Read Online The Callender Papers by Cynthia Voigt - Free Book Online

think carefully about that,” I answered. This was not true. I knew immediately I would have named him something strong and handsome, like Lancelot, or perhaps mischievous, like Robin, after Robin Goodfellow.
    â€œYou’re right,” he agreed, as we passed on through the silent woods. “It does take careful thought. I do wish my father had been a man given to careful thought. I like that phrase. Careful thought. Most things do become clearer with its aid. More clear than people think,” he said. “However, I’m wandering off the subject. I do wander, I must warn you. Shall I tell you all about myself? Or would you rather be the first to tell? Since we’re going to be friends.”
    â€œYou,” I said. He could not possibly be interested in me.
    â€œI am old Dan’s brother-in-law. Mr. Thiel, that is. One must speak respectfully of one’s relatives. More precisely, I was his brother-in-law. My sister Irene was his wife. She has been dead these ten years.” When he spoke of his sister, his voice had no laughter, and his eyes grew serious. “Irene raised me because my mother died bringing me into the world. I often wonder what it would have been like to have had a mother; a mother is a terrible thing to miss. A child who has no mother I think deserves all the sympathy people have to give. Irene spoiled me, everyone said so, and I have to agree with them. It was wonderful. Here I am thirty-eight years old. I don’t look it, do I? A gilded youth, that’s what I look like. I have no occupation and am what in better days, in more elegant times, would have been called a gentleman. I have three children. Joseph is seventeen, and is perhaps too much like me. Victoria is fifteen and growing into quite a beauty. She should do well for herself, if we could just get her out of this village and into a respectable society. Then there is Benjamin, who at fourteen may be anything. I haven’t insulted your age, have I? How old are you?”
    â€œTwelve,” I said. “Thirteen in the fall.”
    â€œI’d have guessed that,” he said. “Now you know all about me, you must tell me about yourself.”
    â€œI live with my Aunt Constance, who was, I believe, a friend of your sister’s.”
    He thought about that. “I’ve never heard of her. Of course, Irene had any number of friends about whom I knew nothing. For several years, we lived very separate lives, when I was away at school, and then after I married. Irene did have secret leanings toward the suffragettes. Could your aunt be one of those?”
    â€œOf course,” I said. “Aunt Constance says it is utterly unreasonable to deny women the vote; if you think carefully about it, you must see that women are as able as men. The major difference is—of course—education. She thinks women should be as educated as men. She has her own school in Cambridge. That is how I come to be here. Mr. Thiel is on the Board of Governors of the Academy.”
    â€œIs he now?” Mr. Callender said, as if that surprised him. “What about your parents?”
    â€œI know nothing about them.”
    â€œBut surely your aunt must have told you something.”
    â€œNo, nothing.”
    â€œDon’t you find that strange? If you are the child of her sister or brother, she should want to talk to you of your family. Unless of course—” he glancedquickly at me and stopped speaking. His meaning was clear.
    â€œShe will tell me when it is right for me to know,” I said. But he had inserted a tiny grain of doubt. Why hadn’t she told me? Was she keeping me in ignorance of some shameful secret?
    â€œAh, well, that may make a difference, of course. There are so many curious things that happen in the world, aren’t there? At least you seem to trust your Aunt Constance, which speaks well of her.”
    â€œYes of course.”
    â€œAnd where do you