Sugar in the Morning Read Online Free Page A

better than ever. “It’s more than generous,” I said gratefully. “I’ll try not to do anything that you don’t like.”
    Cuthbert stared at me insolently. “He who pays the piper calls the tune,” he muttered. ‘You’re learning fast, sweet cousin.”
    I swallowed. I hadn’t understood that it was my money that would pay for all the changes. Perhaps I had been stupid, I thought with embarrassment. Perhaps now was the time that I should arrange with my uncle how much I should pay for my keep? But when I tried to bring up the matter, he shrugged all such matters to one side.
    “We’re not here much, girl. We’ll consider it all when we see how things work out. How’s that?”
    “It’s fine,” I said. What else could I say? I would have liked to have known exactly where I stood, but it was a relief to know that they didn’t spend much time in the town house. Obviously they had to look after the sugar for most of their time. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? And the answer to that I knew quite well and it annoyed me all the more. It was all because Mr. Daniel Hendrycks had seen fit to rouse my suspicions about my family. But I wasn’t going to allow his barbs to affect me one bit! Not if I could help it!
    Patience offered to show me up the stairs to my room. The stairs were wooden like everything else in the house and years of polishing had turned them black and given them a shine that put my shoes to shame.
    “You must be a marvellous housekeeper!” I complimented Patience.
    “I is, honey, I is!” she agreed. “Is it the truth that you has money? We could sure do with some in this house. You’se seen how things is with us—”
    “I suppose sugar hasn’t been paying very well recently?” I enquired gently, trying not to sound inquisitive.
    Patience’s laugh boomed out. “Sugar? My, my, now what put that to come into your head?”
    “I don’t know,” I said meekly. “I just thought my uncle had something to do with sugar. Doesn’t he?”
    “I s’pose he does. It’s a short season,” she added gloomily. “Need more than a sugar crop to keep our fires burning. Reckon it was lucky you is come! You’m surely welcome In this house !”
    She threw open a door and sailed into the room she had allotted to my use, well pleased with the preparations she had made. I gasped with surprise when I saw how pleasant and feminine she had made the room. The bed was an ancient iron one, painted white, and covered with a cotton counterpane of the most delicate shades of green, pink and white. There were flowers everywhere, hiding the bareness of the plain wooden furniture. Most of them I had never seen before, but the sheer intensity of colour and scent was exotic and startling to one who had that day left a wintry England.
    “Oh, what a lot of trouble you’ve been to!” I exclaimed gratefully.
    “’Tweren’t no trouble. You’se welcome. You settle, Miss ’Milla. That Wilfred’ll bring your bags and I unpack your pretties right now. Don’t you bother none!”
    It was pleasant to be waited on. It was not an experience that had ever come my way before, but Patience was so delighted to have another woman in the house that she seemed all set to spoil me to death. Her happy chatter went on and on as I explored my new home. I found I had a small bathroom all to myself, with the bath and basin built out of solid marble—relics, I supposed, from more affluent days. The lavatory was china and decorated with large blue roses that might or might not have been hand-painted, but which were certainly dramatically beautiful. Perhaps, I thought, there was something to be said for the Victorian character of the house after all.
    “I see you’ve cleared out some of the carpets and coverings from up here,” I said to Patience.
    She nodded her enormous head. “Sure have. It ain’t my business downstairs. I keep them flowers going an all. I polish and I scrub. And there be some right pretty objects down