A Little Learning by Anne Bennett

Author:Anne Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007547838
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-06-26T04:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

Janet thought she’d never been so miserable. Christmas and New Year were over and her body ached with cold as she huddled over her books in her bedroom. All she could see ahead of her was a hard and dismal slog. She missed Ben like a physical pain and was depressed because all he’d sent her were a few picture postcards of the places he’d visited in the States. She hadn’t been able to write to him because he hadn’t been sure of where he’d be staying when he left England. He’d promised to send his address to Janet as soon as he knew it, but he’d obviously forgotten. She’d longed for a letter to say he missed her, but all she got were postcards so general they could have been read by any member of the family, and often were.

‘Be fair,’ Breda told her niece. ‘It’s his first time in America. He’s bound to want to see a bit of the place. I know you’re studying, but you can’t work all the time, and you shouldn’t sit and brood about Ben. Why don’t you and Ruth go out on your own?’

‘Because Ruth’s in love,’ Janet said disapprovingly. ‘His name is Samuel Oppenheimer and he’s very suitable. He’s handsome and Jewish and will be starting at Ruth’s college at Oxford in October – providing Ruth gets her grades, of course. He’s just spent two years working on a kibbutz in Israel and bores everyone to death telling them about it.’

Breda laughed at Janet’s glum face and said, ‘Why don’t you like him, Janet?’

‘Because he’s arrogant and big-headed and too smarmy for words,’ Janet cried. ‘Even the crabby old grandmother loves him, can you believe that? There’s got to be something wrong with someone who can charm that vindictive old cow. Ruth said his mother is a widow and she and his two elder sisters run round pandering to dear Sam. Mind, she can talk, she really has got it bad, and I have to listen all the time to what Samuel said, or did, or even thought, for heaven’s sake. No one else gets a look in now. Any free time she can squeeze in is for lover boy, and I hardly think she’d find time to go out with me.’

‘You don’t think you could be the tiniest bit jealous?’

‘No,’ Janet burst out, and then, ‘Oh, maybe, I don’t know. But she can be sickening about him. Don’t laugh,’ she complained, catching sight of Breda’s face. ‘I know I can go on about Ben, but I’m too miserable to be very understanding about Ruth’s romance.’

‘Oh, pet,’ Breda exclaimed, ‘you’ll get a letter any day, you’ll see.’

But when the letter finally arrived, it didn’t help Janet feel better at all. ‘He tells me what a good time he’s having,’ she fumed to Breda, where she’d fled to read the letter in peace. ‘And about the skyscrapers, yellow taxis and more traffic than he’s ever seen in his life. There’s not one

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