Summer at the Haven Read Online Free

mindful of Nanny, classed it as one of those meals to which she would willingly have summoned as a substitute for herself a starving citizen from the Third World. Miss Dawson did not notice what she was eating, Miss Leila Ford enjoyed it because sheloved all food, Mrs Langley smiled happily to herself throughout. Who knows what bygone meal she was consuming. Miss Norton, whose sight was very bad, was concentrating too hard on getting the food to her mouth without degrading spillings, to care what it was. Mrs Perry, controlling an itch to tie up those hyacinths properly, thought complacently of a little secret store in her own room which was regularly replenished by thoughtful relatives and friends. She decided that after supper was over she would take some particularly nice shortbread, sent by a niece in Scotland, to cheer up Miss Brown who was eating as little as she dared without attracting Miss Blackett’s attention.
    The ladies always sat in the same places and when the warden had once tried to change them round, it met with such obvious disapproval that, as it did not really matter at all to her, she gave up the attempt and let the old sillies have their own way. Mrs Thornton, whose seat was between deaf Miss Brown and Mrs Langley, would herself have benefited by a change, but she understood and partly shared in the half-conscious desire for territorial security which, having lost their homes, made each cling to their own place at table and the same chair in the common sitting-room. Conversation at meal times could not be called animated unless the day had brought any unusual visitors or news of any interesting happening from the outside world. Miss Blackett, used in the past to the chattering of noisy small boys, welcomed at first the negative calm of meals at The Haven, but after a while it oppressed her.
    “I’ll be getting as dumb myself, shut up day after day with the old things,” she had complained to Brenda and Gisela one day. She felt it was beneath her dignity to talk in this way to the girls but they hardly noticed. As far as they were concerned, she was already almost in the same category as the old ladies and neither she nor they possessed any real relevance to life.
    Supper over, all but Miss Norton, Mrs Thornton and Miss Dawson went into the sitting-room to watch television. As no one was allowed to touch the controls because the warden thought, probably correctly, that this would cause friction, the majority decided on the programmes and she switched them on, very loud and very bright, as she thought this was both necessary and nice. Miss Norton never watched because of her defective sight, Mrs Thornton had her own small set which from her attic fastness she knew could disturb no one. Miss Dawson vehemently disliked all television on principle. This evening, too, she felt very tired but she knew that the pain from her arthritis would only become worse in bed and although allowed two pain killers, doled out to her each evening, she did not allow herself to resort to these so early in the night. She wrapped herself in shawls and a rug and sat in her favouite chair by the window and prayed for the miracle that sometimes some kind magic worked for her. She never knew when it would happen and it was not often, but when it did it was far better than any pain killers. Somehow she thought it might tonight. There was a full moon rising and the softly moving branches of the deodar tree threw shadows on her walls, for she had not switched on her light. The window was slightly open and the distant hoot of an owl floated into the room. Nearer at hand a blackbird was still hard at it and Miss Dawson knew that a thrush or two would follow, singing late into the May night.
    The bird’s song, though so native, did not seem to conflict with the faint exotic scent from the deodar but mingled subtly with it, creating in Miss Dawson’s mind a strange compound of past and present, of scenes near at hand and far away in