Read Online Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 by Charlotte Bingham - Free Book Online

more called for him to slow down, he did so. After that nothing was said.
    The village of Mellerfont proved to be as pretty as Mellerfont the house was not, but perhaps because it was a tied village the prevailing atmosphere was in direct contrast to the neat, cloistered appeal of the place, its inhabitants apparently disheartened and downtrodden, as if ruled by some sort of unenviable feudal system. The car that Poppy was being driven in was an altogether more modest model than most in Basil’s garages, but it still bore the Tetherington coat of arms on the driver’s door. This meant that even if Poppy had wished to disown any association with the big house, she could not. It also meant that her arrival elicited sullen stares.
    Stopping the car by the post office as requested, Leon remained firmly at the wheel, ever silent,dumb insolence obviously being his stock in trade, which meant that Poppy was forced to let herself out of the back. Biting back any comment that might have sprung to mind, she walked into the post office with George at her heels.
    â€˜No dogs in ’ere, if you please,’ a sharp voice called from the gloom behind the high counter. ‘Particularly Kraut dogs.’
    The two women gossiping in the main body of the shop looked startled when they saw Poppy and heard the remark of the unseen postmistress. There was an immediate exchange of whispers, prompting the appearance of a large, heavily whiskered woman behind the post office grille. She stared furiously at Poppy and finally, raising herself by her hands on the edge of the counter, peered down at the floor.
    â€˜I said no dogs,’ she repeated. ‘P’rhaps your ladyship din’t hear me?’
    â€˜There’s no notice on the door.’
    There was a silence while all three women in the shop exchanged looks.
    â€˜With respect,’ the postmistress said, without showing the least sign of it, ‘we are all but at war wi’ ’em.’ She nodded at the dachshund.
    â€˜George is a dog, not a German.’
    â€˜â€™E’s a German make a’right,’ the postmistress asserted. ‘Dachshund’s certainly no British dog. If it were it were called dachs
hound
.’
    â€˜He was born here and he lives here, and that makes him British. Might I have stamps for America, please?’
    The whiskered woman glared at Poppy before easing herself down from her vantage point behindthe counter and opening the large stamp book on her desk.
    â€˜Ah should imagine thy little dog’s more than at ’ome up there,’ she muttered, tearing the stamps off the sheet. ‘Ah’d imagine that’d be just the ’ome for ’im.’
    â€˜My husband likes dogs, certainly,’ Poppy agreed, once more uncertain as to what the woman was getting at. ‘We both like dogs.’
    â€˜German dogs. Lord Tetherington’s partial like thyself to German dogs. They say ’e ’as two or more of them Alsatians an’ all.’
    â€˜I haven’t seen any Alsatians.’ Poppy paused. ‘But then we have only just arrived up here.’
    â€˜Aye,’ the post mistress agreed. ‘Aye, you did an’ all.’
    Having paid for her stamps and posted the letter to her mother in the box outside the post office, attracted by the smell of fresh baking Poppy decided to stroll down the little high street in search of the bakery, which she soon found a few doors down. There were not a great number of people about on the street, but she made sure to smile at those she did pass. In return the women nodded and the men raised their flat caps, but no one returned the smiles. Even the woman in the bakery who was laughing and chatting to her customers as Poppy entered fell silent, and while she served her without the insolence Poppy had met in the post office, she nevertheless volunteered nothing more than the price of the buns she bought.
    Despite knowing that what she was about