Polystom Read Online Free PDF Page B

off somewhere, got himself lost. On Kaspian, Ithink. Anyway, her co-mothers were strict – possibly a little over-strict. Shall I call for some liqueur?’
    ‘If you like, Aunt. Go on: over-strict?’
    ‘Oh well,’ she said, sitting down and beckoning a servant. ‘
Perhaps
over-strict. It’s so difficult knowing how to handle the young. I’m sure the parents were only acting with her best interests in heart, merely insisting upon a certain discipline. Anyway, Beeswing didn’t respond well to discipline. Yes, a half bottle.’ This last to a servant, who hurried away.
    Stom sat opposite his aunt. ‘Really?’ In his head he was imagining this fragile creature as a heart-strong rebel against heavy-handed parenting. A free spirit. A faery raised by cattle. He had already decided, with instant certainty, that the two of them were soulmates – decided this without having exchanged so much as a word with her. This particular romantic ideal, like something out of a poem, brought enormous solidity to his heart’s yearning.
    ‘She ran away. Several times. Talk to her guardian, and she’ll tell you. Ungovernable, she’s simply ungovernable. Oh Stommi,’ added Aunt Elena with a gushing little rush of words, leaning forward to rest her hand on his knee, ‘I can
see
you’re smitten, it’s
obvious
you’re smitten, but
please
don’t rush into anything. Will you at least promise me that?’
    The next day he took breakfast at eleven, at a large round table set on the lawn, and made sure to sit next to Beeswing’s guardian. This was a compactly stout little woman called Elena like his own aunt, and addressed by everybody as ‘Elena Marina’ to distinguish her. Beeswing herself was not at breakfast. ‘In her room, reading,’ said Elena Marina, a tinge of disapprobation to her words.
    Stom almost didn’t want to ask, for fear of being disappointed by a negative answer, but he had to know. ‘Poetry?’
    ‘She does read a lot of poetry,’ Elena Marina conceded, asStom’s heartbeat sped with the thrill of confirmation. ‘She reads a lot of everything. Too much, in my opinion. She doesn’t spend enough time where she
is;
always running away, even to the point of running away from herself in her own head. Did your aunt tell you her story?’
    ‘A little of it. She ran away from her co-mothers?’
    ‘My cousins, both,’ said Elena Marina. ‘By different branches of the family, but both of them were my cousins. They worked hard with her, they tried, but she
won’t
accept the need for discipline. That’s why they were compelled to give up on her in the end.’
    ‘They’re still alive?’
    ‘Oh yes, oh certainly. They do visit, from time to time. But mostly they spend their time on the moon of Berthing. They have a house up there, you know.’
    ‘It was extraordinarily kind of you to take over as guardian,’ said Stom. But the instant he said this Elena Marina blushed a bruise-purple colour from cheeks to neck, and he realised that he had touched a very tender spot. Despite her manner of easy gentility, Stom realised, she must have undertaken guardianship for a fee. It was her way of earning a living, which made her, in effect, a servant, although a servant of a slightly grander station than most: a governess or tutor, something of that rank. ‘Aunt’ was evidently a courtesy title, and when she had said that Beeswing’s co-mothers were both her cousins (rather overstressing the fact, in retrospect), she must have meant on the sinistral side. Perhaps she was the offspring of a playful son’s adventure with a servant, a daughter experimenting with a handsome field-hand, something along those lines. It was a common enough story. Stom smiled his most charming smile, and said something bland to cover her awkwardness, although inwardly he experienced a rush of lofty disdain for her miniature pride, her rather pathetic imitation of breeding. A servant! Passing herself off as the equal of the guests at the party!