Read Online Sins of the Fathers by Susan Howatch - Free Book Online

save me, so please don’t just pat my head and send
     me back to Daddy as if I were a stray poodle. If you do I think I’ll jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.’
    ‘Gee whiz,’ I said, ‘excuse me while I get out my suit of armour and my shining white horse. Have a drink of mead or something
     – or better still, how about something to eat? I haven’t had dinner yet and if I’m going to save you I’ve got to be well-fed.’
    I took Vicky into the den, rescued the serving-cart from the living-room and asked my housekeeper to bring an additional place-setting.
     Back in the den I found a tape I had made of several Glen Miller records and threaded it into my recorder. The music, dreamy
     and soothing, filtered into the room as I offered the wine decanter to my guest. ‘Do you want to try some of this?’
    ‘Is it like that California Kool-Aid Daddy serves at home?’
    ‘No, this is French wine from Bordeaux.’
    ‘Oh Uncle Sam, you’re so wonderfully European and civilized!’ She smiled at me radiantly, a schoolgirl on a disagreeable but
     not unexciting spree, and it occurred to me that although her troubleswere genuine she was unable to resist the adolescent urge to dramatize them. I smiled back, trying to see beyond the schoolgirl
     to the woman she might one day become, but all I saw was the teenage uniform of wide-legged denims with the huge turn-ups,
     the bobby-socks and the sloppy pink sweater. Her long thick wavy golden hair was brushed back from her face and secured at
     the nape of her neck with a pink bow. She had her mother’s pert nose and Cornelius’ brilliant black-lashed grey eyes, her
     mother’s neat oval chin and Cornelius’ stubborn mouth which looked so deceptively tranquil in repose, and as I wondered how
     I would have dealt with her if she had been my daughter I came to the uneasy conclusion that I would probably have coped with
     the responsibility no better than Cornelius.
    ‘Do you want some sauerbraten, Vicky?’ I said after my housekeeper had brought the extra place-setting.
    ‘Gee, I don’t think I could possibly … well yes, it does smell kind of good. I haven’t eaten for ages.’
    With the food and drink liberally distributed we settled ourselves on the leather couch.
    ‘Well now,’ I said, ‘what do I have to do to save you?’
    ‘You can help me get away from home.’
    ‘Again? So soon?’
    ‘I’ve just got to get away. Oh Uncle Sam—’
    ‘Vicky, if you’re old enough to elope to Maryland, you’re old enough to stop calling me Uncle. Just “Sam” will do fine from
     now on.’
    ‘But I like to think of you as an uncle! I’ll always think of you as an uncle!’
    I resisted the urge to say: ‘Thank God,’ and instead asked: ‘What’s the problem at home? I know there was a fuss when you
     dropped out of that art appreciation course at Christmas, but—’
    ‘Oh God, yes, that was awful! The trouble is Daddy just won’t
listen
to me. I’m never allowed to do what
I
want. It’s always what
he
wants. As soon as I graduated from Miss Porter’s last summer I wanted to go to Junior College in Europe, but Daddy wouldn’t
     have it, said Europe was decadent and I could learn all I had to learn right here in America. Then I wanted to go to college
     right away, and he says no, I’m too young to leave home and I must “fill in” a year first. So then I wanted to go to Europe
     on vacation and he wouldn’t let me go on my own and insisted I went with Aunt Emily, who drives me crazy, and those two cousins
     of mine who drive me crazier still. After that came the art appreciation mess. I never wanted to do it in the first place!
     AsI’ve said to him over and over again, all I really want to do is go to college and major in philosophy, but—’
    ‘
Philosophy
?’
    ‘Sure, it’s the only subject I can ever imagine being seriously interested in. I mean, you grow up taking everything for granted
     and then suddenly you think: why am I rich when most of the