Read Online The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer - Free Book Online

Lucas seemed quite certain that Piers was going to drink himself steadily to death in that rest home unless someone came and stopped him. I can hardly blame him, after what he’s been through—but Sidney won’t allow it, thank God.
    You know I adore Sidney with all my heart, but there’s something terrifically freeing about Sidney
in Australia
. Mark Reynolds has been what your Aunt Lydia would have called persistent in his attentions for the last three weeks, but, even as I’ve gobbled lobster and guzzled champagne, I’ve been looking furtively over my shoulder for Sidney. He’s convinced that Mark is trying to steal me away from London in general and Stephens & Stark in particular, and nothing I said could persuade him otherwise. I know he doesn’t like Mark—I believe aggressive and unscrupulous were the words he used last time I saw him—but really, he was a bit too King Lear about the whole thing. I am a grown woman—mostly—and I can guzzle champagne with whomever I choose.
    When not checking under tablecloths for Sidney, I’ve been having the most wonderful time. I feel as though I’ve emerged from a black tunnel and found myself in the middle of a carnival. I don’t particularly care for carnivals, but after the tunnel, it’s delicious. Mark gads about every night—if we’re not going to a party (and we usually are), we’re off to the cinema, or the theatre, or a nightclub, or a gin house of ill-repute (he says he’s trying to introduce me to democratic ideals). It’s very exciting.
    Have you noticed there are some people—Americans especially—who seem untouched by the war, or at leastunmangled by it? I don’t mean to imply that Mark was a shirker—he was in their Air Corps—but he’s simply not sunk under. And when I’m with him, I feel untouched by the war, too. It’s an illusion, I know it is, and truthfully I’d be ashamed of myself if the war hadn’t touched me. But it’s forgivable to enjoy myself a little—isn’t it?
    Is Dominic too old for a jack-in-the-box? I saw a diabolical one in a shop yesterday. It pops out, leering and waving, its oily black moustache curling above pointed white teeth, the very picture of a villain. Dominic would adore it, after he had got over his first shock.
    Love,
    Juliet
    From Juliet to Isola
Miss Isola Pribby
Pribby Homestead
La Bouvée
St Martin’s, Guernsey
    28th February 1946
    Dear Miss Pribby,
    Thank you so much for your letter about yourself and Emily Brontë. I laughed when I read that Emily had caught you by the throat the second poor Cathy’s ghost knocked at the window. She got me at
exactly the same moment
.
    Our teacher had assigned
Wuthering Heights
to be read over the Easter holidays. I went home with my friend Sophie Stark, and we whined for two days over the injustice of it all. Finally her brother Sidney told us to shut up and
get onwith it
. I did, still fuming, until I got to Cathy’s ghost at the window. I have never felt such dread as I did then. Monsters or vampires have never scared me in books—but ghosts are a different matter.
    Sophie and I did nothing for the rest of the holidays but move from bed to hammock to armchair, reading
Jane Eyre
,
Agnes Grey
,
Shirley
, and
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
.
    What a family they were—but I chose to write about Anne Brontë because she was the least known of the sisters, and, I think, just as fine a writer as Charlotte. God knows how Anne managed to write any books at all, influenced by such a strain of religion as her Aunt Branwell possessed. Emily and Charlotte had the good sense to ignore their bleak aunt, but not poor Anne. Imagine preaching that God meant women to be Meek, Mild, and Gently Melancholic. So much less trouble around the house—pernicious old bat!
    I hope you will write to me again.
    Yours,
    Juliet Ashton
    From Eben Ramsey to Juliet