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

“that if you lived in the States Aunt Robin could get a divorce easy as wink, but it’s harder in Canada.”
    â€œWhat is a divorce?” asked Jane, remembering that Agnes Ripley had used the same word.
    Phyllis laughed condescendingly.
    â€œVictoria, don’t you know anything? A divorce is when two people get unmarried.”
    â€œ Can people get unmarried?” gasped Jane, to whom it was an entirely new idea.
    â€œOf course they can, silly. Mother says your mother ought to go to the States and get a divorce, but father says it wouldn’t be legal in Canada, and anyway the Kennedys don’t believe in it. Father says grandmother wouldn’t allow it either, for fear Aunt Robin would just go and marry somebody else.”
    â€œIf…if mother got a divorce does that mean that he wouldn’t be my father anymore?” queried Jane hopefully.
    Phyllis looked dubious.
    â€œI shouldn’t suppose it would make any difference that way. But whoever she married would be your stepfather.”
    Jane did not want a stepfather any more than she wanted a father. But she said nothing again and Phyllis was annoyed.
    â€œHow do you like the idea of going to P. E. Island, Victoria?”
    Jane was not going to expose her soul to the patronizing Phyllis.
    â€œI don’t know anything about it,” she said shortly.
    â€œI do,” said Phyllis importantly. “We spent a summer there two years ago. We lived in a big hotel on the north shore. It’s quite a pretty place. I daresay you’ll like it for a change.”
    Jane knew she would hate it. She tried to turn the conversation but Phyllis meant to thrash the subject out.
    â€œHow do you suppose you’ll get along with your father?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œHe likes clever people, you know, and you’re not very clever, are you, Victoria?”
    Jane did not like being made to feel like a worm. Phyllis always made her feel like that…when she didn’t make her feel like a shadow. And there was not a bit of use in getting mad with her. Phyllis never got mad. Phyllis, everybody said, was such a sweet child…had such a lovely disposition. She just went on condescending. Jane sometimes thought if they could have just one good fight she would like Phyllis better. Jane knew mother was a bit worried because she didn’t make more friends among girls of her own age.
    â€œYou know,” went on Phyllis, “that was one of the things…Aunt Robin thought she couldn’t talk clever enough for him.”
    The worm turned.
    â€œI am not going to talk any more about my mother…or him ,” said Jane distinctly.
    Phyllis sulked a little and the afternoon was a failure. Jane was more thankful than usual when Frank came to take her home.
    Little was being said at 60 Gay about Jane’s going to the Island. How quickly the days flew by! Jane wished she could hold them back. Once, when she had been very small, she had said to mother, “Isn’t there any way we can stop time, mummy?”
    Jane remembered that mother had sighed and said, “We can never stop time, darling.”
    And now time just went stonily on…tick tock, tick tock…sunrise, sunset, ever and ever nearer to the day when she would be torn away from mother. It would be early in June…St. Agatha’s closed earlier than the other schools. Victoria took Jane to Marlborough’s late in May and got some very nice clothes for her…much nicer than she had ever had before. Under ordinary circumstances Jane would have loved her blue coat and the smart little blue hat with its tiny scarlet bow…and a certain lovely frock of white, eyelet-embroidered in red, with a smart red leather belt. Phyllis had nothing nicer than that. But now she had no interest in them.
    â€œI don’t suppose she’ll have much use for very fine clothes down there,” mother had said.
    â€œShe shall go