The Girl Under the Olive Tree Read Free

library where the magnificent busts of Milton and Shakespeare peered down at her. Her own scanty education had been imparted by poor Miss Francis, who had tutored her privately for a while, but now Penny was sixteen and a half and not expected to bother with anything other than flower arranging, drawing and ballroom dancing lessons. She longed to go to college, all because of a secret passion that none of her family would ever understand.
    It started when Albert Gregg, the old gardener, gave her a knapped flint he’d found in the garden when she was seven. He’d pointed out how the flint had been worked in ancient times, an arrowhead for hunting. To be touching something thousands of years old thrilled her, sending her digging up the borders to find more treasures. Her mother had been furious when she’d turned up late for tea, covered in mud. Poor Nanny was blamed for this disgrace. It had not stopped Penny searching the ploughed fields for Roman remains, bits of tiles and pottery, which were later hidden in shoe boxes. Once she’d even found a coin stamped with an emperor’s head. She wished she knew Latin so she could understand what it said. Her interest made every walk in the brown Cotswold fields an adventure into history.
    At least Miss Francis let her clean her finds and draw them in her special jotter. That was one thing she was good at: line drawing, sketching in pen and ink. Miss Francis said she had a good eye for accurate representation but not for imaginary stuff.
    Here in the castle library was a whole world of fresh books, including one on her favourite topic:
Digging up the Pas
t by Sir Leonard Woolley. It had pictures of digs in faraway, exotic places: Egypt, Persia and Greece. Penny idly wondered if she could borrow it for a day or two, but Mother would only snatch it away in disgust saying, ‘You really are the most unnatural girl. I didn’t bring you into the world to be a blue stocking.’
    She sometimes wondered why they’d bothered to produce her at all. They’d got one of each, Evadne and Alexander. She was just an afterthought and the wrong sex. Girls were expensive to bring out and so they didn’t get the education Zan took as his due. It was so unfair.
    She’d managed to slip her chaperone one afternoon in London and found an exhibition in Burlington House showing details of the Palace of Knossos, with reproductions of frescos and what looked like a wonderful blue monkey. She persuaded Evadne to visit the British Museum, spending hours going through the Ancient History rooms, marvelling at the wonderful relics of past civilizations while Evadne yawned with boredom. This made Penny determined to get a library ticket in Cheltenham, the nearest town to Stokencourt, and carry on her studies in secret. She borrowed everything to do with ancient history.
    Then there had been a mix-up over a library fine for a book she’d not been able to get back on time. Mother had torn into her in fury. ‘What do mean, Penelope, sneaking behind our backs? What are we going to do to curtail all this silliness?’
    ‘It’s
not
silly. I want to go to college,’ she’d snapped. ‘I’m going to be an archaeologist.’
    Everyone at the dining table had roared.
    ‘Don’t answer me back! Girls of our class don’t do . . . they just
are,
future partners to the great and good of the country. Papa, tell her! I was married at your age, Penelope, and never read a book in my life. It’s just time-wasting.’
    Fabia turned to her husband, who slunk behind his paper muttering, ‘This one’s got a mind of her own. Let her use it or she’ll make mischief
    Penny knew Papa was on her side but no one stood up to Mother when she was on the warpath.
    ‘Over my dead body!’ Fabia exclaimed. ‘She needs to learn obedience. Look at her, like a beanpole, and the way she slouches . . . I pay for all those dancing lessons and still she hunches her shoulders, plus her skin is too brown.’ She paused, eyeing Penny with