Rosemary Hammond by ___

Author:___ [___]
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER SIX

The next day when Claudia went up to the meadow and saw Margaret sitting on her perch, she assumed that either she had obtained her father's permission to venture this far from the house, or he was safely out of town again and she was left under Mrs Jacobs' careless jurisdiction.

After the way Julian had treated the girl yesterday, Claudia's reservations about getting involved were forgotten, and today she gave the girl a friendly smile. Immediately, she beamed back at her. -'My name is Margaret,' she said.

'Yes, I know. And mine is Claudia.'

Claudia bent down with her trowel to cultivate the earth around her new plants, and for the next half-hour neither of them spoke again. Margaret murmured or hummed softly to herself in broken snatches of a nursery tune from time to time, and it wasn't an uncomfortable silence.

Finally, when Claudia sat back to rest, the girl apparently saw it as a signal that it was all right to speak again.

'My daddy said you're a dancer.'

'That's right. Rather,' she amended, 'I was a dancer.'

Margaret nodded solemnly. 'Then you hurt your leg.'

'Yes,' Claudia replied softly. 'Then I hurt my leg.'

'I'm very sorry.'

'Thank you, Margaret. I'm sorry, too.'

There was another short silence. Claudia leaned back against the trunk of the tree and closed her eyes. After a few minutes, the girl said, 'Does it hurt?'

Claudia looked at her and smiled. 'My leg? Not so much any more.'

'That's good.' She paused, then said shyly. 'I want to be a dancer, too.'

Claudia examined the small body with a critical eye. It was hard to tell, but it looked at though Margaret might have the good bones and slender frame a dancer needed.

'It takes a lot of hard work to become a good dancer,' she said. 'You have to want it more than anything else.'

'Oh, I do!'

'Don't you have anyone to play with up here?' Claudia asked. 'There are lots of children in the village.'

'I live with my aunt in California when I go to school,' the girl replied. 'So I don't know anyone here. Besides, I don't like games much. I'd rather learn to dance.'

Warning herself to tread cautiously on such slippery ground, Claudia asked, 'Have you told your father that?'

'Yes, but he's very busy. He's a famous painter, you know,' she added with obvious pride. 'He doesn't have much time for me.'

The brute, Claudia thought. Then inspiration hit her. She knew she shouldn't interfere, but she couldn't help feeling sorry, for the girl. 'I think there are summer classes at the community centre in the village,' she said carefully. 'They used to give dancing lessons. Perhaps they still do. Maybe if you asked your father about it, he'd look into it for you.'

Margaret brightened at that. 'I could ask, couldn't I?' Then her face fell. 'But he's gone again. He and Sharon went off to California together.'

'I see,' Claudia said in a tight voice.

'I don't suppose you could do it for me?' Margaret asked shyly. 'I mean, find out about the lessons.

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