Three Summers Read Online Free Page A

pulled Ruth gently down beside her. ‘Ruthie, now listen,’ she said, ‘This place is your home and I know you love it, but here every day is the same, more or less. In Sydney, every day will bring something new!’
    â€˜I like every day being the same.’
    â€˜You think you do, now, but later on you might hate it, Ruthie.’ Margaret May’s voice took on a sudden vehemence, it was as if there was a fire burning down inside her, ready to burst out. ‘Waking up every morning to the same old round, day after day after day, that’s one way to live, certainly, but for some people it’s not enough, Ruthie.’
    â€˜I suppose so,’ said Ruth doubtfully, and a scarce second later, without even meaning to, she cried out, ‘But Nan, it’s so far !’
    Margaret May’s face became stern, a fierce light gleamed in her eyes. ‘Far doesn’t matter,’ she said, looking down at the letter in her hands. She stroked the crest, running her finger along the lion’s curly mane. ‘You’re going to have such a wonderful time at the university. You’ll meet all kinds of people, people you can talk to about the things that matter—’
    â€˜I can talk to Fee. We talk about things that matter.’
    â€˜Of course you do. But there are other things, so many other things, Ruthie—’ Margaret May spread her hands. ‘A girl like you should see the world.’
    â€˜You didn’t,’ countered Ruth.
    â€˜That was different. Those were harder times.’ Margaret May looked out into the distance and the orphanage shadow came into her eyes. Ruth could hardly bear to think of the place where Nan had grown up, abandoned now, though you could still see it from the highway, all turrets and towers and barred windows on top of its rock-strewn hill.
    â€˜See those rocks up there?’ Nan had said one afternoon when they were passing in the bus. ‘They were one of the punishments.’
    â€˜How do you mean?’
    â€˜We had to pick those rocks up and cart them around to the back on Saturday afternoons. Big as babies some of them were, and didn’t they tear up our hands! And you know, however many we moved, there still seemed just as many next time. We said the nuns made the big girls carry them back to the front at night when we little ones were asleep.’
    â€˜What did they punish you for?’
    â€˜Just for being there. Because we were the children of sin.’
    â€˜But it wasn’t your sin.’
    â€˜It wasn’t anyone’s.’
    After the orphanage her grandmother had been been sent to Fortuna to work as a housemaid. ‘Nan, what was it like at Fortuna ?’ Ruth asked now. Her voice lingered on the beautiful name; she had a longing to hear the great house described because it was Tam Finn’s house, the place where his family had lived for generations. She felt she would give a little piece of her heart to see its rooms and passages, the famous garden with its lawns and flower beds and peacock, the lake and the great English trees.
    â€˜ Fortuna ?’ said Nan. ‘Why did you think of that place?’
    â€˜No reason. I was just remembering how you went to work there. What was it like, Nan?’
    â€˜I can barely remember it. A great cold kitchen, as big as our whole upstairs it was, and dark, and, oh!’ she flung her hands up in the air, ‘Rooms, Ruth! Endless hallways of them, upstairs and down, rooms, rooms, rooms, all for us girls to clean!’
    â€˜And the garden?’
    â€˜I hardly saw it.’
    â€˜But you were living there!’
    â€˜Working there,’ corrected Margaret May.
    â€˜And after that you got married.’
    â€˜Yes.’ Margaret May half turned her face, so Ruth couldn’t see her expression. An image of Don Gower had strode into her mind: handsome Don Gower on the day she’d first met him, standing at Fortuna’s