"Stewart, Mary - Thorny Hold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mary Stewart - Thorny Hold)

She was already turning away, no doubt with clothes-lists and school
trunks in her mind. And also, as I think I knew even then, the
delectable prospect of eight months of the year free of the presence of
a daughter. She did not reply. i "Daddy, do I have to?"

"Your mother thinks it best." He let it slide, uneasy, but always
kind. A hand went to his pocket, and came out with half-a-crown.

"Here, Jilly. Get him a feeding-bowl of his own. Wood's shop has some
with dog on them. I noticed yesterday. And keep the change."

The dog licked my face. It seemed he liked the taste of tears, because
he licked it again.

The school that was chosen eventually was an Anglican convent, of
which Cousin Geillis, safely out of reach on the Atlantic, would have
violently disapproved. My mother, indeed, made her protest. Leaning
out of my bedroom
window one summer evening, I overheard my parents talking beside the
open window of my father's study just below me.

"My daughter to be brought up by nuns? Absurd!" That was my mother.

"She is my daughter too."

"That's what you think," said my mother, so softly that I barely caught
it.

I heard him laugh. I said he was a saint, and he adored her, always.

It never occurred to him to interpret what she said as another man
might have done.

"I know, my dear. She has your brains, and one day she may have a
little of your beauty, but I have some claim to her, too. Remember
what the old sexton used to say?"

My mother knew when she had gone too far, and never fought a rear guard
action. I heard the smile in her voice. " " Thee cannat deny thysel'
o' that one, Vicar. " And neither you can, dear Harry. She's lucky
there to have got your dark hair, and those grey eyes that I always
said were far too beautiful to be wasted on a man... Very well. The
convent does seem good enough, if the prospectus is anything to go by.
But there's this other one where's the booklet got to? This sounds
just as good, and not much dearer."

"But much further away. Devonshire? Think of the train fares. Don't
worry, my dear. I know these places are not renowned for scholarship,
but-" "That's what I meant. They may try to turn 'her out
religious."