Read Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances for Free Online Page A

fault, it must be her fault. She should have realized, years and years ago when there were two babies in the house and an attractive young man for a husband, that this present situation would arise, that she would be taking a back seat, that Carl would turn into a busy man in a busy world outside her own and that Bruce and Nancy would grow up, assume other identities, become
people
. She should have known better, should have farmed the kids out to a woman for daily care, found a top job somewhere, lived a separate life the way Carl did and the way the children were doing. She should have
been
somebody.
    “I’ll get the dessert,” she said, pushing back her chair, and went into the kitchen, with her son, carrying plates, close on her heels.

3
.
    It was always a delight to get one of those pale blue, tissue-thin airmail communications; you immediately placed yourself in the city it came from, in this case London. There it was, wedged in with the nuisance mail, the flyers and department store circulars and the utility bills. It was from Peggy Thornley, and it started the day off just right.
    Peggy Thornley was a woman Christine and Carl had met on one of their trips abroad; she was now a valued acquaintance. They saw each other infrequently, but had a sporadic correspondence and Peggy’s letters were always a cut above those annual Christmas card things in which you scribbled some stale news and info about the weather in your parts. And this particular letter was pleasing because it offered some diversion for Christine.
    It seemed that Peggy’s son, the older one, would be wending his way to the U.S. for what Peggy termed “a year of American seasoning, Henry James in reverse.” Ventures, and adventures, she asserted, were few and far between in these days of an empireless Britain. “For ‘this scepter’d isle’ substitute sequestered isle.” England was dying, she added elegiacally, and no one felt it more keenly than the young.
    Then she got down to business. “You remember Rodney,” she penned, in her non-American handwriting, all round and firm and positive. “He had quite a crush on you when you visited us at our vacation place in Annecy. He’s twenty-one now, very tall and thin as a walking stick. Quite the grown man, or so he thinks, but in reality a silly young ass. But he’s quite well behaved, I’ve seen to that.”
    He would have to find a flat, Peggy explained, and went on to ask if it would be too much of an imposition for Christine to assist him in this undertaking. And could she possibly book him a room until he was settled?
    It was like a present, like a gift. Christine was elated. Something to
do
. And of course he would stay with them until he found a place to live during his “year of American seasoning.” She would unearth some cute little nest for Rodney, help him furnish it, make it a small showplace. She remembered the Thornley boys as charming, with beautiful manners. And yes, Rodney had had a bit of a crush on her. Carl had remarked on it. “That boy has eyes for you, Chris.”
    She and Carl had visited Peggy and Tony Thornley in Annecy, France, a lovely little canal city where for that particular summer the Thornleys had rented a villa. It was the first time they had encountered the Thornley children, Rodney and Douglas. They had been teenagers, but British teeners, with the polished manners of British children.
    The younger boy, shy and — well, something like Bruce, soft and brown-eyed — had been very much in his brother’s shadow, as Rodney — hazel of eye and sun-streaked of hair — was like a young prince, almost arrogant, and wonderful to look at. “A bit of a showoff,” Carl had said. “But a fine kid all the same.”
    And Carl was right, Rodney hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her, those large and brilliant gray eyes with secrets behind them, secrets of growing up, of being between boyhood and manhood, God knew what he was thinking when he looked at her like