Summer's Awakening Read Free

but timorous. As long as she had Cyprian with her, and could read until she felt sleepy, being alone in her part of the house didn't bother her in the least.
    Cyprian was a large woollen caterpillar, knitted with green and black wool and stuffed with kapok by Emily's former Nanny. Now that she was nearly fourteen, she was inclined to be sheepish about her love for her toy. But Summer understood her feelings—she had once loved a threadbare white rabbit with a red felt coat, a carrot attached to one paw. She could still remember her sense of outraged betrayal when, returning to the cottage after a term at university, she discovered Miss Ewing had burnt him as a piece of unwanted clutter.
    'Summer! You'll never guess. Something terrific has happened,' Emily exclaimed delightedly, as soon as she saw her.
    Although small for her age, much too thin and with no present claim to prettiness, in moments of animation she had an evanescent charm which made Summer think that one day she might be a beauty. She had red hair and hazel eyes and, in summer, a tendency to freckle. In winter she always looked pale and what Mrs Wright called 'peaky', meaning not well.
    'Oh, really? What?' Summer asked.
    At first she didn't connect her charge's excitement with the news imparted by Conway.
    'My wicked Uncle James has turned up—and he doesn't seem wicked at all. He seems very nice. I like him,' Emily announced.
    'When did you meet him?'
    'Last night. He saw my light from the Blue Room and he came and introduced himself.'
    'Wasn't that rather alarming?'
    'I did wonder who it could be when I heard his footsteps in the passage, but it obviously wasn't a burglar—they creep about with a torch, and he knew where the light switches were. I could hear him coming from miles away. He walks like General Cadbury.'
    Summer had met the General, an old man of upright bearing and piercing glance. She had seen him marching about the village, glaring with disapprobation at youths in black leathers slouched astride powerful motorbikes, eating fish and chips from polystyrene dishes.
    She would not have expected the wastrel James Lancaster to bear even a slight resemblance to the stiff-necked, reactionary General. But Emily was an observant child and if she said he did, he must do so.
    'What makes you like him?' she asked.
    'Lots of things. He has a nice smile... and nice teeth.' Emily always noticed people's teeth. 'He reminded me of Lion Gardiner. I mean I should think Lion probably looked a lot like James. He says I needn't call him Uncle.'
    From this it was clear to Summer that her charge's first description of him as 'very nice' had been an understatement. To be likened to Lion Gardiner, who had recently replaced the Chevalier Bayard as Emily's current beau ideal, he must be a man of quite exceptional charm.
    But was that charm natural or calculated, Summer wondered uneasily.
    While Emily's father was alive, he had run the estate and the home-farm, in consultation with his father. After the Edgedale's bodies had been brought back to England and interred in the family vault in the parish churchyard, the old man had interviewed several prospective farm managers. None had proved suitable and, up to the time of his death, a nucleus of loyal and conscientious staff, who had never worked anywhere else, had kept the place going as before.
    Whether, because of his long estrangement from his younger son, Emily was now her grandfather's heir, Summer had no idea. It was only just over a fortnight since the second funeral. Since then the future of the Castle and its occupants had been a matter for conjecture.
    One thing was certain—in no circumstances would a child of thirteen have any immediate control over such an inheritance. It would be in the hands of trustees until she was eighteen or more.
    But it could be that her trustees would, from now on, include James Lancaster; or that, by virtue of his ability to save the family from extinction, he could overset a will