Memories of You by Benita Brown Read Free Book Online

Partington be cross with me?’
    â€˜No, I don’t suppose so. But Mrs Reynolds would be.’ She saw Elsie’s look of puzzlement and continued, ‘Mrs Reynolds is the housekeeper and she’s an old termagant.’
    Elsie remembered Mrs Reynolds. She was the older lady dressed in black who had come into the bathroom. She wasn’t sure what a termagant was but she suspected it wasn’t very nice.
    Susan looked around the room. ‘If you want to take a doll to bed with you how about this one?’ She took the baby doll from the cradle then frowned and put it back again. ‘Perhaps not. If it fell out of bed its pretty china face might break. What about Gretel, here?’ She picked up the wooden doll dressed like a little Dutch girl.
    Elsie looked at the doll solemnly. ‘She wouldn’t be very cuddly, would she?’
    â€˜I suppose not. Well, how about the teddy bear?’
    Elsie nodded.
    â€˜Right. Back into bed with you. I’ll tuck you in.’
    Susan built up the fire a little and placed a cinder guard before the fireplace. ‘Night, night,’ she said. Then she picked up the tray and left the room, closing the door after her.
    Elsie pulled the teddy bear towards her and discovered that it was not at all cuddly. It might have nice silky fur but its limbs and body were stiff. She pushed it away from her and hoped that it wouldn’t be too long before she was reunited with Maisie.

Chapter Three

    Aunt Jane led the way upstairs. Helen noticed how she had to grip the banister rail and that she was out of breath by the time they reached the top. Her aunt opened one of the bedroom doors and stood back to allow Helen to enter. ‘This is your room. Unpack your things then come down for a bite of supper. And get that look off your face. You’d think you’d be over the moon to have a lovely room to yourself in a house like this.’ Not waiting for an answer she hurried along the landing and down the stairs.
    Helen put her suitcase down, looked around and saw nothing that was lovely. The faded oversized cabbage roses on the wallpaper made the small room look even smaller. The matching curtains didn’t quite reach the windowsill. Helen guessed they must have shrunk in the wash, and judging by the whiff of household soap they hadn’t been rinsed properly.
    She pushed the net curtain aside and looked out into the shadowy street of semi-detached houses. Streetlamps shed pools of light on the pavement between the bare-branched trees. Low brick walls and neat privet hedges enclosed small gardens. Porch lights above some of the front doors shone a welcome for people arriving home from work. This was what was known as a respectable suburb. It was only a few miles away and yet it was so different from the rows of old houses tumbling down the steep hill towards the river where Helen had been born and spent all her life so far.
    She had been happy there. Her mother had kept their small house clean and warm. She had seen to it that there was always sufficient coal, at least for the fire in the kitchen range if not the parlour, and enough pennies for the meter so that the gas lamps could shed their warm glow on a winter night. Helen shivered. Her aunt’s house was cold and this room above the porch probably the coldest in it. The electric light with its dim bulb and frosted glass shade did nothing to disperse the chill.
    Smoky mist had begun to curl its way along the avenue and the houses opposite became vague outlines. Somehow they looked less solid, suggesting to Helen’s overwrought senses that this was only a dream. She stared out for a moment longer and then sighed. This wasn’t a dream; she wasn’t going to wake up and find her mother presiding over the teapot at the kitchen table and her brothers, her sister and herself eating bread and jam and talking about what had happened at their different schools that day.
    Helen drew the curtains. She