An Unconventional Love. Adeline Harris

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ in flickering candles, with our lovely presents waiting underneath, like an unimaginable wonderland. It was only later Mother told me that the man who’d brought the presents was the cotton factory owner from Lancashire to whom she had been engaged for seven years before she met Dad. He heard she had moved to England and came to see her. She laughed as she explained that he wanted to win her back, even though she was married with two children. ‘Poor man!’ she sighed, shaking her head. Anyway, Harold and I got our best Christmas presents ever as a result, so we weren’t complaining.

      January was a grim month of sleet and freezing rain and grey, overcast skies. My grandparents had had enough. They didn’t like the climate, didn’t like the food, didn’t want to stay here, so after three months of an English winter they upped and flew back to Bombay.

      ‘The atmosphere is too damp, Emily. I can’t breathe here,’ her mother said.

      They couldn’t return to their house because it still wasn’t safe, so they gave all their possessions to a convent in Bangalore, in return for which the nuns agreed to take them in and look after them for the rest of their lives.

      ‘Can’t I go too?’ I begged. ‘I could train to be a nun there.’ In my head, I thought Clara could come over and live with me and we would be nuns together. Not a day passed without me missing Clara.

      Dad gave me short shrift. ‘Your school is here. Your parents and your brother are here, and this is where you are going to live. Please try to understand.’

      I didn’t like my school though. If I couldn’t go to Bangalore, I wanted to go to the Ursuline convent in Chester, which had a lovely green and grey uniform, but for some reason Dad wouldn’t let me.

      ‘Let’s see if you pass the Eleven Plus,’ he said. ‘You can go to a different school after that. Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever.’

      Eleven sounded ages away when I was only just seven. ‘But I want to be a nun,’ I insisted. ‘I should go to school in a convent so I can learn how they work.’

      ‘You can become a nun after you’ve finished St Mary’s,’ he said. ‘There’s plenty of time for that.’

      I still felt like the outsider at that school. My family did things differently from all the other families. As a case in point, the rest of the class went swimming every Tuesday in the Crewe swimming baths but Mother didn’t want me to swim there. First of all, I would have to show my arms and legs to everyone else, which wouldn’t be modest and proper. Secondly, I might catch something horrible from the water, or be exposed to some awful disease in the changing rooms.

      I was embarrassed to be the only one in the class who wasn’t allowed to swim, so I took my old ruched swimsuit from the summer and an ancient threadbare towel and I put them in a plastic bag, which I dropped out of my bedroom window into the flowerbed outside. On the way to school on Tuesday morning, I picked up that carrier bag and was able to go swimming with my classmates. After school I hid the bag full of wet things in some bushes in the garden. The following Tuesday morning I picked it up again and the costume and towel were all damp and mouldy and smelled so dreadful that no one would stand beside me, but at least I could go swimming with the others. I did this each week, the smell getting worse until the costume and the towel disintegrated.

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAgEBLAEsAAD/4R0gRXhpZgAATU0AKgAAAAgABwESAAMAAAABAAEAAAEaAAUA AAABAAAAYgEbAAUAAAABAAAAagEoAAMAAAABAAIAAAExAAIAAAAeAAAAcgEyAAIAAAAUAAAAkIdp AAQAAAABAAAApAAAANAALcbAAAAnEAAtxsAAACcQQWRvYmUgUGhvdG9zaG9wIENTNCBNYWNpbnRv c2gAMjAxMDowOToyMSAxNjowODowOAAAA6ABAAMAAAAB//8AAKACAAQAAAABAAAB9qADAAQAAAAB AAAC8gAAAAAAAAAGAQMAAwAAAAEABgAAARoABQAAAAEAAAEeARsABQAAAAEAAAEmASgAAwAAAAEA AgAAAgEABAAAAAEAAAEuAgIABAAAAAEAABvqAAAAAAAAAEgAAAABAAAASAAAAAH/2P/gABBKRklG AAECAABIAEgAAP/tAAxBZG9iZV9DTQAC/+4ADkFkb2JlAGSAAAAAAf/bAIQADAgICAkIDAkJDBEL CgsRFQ8MDA8VGBMTFRMTGBEMDAwMDAwRDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAENCwsN Dg0QDg4QFA4ODhQUDg4ODhQRDAwMDAwREQwMDAwMDBEMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwMDAwM DAwM/8AAEQgAoABrAwEiAAIRAQMRAf/dAAQAB//EAT8AAAEFAQEBAQEBAAAAAAAAAAMAAQIEBQYH CAkKCwEAAQUBAQEBAQEAAAAAAAAAAQACAwQFBgcICQoLEAABBAEDAgQCBQcGCAUDDDMBAAIRAwQh EjEFQVFhEyJxgTIGFJGhsUIjJBVSwWIzNHKC0UMHJZJT8OHxY3M1FqKygyZEk1RkRcKjdDYX0lXi ZfKzhMPTdePzRieUpIW0lcTU5PSltcXV5fVWZnaGlqa2xtbm9jdHV2d3h5ent8fX5/cRAAICAQIE BAMEBQYHBwYFNQEAAhEDITESBEFRYXEiEwUygZEUobFCI8FS0fAzJGLhcoKSQ1MVY3M08SUGFqKy gwcmNcLSRJNUoxdkRVU2dGXi8rOEw9N14/NGlKSFtJXE1OT0pbXF1eX1VmZ2hpamtsbW5vYnN0dX Z3eHl6e3x//aAAwDAQACEQMRAD8A9IsezGrNttji0D6PJJP5oXP5fU8mx7rBZ6c8MBMAfmt/d/8A JonUL7H5LwS+GEtbIdAH7u1WsLFw6ahk3tNth9zZadAR9H3Oaxz9wcqciToNAzx4YizqSx6V1R+4 V5bXhtzhXTkQfTLj9GqY27nfmf5i0Ml4Y5u4HWeBOsj2ofUM7DGK2l7XWDJadjA2BAG71HF5Yxja 3fy9/wDo0m5TcnHpv1l7fdDXRuj3tGn76N6cN3sfxWnX1VW6RuSzboyw8x7fAKbrXA6VPcIB051n 2/2UJz7HQWPtadoG0Vkjkl2lm33O/wC+JgbrJ22XkSR7RU2PvcpBfj9GIlM6ywVlwqJfwGEjw3Tu /wCgkbnsc6aya2NLvUkQYG7bs+kovc8vD9lg2iNm+sNPm5u9yg1r22OsDHHdJLXWjbr/ACA1yOvi m3LquZXcx4aDsdoNewH/AJ7/AMHuWnmZbsbeAWw0Abok7jPt2T7nu/zENuJtuFgqZsbDq273aEfy vTO5n7lajmUOt27xt5BLZcJJ/PJDEyESN+6o0rD6zTcx5ucGtZAe6CCCfosez3fzn+Cex36RVnZu bVfVXkuNO5zmit8AuO17

СКАЧАТЬ