fierce pang of love for the little sister she’d raised like her own child. She’d been twelve when Eleanor was born, and her mother had died. In the course of a single night Harriet had left her childhood behind, and taken on the burdens of the household as well as a bairn. David’s sister, her Aunt Elsie and a widow, had helped for a few years until illness had claimed her as well. Then Harriet had truly taken on the running of Achlic Farm... and she’d never stopped.
    “What shall we read, then?” she asked Eleanor as she sat on the edge of her bed. Eleanor smiled and held out the already worn copy of The History of Little Henry and His Bearer , an adventure story set in India written by the ever-popular Mary Martha Sherwood. “Again?” Harriet asked, amused. “You’ve read it a dozen times at least. She must write something new for you to read.”
    “New books hardly ever come this way,” Eleanor said, and Harriet nodded her agreement. Any book besides the Bible was a precious thing indeed on the island, or even in all of Western Scotland.
    “Well, it’s a good story, at least,” she said with a smile. “I suppose we could read it a few more times.” She opened the book and began to read. “Henry L-- was born at Dinapore, in the East Indies...”
    After half an hour or so Harriet saw Eleanor’s eyelids start to flutter and she closed the book. “Sleep, I think.”
    “Very well.” Eleanor rested her chin on top of her knees, gazing at her sister with sleepy yet thoughtful eyes. “Are you very sad, now that Allan is gone?”
    Harriet traced the embroidered design on the counterpane with one finger. She couldn’t quite meet her little sister’s eyes,