LITMIR.BIZ

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE ROOM WAS large, shabbily furnished and inadequately heated by old fashioned radiators, its discomforts heightened by virtue of the dull April morning. Its occupants sat round the heavy old fashioned table in the middle of the room eating their breakfast, presided over by a young woman whose large, long lashed hazel eyes redeemed an otherwise ordinary face from plainness. She was very neat, with pale brown hair coiled on the top of her head. As much of her person as was visible above the table, was clad in a knitted sweater which looked faded by most standards but was carefully pressed. She poured tea from the large pot before her while she listened to a girl of fifteen or so, sitting at the other end of the table. The girl was pretty, fair haired and blue eyed, her prettiness marred by a sulky mouth.

      ‘I think Mother’s mean to make me have my meals with you and the children,’ she declared. ‘Just because she swans around with her boyfriends and doesn’t want any competition I have to stay here in the schoolroom. Well, I won’t and no one can stop me.’

      She glared defiantly at the girl she was addressing who said bracingly, ‘Don’t talk like that in front of the children, Chloë. Why don’t you go down presently and have a talk with your mother? But you are only fifteen you know.’

      The boy sitting between them spoke with a full mouth. ‘Much good that’ll do you.’ He thrust his cup down the table. ‘Give me some more tea, Cordelia.’

      ‘Please…’

      He turned pale blue eyes on her. ‘Why should I say please? Mother treats you like a servant so I shall too.’

      The hazel eyes took fire but her voice was steady and quiet. ‘We shared the same father, Matthew.’

      ‘And he’s dead. You’ll be stuck here with the twins for years because you’ve nowhere to go.’

      The girl didn’t bother to answer but turned her attention to the two small children sitting at the other side of the table. Six year old twins, a boy and a girl, eating bread and butter and jam and taking no notice of anyone. She had done her best to love them but they weren’t lovable children; her father had died soon after they were born and since her stepmother, who had never wanted them in the first place, ignored them as much as possible, she had tried to be a mother to them, more for her father’s sake, she supposed, for she had loved him. But now after six years, she had to admit that she had very little affection for them, largely because they had shown her none. She remembered very clearly her shock and apprehension when her father had told her that he was to marry again, and produced, almost immediately, a stepmother with two children of her own from a former marriage. Chloë and Matthew had been quite small then but they had looked at her with hostile eyes and although she had done her best to get on good terms with them, she had been defeated, largely because her stepmother had encouraged them, almost from the first day, to treat her as a kind of superior servant. It had been done very subtly, so that her father never had an inkling of what was going on and her stepmother had always been careful to behave charmingly towards her when her father was with them. Cordelia, a girl of spirit but sensible as well, could see no good coming of bringing the true state of affairs to his notice, and now all these years later, she was glad that she hadn’t.

      But now the children didn’t need her; true, they expected her to look after them, much as a governess would, but even the twins at school each day, were quite able to look after themselves. Matthew had just remarked gloatingly that there was nowhere for her to go, but she had every intention of leaving. For several weeks now she had scanned the jobs columns in the newspapers and although there had been nothing which she felt she could tackle, she went on looking. Sooner or later, someone would want a young woman willing and able to cope with a child or children. True, it might mean going from the frying pan into the fire, but at least she would be paid. At present, she had no money of her own; from time to time her stepmother would give her cash for shoes or clothes, but she was expected to make it last and whatever she bought was expected to last, too.

      Chloë pushed back her chair and got up from the table. ‘I’m going to see Mother now,’ she declared.

      ‘Your mother doesn’t like to be disturbed while she’s having her breakfast,’ Cordelia pointed out. ‘I should wait if I were you.’

      ‘Well, I’m not you,’ said Chloë rudely, ‘and I’ll do what I like.’

      Matthew got up too. ‘I’m going fishing,’ he threw over his shoulder. It was nearly the end of the Easter holiday, and Cordelia sighed with relief because in another couple of days he’d be back at school. She finished the tea in her cup and remembered that the twins had been invited to a friend’s house for the morning. She didn’t like the boy they were to visit; he was almost, but not quite a vandal although he was barely eight years old, but her stepmother was a friend of his mother’s and would hear no word against him. They would be unmanageable when they got back from there for lunch, but at least it would leave the morning free for her to get on with sorting out Matthew’s school uniform. She stood over them while they washed their hands and tidied themselves, saw them safely down the short drive and across the village green and then walked briskly back to the house, a red brick Edwardian residence, over embellished with fancy brick work and balconies. Cordelia had never liked it; they had moved there just before her father had died because her stepmother had complained that the little Regency house in a nearby village was far too small. Her father had been ill then, too ill to stand firm against his wife’s insistence, and he’d given in without argument. If I manage to get a job, thought Cordelia, I shan’t miss home at all, for it isn’t a home.

      The papers were in the hall as she went in. The cook and daily maid were in the kitchen, her stepmother wouldn’t come downstairs for another hour. Cordelia snatched up the Telegraph and

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