Anna's Return Read Online Free Page A

here.”
    “I know you don’t, dear. But I do. Oh it pains me…”
    Anna tuned out a little as Mrs. Palmer once again bemoaned
the way Anna was treated by her father and mistreated by her stepmother. She
had heard it all before, and she knew it came from a place of affection. But
complaining about it did not change things. “I’d better go and play with
Teddy,” said Anna. “I did promise.”
    Careful to keep out of the main gardens, Anna spent a happy
hour playing with her half-brother near the vegetable patch. It was a place she
knew her stepmother would never venture.
    The patch looked forlorn in the afternoon sunlight. Since
the last gardener, the latest in a long line, had left in a huffy, Anna, Mrs.
Palmer and Mr. Stephens the butler had done their best to keep it maintained,
but it was difficult to do when they had so many other duties. Yet with certain
things still being rationed, it was their only way of putting fresh vegetables
on the table.
    “I want to climb that tree,” said Teddy, pointing to an
apple tree.
    “Oh no, Teddy, I don’t think you should,” said Anna. She was
afraid of what her step-mother might say if Teddy fell and hurt himself.
    “Aw, Anna, other boys climb trees. They laugh at me at
school because I won’t. I thought that if I practice at home, I’ll be good by
the time I go back to boarding school.”
    “You’d best ask your mama and papa first,” said Anna. “Then
maybe you can do it another day. I don’t want to get into any trouble.”
    “Alright,” said Teddy, pouting. Being a child of generally
good spirits, he soon cheered up and they ran around the vegetable patch with
their arms outstretched, pretending to be airplanes. Later he helped Anna
collect windblown apples.
    “We can have apple crumble for tea,” she promised him.
    “Yummy. With custard?” He bit into one of the apples.
    “With custard. Although you won’t be very hungry if you eat
them all first.”
    “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” said Teddy. “Anna?”
    “What is it, dear?”
    “I’d rather like to be a doctor.”
    “Would you?”
    “Yes. I’ve been reading about it. Mother says I can’t
because I’m a gentleman and gentlemen don’t work. But I think that’s rather
silly. Mind you, I would have to get better at arithmetic.”
    “I’ll help you, if you like,” Anna promised.
    “You’re a peach of a girl,” said Teddy.
    For the next few days, rather than dreaming of joining
Janek’s family, Anna had a new dream. One of going to work in a Bed and
Breakfast by the seaside. She and Mrs. Palmer talked about it whilst they
worked and late into the night, when they could not sleep for excitement. Mrs.
Palmer’s sister, Elsie Smith, had agreed that Anna could join them as a
chambermaid.
    “It’ll be nothing too big,” said Mrs. Palmer over cocoa one
night. “Just a few rooms, so we’re not run off our feet. After all, what’s the
point of living by the seaside if you can’t sometimes go and walk along the
sands?”
    “Have you thought of where?” asked Anna.
    “Yes, we thought up Filey way, or Scarborough. We used to go
there as children. Oh, it’s lovely up there.”
    “I’d love to travel more,” said Anna, dreamily. To say how
much of her young life had been spent travelling from one country to another,
she had very little recollection of it, after eight years of only ever being at
Silverton Hall. The other servants, in the days when they had a full staff,
would go to the seaside on their days off. As Anna was not actually paid a
wage, she could never afford to join them. Mrs. Palmer had offered her the
money to go, but she always refused, feeling she had taken enough of the kind
lady’s charity. Her clothes were generally hand-me-downs, courtesy of other
maids who also took kindly on her.
    “You’ll be travelling to the East coast with us, dear,” said
Mrs. Palmer. “And you needn’t think we’ll use you as a drudge either. I’ve
warned our Elsie about