In Her Shadow Read Online Free PDF Page B

they were interested in other things besides the weather, the tourists and the tides. They were glamorous, attractive and exotic, and they made me feel like I was one of them – almost. I wanted to spend every moment I could with them, hoping some of the gold dust of their perfect lives would rub off on me.
    Ellen’s father was German but had gone to university in America on a music scholarship, and he spoke with asophisticated accent, like a film star. Whenever I went to Thornfield House, butterflies of anticipation would flutter in my stomach at the thought of being close to Mr Brecht with his long legs, his teasing, his cigarettes and his pointy-toed boots.
    ‘Our little English rose is back!’ he would exclaim when he saw me, pulling me in, captivating me with his smile, the twinkling, easy warmth of his manner. And, God, he was handsome. He had good, straight white teeth and dark, soft hair that fell over his almond-shaped brown eyes. He rolled up his shirt-sleeves and the hairs on his arms were dark and his wrists were bony, his fingers long and square. He teased me all the time, played little jokes on me, pretended there was a spider on my back, tickled me, serenaded me, made me jump, made me giggle, made me almost faint with happiness.
    ‘Come on, come on,’ he would say, clapping his hands and squinting one eye to protect it from the smoke of the cigarette burning between his lips. ‘I’ve got fifty pence here for the person who does the best handstand!’
    I wasn’t very good at handstands. Ellen could stay up for ages, she could even walk on her hands, or flip her legs right over to make a crab; I normally collapsed after a few seconds, but I did my best to please Mr Brecht. He always declared the outcome of such competitions a draw, except for the times when Ellen had played up, shown off or otherwise misbehaved, and then I would win. Fortunately for me, she did this regularly.
    Ellen was nine months younger than me, but sometimes she acted like a baby. She also told terrible lies – she was always making up stories, sometimes when there was no need for them. She couldn’t seem to help it.
    ‘What sort of place did you live in when you were in Germany?’ I asked her once, and she said, ‘It was a castle.’
    I pulled a face.
    ‘It was,’ she said. ‘It was a proper castle with a moat and a drawbridge. My father’s family is related to royalty. So you’d better be nice to me, Hannah Brown, or I’ll have you put in a dungeon and chained up with the rats until you die!’
    I went home and told my mum, who warned me not to be so gullible.
    Another time, we found a dead dove in the pond at the back of Thornfield House. Ellen fished the bird out and held it dripping between her hands, its head hanging lifeless between her fingers. Mrs Todd came out and asked what had happened.
    ‘I drowned it,’ Ellen said. She held the bird up to her face, and kissed its beak.
    Mrs Todd grabbed Ellen by the arm, said she was a wicked girl, and took her indoors. The bird fell back into the pond and I went home.
    Later, Ellen told me that her father had beaten her with his belt for killing the bird. I was so upset by the thought of Ellen being beaten that I burst into tears and Mrs Todd, hurrying to console me, assured me that Mr Brecht hadn’t laid a finger on her. She said it was just another one of Ellen’s stories and not to take any notice.
    ‘She didn’t even kill the bird,’ I wept. ‘It was already dead when we found it,’ and Mrs Todd shook her head and said, ‘Those lies are going to get that girl into real trouble, one of these days.’
    When Ellen was in disgrace, Mr Brecht paid special attention to me. I basked in the glory of being with him, and not having to share him with her. I alone would perform a dance routine I’d spent hours practising, or pretend to be amazed by his magic tricks, or listen to him singing silly, and sometimes rude, lyrics to popular songs and clap my hands with genuine