Loving Daughters Read Online Free Page A

features into severity, began mixing her sauce. Una collapsed on a chair eventually, flinging her arms behind her over the back.
    â€˜Where would you rather be confined?’ she said in a fair imitation of Violet’s voice. ‘I thought the other one was going to say “underneath the big gum in the corner of the cow paddock”!’ She took up her paring knife and a turnip. ‘Henry is such a fool!’ she cried.
    When it was time to find a saucepan she clapped the lid on as if boxing Henry’s ears.
    â€˜Now do that properly,’ Enid said. ‘The water in first and have it boiling, then the vegetables. And remember the salt.’
    Una sewed and sketched with painstaking care, superior to Enid in these skills, and Enid took every opportunity of asserting her authority in the areas where she excelled.
    Una left the stove to go to the window and look out. It was a long stretch for her body to the sill, across the top of a line of tea tins, empty of their original contents and now used for biscuits and buns. Her protruding bottom, round as a pumpkin in an old tweed skirt, drew the hem up above the dip in her knees. Enid, frowning on the sight, suggested she go and set the dining table in the living room.
    â€˜It will make it look as if tea is closer,’ she said, a logic learned from Nellie.
    She was annoyed with herself for talking so long in the living room with Violet and felt a temporary envy of Violet with only herself and Ned to cook for. A meal for two! What would it be like, she wondered, reminded then of the changes to be faced when the baby was born. She saw her kitchen in chaos, with napkins drying by the stove, and a bath tub on the table. It would not do! The girl did not like the country, you could see that plainly. The three of them should go back to Sydney as soon as she was fit to travel. But if they stubbornly stayed …!
    Enid’s face went hot and her throat tight, and she clasped her nose which had a tendency to turn red when she was agitated. She rushed to the mirror through the kitchen door in the hall to stroke at her nose, only emphasizing the redness with streaks of flour from her fingers. She turned away and scrubbed her face with her apron, and had her breath back in its rightful place when there was the sound of notes struck on the piano, coming from the living room.
    That Una! Enid ran, then stopped to walk normally through the door. Una had the cloth on the table but was at the piano, standing sideways, striking notes, her chin on her neck and her hair against her cheek and neck thick as a horse’s mane. The loose hair both offended and frightened Enid.
    She took a handful of cutlery from the sideboard drawer and began to lay the table, eyes down.
    â€˜Go off and do your hair,’ she said.
    Una threw back her head, loosening her hair still more. She lowered the piano lid, holding her fingers inside as if she might crush them if her feelings overtook her. She stayed so long with her small pert face directed towards a corner of the room that Enid looked too, although aware of nothing there to hold her gaze.
    Enid took up the cruet and swinging it from two fingers walked, almost sauntered, to the kitchen to refill the vinegar. Her profile over her shoulder said see this relaxed body, free of the tension tying you foolishly in knots! Go and do your hair like a sensible girl!
    But in the kitchen Enid went to the window giving her the best view of her garden and did not know how tightly she held the sill. Evening was coming on and some oranges and lemons high on the trees burned like small soft lamps. How glad she was she had insisted on keeping the trees, deaf to the Wyndham view that fruit trees belonged in an orchard and flowers in a garden. The fruit had once been small and sour, tossed in disgust to the pigs. Cattle had thrust their heads into the foliage spoiling the symmetry. But when the trees became part of the garden Enid planted ivy at