Read Online Jane of Lantern Hill by L. M. Montgomery - Free Book Online

is…”
    Grandmother stopped abruptly. She had picked up the black-handed letter and was looking at it as if she had picked up a snake. Then she looked at her daughter.
    â€œThis is from… him ,” she said.
    Mother dropped Mrs. Kirby’s letter and turned so white that Jane involuntarily sprang toward her, but was barred by grandmother’s outstretched arm.
    â€œDo you wish me to read it for you, Robin?”
    Mother trembled piteously but she said, “No…no…let me…”
    Grandmother handed the letter over with an offended air and mother opened it with shaking hands. It did not seem as if her face could turn whiter than it was, but it did as she read it.
    â€œWell?” said grandmother.
    â€œHe says,” gasped mother, “that I must send Jane Victoria to him for the summer…that he has a right to her sometimes…”
    â€œWho says?” cried Jane.
    â€œDo not interrupt, Victoria,” said grandmother. “Let me see that letter, Robin.”
    They waited while grandmother read it. Aunt Gertrude stared unwinkingly ahead of her with her cold, gray eyes in her long, white face. Mother had dropped her head in her hands. It was only three minutes since Jane had brought the letters in, and in those three minutes the world had turned upside down. Jane felt as if a gulf had opened between her and all humankind. She knew now without being told who had written the letter.
    â€œSo!” said grandmother. She folded the letter up, put it in its envelope, laid it on her table and carefully wiped her hands with her fine lace handkerchief.
    â€œYou won’t let her go, of course, Robin.”
    For the first time in her life Jane felt at one with grandmother. She looked imploringly at mother with a curious feeling of seeing her for the first time…not as a loving mother or affectionate daughter but as a woman…a woman in the grip of some terrible emotion. Jane’s heart was torn by another pang in seeing mother suffer so.
    â€œIf I don’t,” she said, “he may take her from me altogether. He could, you know. He says…”
    â€œI have read what he says,” said grandmother, “and I still tell you to ignore that letter. He is doing this simply to annoy you. He cares nothing for her…he never cared for anything but his scribbling.”
    â€œI’m afraid…” began mother again.
    â€œWe’d better consult William,” said Aunt Gertrude suddenly. “This needs a man’s advice.”
    â€œA man!” snapped grandmother. Then she seemed to pull herself up. “You may be right, Gertrude. I shall lay the matter before William when he comes to supper tomorrow. In the meantime we shall not discuss it. We shall not allow it to disturb us in the least.”
    Jane felt as if she were in a nightmare the rest of the day. Surely it must be a dream…surely her father could not have written her mother that she must spend the summer with him, a thousand miles away in that horrible Prince Edward Island, which looked on the map to be a desolate little fragment in the jaws of Gaspé and Cape Breton…with a father who didn’t love her and whom she didn’t love.
    She had no chance to say anything about it to mother…grandmother saw to that. They all went to Aunt Sylvia’s luncheon…mother did not look as if she wanted to go anywhere…and Jane had lunch alone. She couldn’t eat anything.
    â€œDoes your head ache, Miss Victoria?” Mary asked sympathetically.
    Something was aching terribly but it did not seem to be her head. It ached all the afternoon and evening and far on into the night. It was still aching when Jane woke the next morning with a sickening rush of remembrance. Jane felt that it might help the ache a little if she could only have a talk with mother, but when she tried mother’s door it was locked. Jane felt that mother didn’t want to talk to