Read Online Forget-Me-Not Bride by Margaret Pemberton - Free Book Online Page B

unused to being the centre of attention and her downy cheeks were still stained an embarrassed red as she said, answering Kate’s first question, ‘It isn’t freezing cold in the summer. In the summer the Klondike is beautiful.’ Her gruff voice softened noticeably and it became patently obvious to them all that she was returning to a land she had fallen in love with. ‘First of all there are the forget-me-nots. I don’t believe there are forget-me-nots anywhere in the world as blue as Alaskan forget-me-nots. There are white anemones, too. And yellow buttercups. Then, in high summer, the hills are covered with low-bush cranberries and blueberries and kinnikinnik …’
    â€˜What in the world is kinnikinnik?’ Kate Salway asked, relieved that there was, at least, some summer warmth to look forward to.
    â€˜Kinnikinnik is a green, red-berried creeper sometimes called Yukon holly. There’s lots of wild life, too. Caribou and bear and …’
    â€˜Bears!’ Edie had begun to look distinctly apprehensive. ‘I don’t think I’d like bears. I think bears would frighten me.’
    â€˜Don’t worry, honey,’ Marietta’s paw-like hand patted Edie’s comfortingly, ‘I don’t expect the bears come into town. They’ll stay in the woods and …’
    â€˜Woods?’ There was a tremor in Edie’s voice and she looked to be fast approaching tears. ‘I don’t like woods, Marietta. Once, on an outing from the orphanage, I got lost in a wood and when I was found I was beaten.’
    There was an appalled silence and then Marietta said thickly, squeezing Edie’s hand in hers, ‘No-one’s going to beat you again, honey. Not while I’m lookin’out for you.’
    â€˜If you don’t like woods and things, why do you want to live in the wilderness?’ Lottie asked with ten-year-old frankness.
    It was a question Lilli was also wondering and she couldn’t quite understand why everyone suddenly looked so uncomfortable. Everyone, that is, except for Edie. Edie simply looked blank.
    It was Kate Salway who answered for her, her eyes, as they met Lilli’s above Lottie’s head, conveying far more than her words.
    â€˜It wasn’t really Edie’s choice to sail to Alaska, Lottie. Edie has spent all her life in an orphanage and now that she’s too old to stay there, the orphanage authorities thought she might like to have a husband and a family and live somewhere pretty, like Alaska.’
    A cold chill ran down Lilli’s spine. Was Kate saying that the orphanage authorities had simply shipped Edie off as a Peabody bride in order to be rid of her? And was she also saying that Edie had little understanding of where she was going or what would be expected of her when she arrived? As she gazed around the table she saw by the expression in her companions’eyes that the answer to her unspoken question was ‘yes.’
    â€˜Many people are frightened of woods, Edie,’ Susan Bumby said in an attempt to be reassuring. ‘It’s a very old fear going back to the days of primitive man.’
    â€˜And anyone in their right senses is frightened of bears,’ Lettie said. It was the first time she had opened her mouth and everyone’s head swivelled in her direction. Lettie ignored them, lapsing into uncommunicative silence again and it occurred to Lilli that, though she and Lottie and Leo had established friendly relations with her, so far no-one else had yet done so.
    Susan broke the silence. ‘Though men love the Klondike, not many women do. They don’t like having to battle against nature for eight months out of twelve and they don’t like the sheer vastness of the terrain.’
    From the alarmed expression on Marietta’s face it was obvious that she, too, didn’t relish the thought of battling with nature and even Kate Salway had begun to look