Summer's Awakening by Anne Weale Read Free Book Online Page A

think it was horrid of Granpa to thrash James for every least thing. I don't wonder he ran away.'
    'He does seem to have been rather unruly as a boy,' Summer pointed out. 'He admits he went poaching with an old man called Barty Hicks, and that often they took game on this land.'
    Having said this, she wished she hadn't. She might detest the man herself, and still harbour doubts about the integrity of his motives towards his niece; but he was Emily's only relation and therefore it was better for her to think highly of him, at least till he had disproved his right to her confidence.
    For the child's sake, Summer was sincere in hoping that he would never hurt her as savagely as he had lacerated her own amour propre the day b efore.
    'Oh, I don't count poaching as wicked,' was Emily's dismissive answer. 'I suppose it's stealing in a way—but it's not like taking things from people's houses, or from shops.'
    By one o'clock, having had her mid -morning coffee without milk, sugar or biscuits, Summer was famished.
    For lunch that day they had chicken consomme followed by Dover sole with carrots, braised celery and saute potatoes, and for pudding baked apples with cream.
    It took all her resolution not to take a bread roll when John, the young footman, offered them to her. She also refused the potatoes and ate her apple without cream. The cook, Mrs Briars, had baked four apples for them, but Summer didn't have a second one, nor did she have cheese and biscuits.
    To her relief neither Emily nor John seemed to notice any change in her habits. She rose from the table still feeling hungry but virtuous.
    At four o clock her will-power was severely tested when there were hot crumpets, dripping with butter, for tea. Every afternoon, in winter, there would be either buttered toast or freshly baked scones, brought up to the schoolroom in a covered silver dish with a hot water compartment.
    But crumpets with home-made raspberry jam were one of her particular weaknesses. She almost groaned aloud when Emily lifted the lid from the covered dish and the fragrance of toasted crumpet and melted butter wafted to her nostrils.
    For some time before tea arrived she had been debating whether to admit to Emily that she was dieting, or to give some other reason for her apparent lack of appetite.
    During her last year at school and in her brief time at Oxford, when girls who were sylphs compared with her were always worrying about their figures, she had tried several different reducing diets. Each time something had happened to make it impossible to stick to them. During the time she had known Emily she had made no further attempts to lose weight and had probably put on some pounds.
    She said, 'I'm not going to have a crumpet today. It will spoil my appetite for supper. I'm having a piece of fillet steak tonight.'
    It turned out to be a well-chosen white lie.
    Emily said, 'Oh, are you? We had it last night. I shouldn't have known what it was but Mr Darblay asked James if American beef was as good as it was reputed to be, and he said, "On the whole—yes. But no better than this excellent fillet." And he asked Conway to give Mrs Briars his compliments.'
    While Summer averted her eyes, Emily bit off a mouthful of crumpet and munched enjoyably for some moments before going on, 'Then they had a long talk about meat. James explained to Mr Darblay that porterhouse steaks took their name from the places where travellers used to stop for meals on long coach journeys, and that Texas Longhorns were originally bred from cattle from Andalusia which were used to the heat and lack of water in southern Spain. That was why they were able to stand being herded as far as a thousand miles to the railroad centres. I asked James if he had worked as a cowboy when he first went to America. He laughed and said no, that was one of the few things he hadn't done. But I can imagine him riding the range in jeans and a Stetson, can't you?'
    Summer murmured agreement and drank some tea