Full Tide by Celine Conway Read Free Book Online Page B

choice. “I hate stories about horses. I don’t mind dogs and cats, or even jungle animals, but horses are too smug and understanding in books. I won’t read that one, Lee!”
    Lisa shepherded her out of the reading room. It’s a famous book, so it must b e true to life. he ponies in it are real—it says so on the dust cover.”
    “I don’t care. I won’t read about horses. ”
    By now they were on deck where chairs were lined up facing the sea, and passengers were readjusting the notches to their individual requirements. Regardless of onlookers, Nancy took a determined stance in the middle of the deck.
    “When did you last read one?” asked Lisa patiently.
    “Oh, a year or so ago. It was sludgy.”
    “You must have been unlucky, and anyway, your taste in literature will have developed since then.”
    “Will it?” This was a novel item to learn about oneself. “If that’s true I expect I shall like them even less now.”
    “Not necessarily. One sometimes acquires tolerance and the critical faculty at the same time.” Lisa warmed slightly to the topic, though she knew better than to sound in the least dogmatic. “I read somewhere that children always like books about ponies, and it reminded me that I was never keen on them when I was young. I wondered if I’d missed something worthwhile. I tell you what, Nancy. Read this book and see if you can genuinely pick it to pieces.”
    “It’s a waste of time when there are so many nicer books.” But the opposition was weakening. “I dislike children who talk to horses as if they were human.”
    “So do I,” agreed Lisa, with more diplomacy than truth. “But let’s be absolutely fair. You prefer dogs and cats, and maybe in Africa they make pets of monkeys. There happen also to be children who love horses. You believe in pleasing yourself about such things, don’t you?”
    Nancy sighed. “There you go again, appealing to my sense of justice. You’re ... you’re insidious, Lee!”
    A chuckle came from a chair nearby and Lisa traced it to a thin woman of about forty, whose greying dark curls had been blown into a tangle by the breeze. She wore rather too much jewellery, but her eyes were bright and brown and her mouth humorous. Nancy gave one of the stiff little smiles she reserved for importunate adults and, with sudden dignity, walked u p the deck.
    “Don’t sit in the sun, Nancy,” Lisa called after her.
    “An intelligent child,” commented the woman, “and you handle her deftly, if I may say so. It always gives me immense pleasure to hear children reasoned with, because they invariably respond to it.”
    “She can be rigid,” laughed Lisa, “but the steward was so eager in his praise of the book that I had to take it. Next time I’ll send Nancy to deal with him herself.”
    “And I guarantee she’ll do the choosing! How old is she?”
    “Nearly eleven, but she thinks almost like a grown-up.” Lisa leaned back upon the rail, fading the other woman. “I shall miss her frightfully.”
    The two chatted for a while . Her companion, Lisa learned, was Laura Basson, the English widow of a South African business man. She had a son and a daughter at school in Cape Town and was now on her way to bring them home.
    “They’re fourteen and sixteen—a nasty age to change school—but I want them near me, add I’ve no alternative to living in England. I never stayed long enough in one place to have friends in South Africa, but I have a relative or two at home. I’m not the solitary sort. I ca n’ t get along without friends. It’s different when one has a husband.”
    She was wealthy. Her several rings were encrusted with diamonds and sapphires, and the necklace she wore carelessly with a linen suit had the depth and purity of pearls straight from the ocean bed. But gems are no substitute for human relationships, and Laura Basson admitted that her days were long and her nights often sleepless. Luckily she had retained her sense of humor, but at