A Crooked Rib Read Online Free PDF Page B

playfellows.’
    Nine children! I tried to imagine such a quantity in one family, and failed. But to be going out again with Mama …
    ‘Hold ye still, Miss,’ said Ellen. ‘How be I to dress ye ringlets?’
     
    Lyme was all steeps and slopes, its streets and lanes slanting past the church on one side, the Customs House and the George Inn on the other, everything angled down towards the Cobb and the sea. A marble dropped in Upper Lyme would wend its way, faster and faster, down through the town, and across Marine Parade till it bounced over the rocks and splashed into the waiting water. Sometimes, I rolled the tiny rounded pebbles from the cliffs and watched as they sped off back to the shingle shore.
    Our house stood high above the church of St Michael and All Angels and overlooked the remains of the Cobb, Lyme’s great encircling harbour wall. I skipped beside Mama as we set off downChurch Road, past the Guildhall with its little tower, towards the Drill Hall and the gun-cliffs, and the butter market and the fish market, both closed on a Sunday. I hoped that Mama might stop at the confectioner’s shop with its dazzling jars of butterscotch, stripy bull’s-eyes, acid drops and raspberry balls, sticks of rock and, best of all, the rows of sugar mice sitting under their great glass dome, but she turned towards the Assembly Rooms and down onto the Cobb. I held Mama’s hand as we promenaded along Marine Parade amongst Lyme’s throng of fashionable citizens and visitors, stopping to look at the bathing machines and the street hawkers, the Punch and Judy stall, and the dozen other attractions that crowded the upper and lower reaches.
    ‘Now, Fanny,’ she said, ‘when you meet Captain Spencer you must promise me you will on no account stare at his forehead.’
    ‘His forehead?’
    ‘Yes. The poor Captain suffered a horrid accident aboard ship. His forehead was hit by the ricochet of a cannon and he was terribly injured. Papa says it’s quite miraculous he escaped with his life. His poor powder monkey was blown to … Ah, here we are. We’ve arrived.’
     
    Set above three steps, on a little rise facing eastwards towards Charmouth, Cobb House looked directly out to Lyme Bay and the sweep of the ruined sea wall. To one side was a conservatory and beyond that a field in which grazed a number of sheep. We were admitted by a maid into a small elegant room where Mrs Spencer rose to greet us, surrounded by what seemed to me a very considerable number of boys. Unused to a brood of children, I shrank a little as I followed Mama, but she pushed me forward.
    ‘This is Fanny,’ she said.
    ‘What a pretty little thing you are, Fanny,’ said Mrs Spencer. ‘Such beautiful fair hair.’
    As I dropped my curtsey, two girls with black curls burst into the room.
    ‘Now, my dear, here are Augusta and Lucy. This is Fanny, girls.’ Mrs Spencer patted my head. ‘They will take you to see the lamb they’re rearing.’
     
    I followed reluctantly. The older girl, Augusta, walked sedately ahead along the corridor while Lucy danced beside me, staring quizzically at my dress and every aspect of my person. We passed outside into an orchard where a lamb came bleating towards us, nuzzling and worrying at the girls’ skirts.
    ‘Stop it, Blanche,’ said Lucy.
    ‘Will she bite?’
    ‘Of course not. She has no teeth yet.’
    ‘Put your finger in her mouth,’ said Augusta, ‘and feel how she sucks on it.’
    Tentatively, I held out a finger which Blanche seized between her hard little gums. With my free hand, I patted her woolly head and smelt her reassuring mix of wool and heat. ‘I wish I had such a pretty lamb.’
    ‘If you have a field for it, I’m sure Papa would give you one.’
    ‘We have only a garden,’ I said.
    ‘Then she would eat all your flowers,’ said Augusta, ‘and I daresay your mama would be cross.’
    I stood, tongue-tied.
    ‘How old are you, Fanny?’
    ‘Seven.’
    ‘I’m just nine and Gussie is ten and