Read Online Summer's Awakening by Anne Weale - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Anne Weale
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brought down from her bedroom to hang above the fireplace, and at the needle-point cushions, or pillows as her mother would have called them, she had stitched as a change from always reading in the evenings.
'You're very tidy,' he said. 'Do you do your own housework?'
'People in houses of this size usually do, if you remember. Did you expect me to live in chaos?'
Her grey eyes, always friendly and gentle when she looked at Emily, met his with a steelier expression.
'What is it you want to discuss with me, Mr Gardiner?' Deliberately, she refrained from offering to take his coat.
He took it off anyway, folded the wet side innermost, and threw it across an upright chair.
'Maybe discuss is the wrong word. I've decided on a course of action, now it's up to you to decide if you're willing to go along with it. Shall we sit down?'
To ask that had been her prerogative. But the only prerogatives he would respect were his own, she thought crossly as she sat down.
Having suggested they sit, he chose to remain on his feet, casting his eye along the titles on the bookshelves in the alcove on the far side of the chimney-breast.
'I've a house on the west coast of Florida—the Gulf of Mexico side,' he told her. 'I'm going to send Emily there for the rest of the winter, and I'd like you to go over with her. There's a large swimming pool in the grounds. I'm told that running is the worst exercise for asthmatics, and swimming is the best. It has to do with the weight of the body being supported by the water so that the total amount of energy used is less than in most other exercises.'
Not for the first time that evening she was silent after he stopped speaking. But not from annoyance or discomfiture.
For some moments Summer was overwhelmed. To return, at long last, to her homeland... to escape from an English winter to a climate where swimming was possible...
Although not a good small-boat sailor, she had always loved being in the water and had swum from an early age until her departure from America. It had been her favourite activity.
'I'd be happy to go there with Emily,' she told him, her enthusiasm for his plan tempered by her detestation of its author.
He didn't appear to be gratified by this reaction. Clearly he would have been surprised and put out if she hadn't acceded to it.
'Is your passport in order?'
'No, it expired some years ago.'
'That can be remedied. Call the Embassy first thing tomorrow and find out the drill. Do you rent this place, or do you own it?'
'It belongs to me.'
Now he did sit down—in the armchair opposite hers.
'What are the chances of finding a tenant for it?'
'I have no idea. But I don't think there would be much point in attempting to let it. I'd prefer to leave it standing empty and arrange for someone to keep an eye on it. It's not a damp cottage—I shan't come back in the spring to find it full of mildew.'
'In the spring I shall probably move Emily up to Cape Cod. She won't be coming back here.'
'I see. When will she come back?'
'Maybe in five or six years if she wants to revisit old haunts. Certainly not before then, and maybe never if she finds America as much to her liking as I do.'
'I... I don't understand what you mean.'
'Emily is in the same situation that you were, Miss Roberts. The only person willing and able to take care of her lives in another country. Therefore she must adapt to a different way of life in a new place. Had she been at a boarding school, she could have continued her education in England and spent the vacations in America. As things are, she has you to be a link between her old life and her new one. I think she'll find the transition considerably less painful than it was for you.'
Summer stared at him for a moment; her own feelings forgotten. Her only concern for the child.
'But her situation isn't the same as mine was. I was left with nothing... and I did have some English blood in me. My mother had talked about England, and I knew a great deal about it.
'You're very tidy,' he said. 'Do you do your own housework?'
'People in houses of this size usually do, if you remember. Did you expect me to live in chaos?'
Her grey eyes, always friendly and gentle when she looked at Emily, met his with a steelier expression.
'What is it you want to discuss with me, Mr Gardiner?' Deliberately, she refrained from offering to take his coat.
He took it off anyway, folded the wet side innermost, and threw it across an upright chair.
'Maybe discuss is the wrong word. I've decided on a course of action, now it's up to you to decide if you're willing to go along with it. Shall we sit down?'
To ask that had been her prerogative. But the only prerogatives he would respect were his own, she thought crossly as she sat down.
Having suggested they sit, he chose to remain on his feet, casting his eye along the titles on the bookshelves in the alcove on the far side of the chimney-breast.
'I've a house on the west coast of Florida—the Gulf of Mexico side,' he told her. 'I'm going to send Emily there for the rest of the winter, and I'd like you to go over with her. There's a large swimming pool in the grounds. I'm told that running is the worst exercise for asthmatics, and swimming is the best. It has to do with the weight of the body being supported by the water so that the total amount of energy used is less than in most other exercises.'
Not for the first time that evening she was silent after he stopped speaking. But not from annoyance or discomfiture.
For some moments Summer was overwhelmed. To return, at long last, to her homeland... to escape from an English winter to a climate where swimming was possible...
Although not a good small-boat sailor, she had always loved being in the water and had swum from an early age until her departure from America. It had been her favourite activity.
'I'd be happy to go there with Emily,' she told him, her enthusiasm for his plan tempered by her detestation of its author.
He didn't appear to be gratified by this reaction. Clearly he would have been surprised and put out if she hadn't acceded to it.
'Is your passport in order?'
'No, it expired some years ago.'
'That can be remedied. Call the Embassy first thing tomorrow and find out the drill. Do you rent this place, or do you own it?'
'It belongs to me.'
Now he did sit down—in the armchair opposite hers.
'What are the chances of finding a tenant for it?'
'I have no idea. But I don't think there would be much point in attempting to let it. I'd prefer to leave it standing empty and arrange for someone to keep an eye on it. It's not a damp cottage—I shan't come back in the spring to find it full of mildew.'
'In the spring I shall probably move Emily up to Cape Cod. She won't be coming back here.'
'I see. When will she come back?'
'Maybe in five or six years if she wants to revisit old haunts. Certainly not before then, and maybe never if she finds America as much to her liking as I do.'
'I... I don't understand what you mean.'
'Emily is in the same situation that you were, Miss Roberts. The only person willing and able to take care of her lives in another country. Therefore she must adapt to a different way of life in a new place. Had she been at a boarding school, she could have continued her education in England and spent the vacations in America. As things are, she has you to be a link between her old life and her new one. I think she'll find the transition considerably less painful than it was for you.'
Summer stared at him for a moment; her own feelings forgotten. Her only concern for the child.
'But her situation isn't the same as mine was. I was left with nothing... and I did have some English blood in me. My mother had talked about England, and I knew a great deal about it.
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