Kitty Little Read Online Free PDF Page B

because there was no opportunity to be anything else. And she didn’t want him touching her in that way. She was his daughter, not his wife. Would he please try to remember that. ‘You said I was no longer a child,’ was all she managed to utter, rather recklessly, to his retreating back.
    She could hear the smile in his voice as he answered without even turning. ‘You are my child, Esme, and I am immensely proud of you.’
    Tears ran down her cheeks as she hurried to fetch the two pieces of lamb’s liver she intended to fry for supper, from the larder. Esme felt as if she were drowning in his love. Suffocated by it. She rinsed the slivers of slippy offal beneath the cold tap, thinking of the long dull evening ahead. At least Swiss Family Robinson was an improvement upon their usual reading matter, though of course even the Robinsons had spurned material possessions. He knew she loved books, which was why he had offered to read to her. A reward for sewing babies’ bibs.
    Why wasn’t she grateful? Why had she panicked just now? He was her father, and as such had every right to caress her. He loved her, didn’t he? Esme told herself sternly that he would never hurt her, had never uttered a single unkind word. His one thought was to make people happy, to make her, his beloved daughter, content. Why couldn’t she appreciate his goodness? What was wrong with her? Was she incapable of love? And why did she lack his generosity of spirit? Guilt and rebellion warred within.
    Banging the pans about on the old stove didn’t help one bit. Nor did riddling the ash pan bring forth anything more than a belch of smoke and ash. He hadn’t even thought to keep the fire stoked up with coke or wood while she was out, so how could she cook supper in a cold oven?
    It took Esme the best part of an hour to heat the stove sufficiently to fry the liver, together with some onions and mashed potatoes. When she was done she was almost too worn out and choked with soot and smoke to eat.

 
    Chapter Three
    In between all of this social whirl, as Frank called it, Kitty continued to help her mother run the guest house. She laid the tables with limp, slightly off-white table cloths and tarnished silver, cleaned out the marble fireplace with its heavy brasses, dusted the collection of candlesticks on the overcrowded mantelpiece and polished the bulbous Victorian furniture. She also worked with resignation, if not contentment, alongside Myrtle in the kitchen.
    In addition she tramped up the back stairs a dozen times a day with scotch broth and any number of delicious milk puddings in an effort to tempt Archie’s appetite back to normal and put some solid fat on his wasted muscles.
    She would much rather have talked through her problems with him but whenever she tried, he’d grunt and feign sleep, suffer from a fit of coughing or complain his head ached. Once or twice she’d been heartened to find him actually writing letters, which she gladly took to the post for him, having failed to persuade him to come with her. Even coercing him into the chilly bathroom to shave or bathe was difficult enough. Kitty was quite sure he wouldn’t bother to do either if she didn’t insist. He seemed to have lost all interest and pride in himself. Fending off beard growth or wearing a clean shirt didn’t matter a jot, he told her, not in the general scheme of things, nor did it offer any protection against mortality; an argument she found difficult to repudiate.
    Kitty rather suspected he had no wish to recover too quickly for wouldn’t he then lose this delicious attention he so clearly enjoyed?
    Sometimes he would suffer one of his nightmares and Kitty would hurry to his bedside to cool his brow and soothe him. On better days he would allow her to coax him out of bed and they’d toast crumpets on long toasting forks held over the tiny bedroom fire and talk long into the night, their memories of Raymond featuring strongly in these conversations.
    Today, Archie