The Lost Days of Summer Read Online Free PDF Page A

shabby and faded from their original bright floral print. There was a scrubbed wooden table, half a dozen sturdy ladder-backed chairs and the two comfortable-looking basket ones, each filled with cushions whose floral chintz echoed that of the window curtains. Against one wall was a vast Welsh dresser upon which a variety of china was stacked, as well as an untidy heap of pans. Nell saw that there was a proper rack upon which the pans should have been hung, but someone, presumably her aunt, had not bothered with such niceties, no doubt thinking that it was better to have them within easy reach.
    Above the range, the mantelpiece supported a biscuit barrel, a clock whose fingers pointed to midnight, and an old photograph, browned and curled with age, showing a smiling man with one arm slung round the neck of a very large horse. Nell was wondering whether the man was her aunt’s late husband and whether the horse in the photograph was the one which had brought her from the station when the door opened and her aunt reappeared, struggling out of a much patched overcoat.
    Nell now saw the older woman properly for the first time. She was tall and angular, her face tanned and her mouth set in a firm line. Nell’s mother and her Auntie Lou, as well as several other relatives, were blondes, but Auntie Kath’s abundant hair was white as snow and, Nell thought, could be described as her one beauty. But as her aunt kicked off her gumboots and turned towards her niece, Nell saw that she had been mistaken, for Auntie Kath also had beautiful eyes, large and heavy-lidded and fringed with black lashes, echoing the shade of her eyebrows. Nell would have liked to ask her if her hair had been dark before turning white but did not quite dare to do so, knowing Mam and Auntie Lou cursed their fair lashes and brows and would not have dreamed of leaving the house before applying eyebrow pencil and mascara. Of course it was possible that Auntie Kath, too, darkened brows and lashes, but after a quick glance at her aunt’s grim face Nell dismissed the idea. She did not think that her aunt would have cared if they had been bright blue. Instead, she said tentatively: ‘If you’ll sit down, Auntie, and tell me where you keep your tea caddy and your milk, I’ll make the tea for both of us.’
    Her aunt gave her a searching look. ‘Getting your feet under the table, are you?’ she asked disagreeably. ‘You’ll need to do more than make a cup of tea to get round me.’
    Nell opened her mouth to reply hotly that she had no such intention, then changed her mind. ‘Do you want me to waste my time searching for the tea caddy?’ she asked, her tone every bit as cold as her aunt’s had been. ‘Naturally, if you want to make the tea yourself, you have only to say.’
    She half expected her aunt to snap her head off, but instead the older woman gave her a grudging smile and Nell saw that there was a strong family likeness between Kath and the other Ripley sisters. Auntie Kath’s hair grew in a widow’s peak just like Trixie’s and Lou’s, her nose was straight, and she had a determined mouth, right now set once more in a tight line. Her skin was good, her ears were small and flat to her head, and somehow, Nell thought apprehensively, you could see she was used to being in command and would brook no interference from anyone.
    But her aunt was speaking again. ‘No need to lose your rag, girl. See that door over there? It’s the pantry; the milk’s on the cold slab under the window and the tea caddy’s on the dresser. Sugar’s beside it; I take two heaped teaspoons.’
    Nell went to the pantry and fetched out a blue and white jug half full of milk. She reached for the tea caddy and the sugar, put tea leaves into a brown pot, added water from the hissing kettle and, whilst it brewed, poured milk into two enamel mugs. Then, as much to make conversation as anything else, she turned to her aunt. ‘Sugar’s going to be rationed in the New Year, they