again the hours slipped by for Anne: was it the excellent food, or was it Henry's company? This timehe made her laugh with his stories of Harvard and cry with recollections of the war.
Although she was well aware that he looked younger than herself, he had done so much with his life that she always felt deliciously youthful and inexperienced in his company. She told him about her husband's death, and cried a little more - He took her hand and she spoke of her son with glowing pride and affection. He said he had always wanted'a son. Henry scarcely men - tioned Chicago or his own home life but Anne felt sure that he must miss his family. When he took her home that night, he stayed for a quick drink and kissed her gently on the cheek as he left. Anne went back over the evening minUte by minute before she fell asleep.
They went to the theatre on Tuesday, visited Anne's cottage on Cape Cod on Wednesday, gyrated to the Grizzly Bear and the Temptation Rag on Thursday, shopped for antiques on Friday, and made love on Saturday. After Sunday, they were rarely apart. Milly and John Preston were 'absolutely delighted'
that their match - making had at last proved so successful. Milly went around Boston telling everyone - that she had been responsible for putting the two of them together.
The announcement during that summer of the engagement came as no surprise to anyone except William. He had disliked Henry intensely from the day that Anne, with a well - founded sense of misgiving, introduced them to each other. Their first conversation took the form of long questions from Henry, trying to prove he wanted to be a friend, and monosyllabic answers from William, showing that he didn't. And he never changed his mind. Anne ascribed her son's resentment to an understandable feeling of jealousy; William had been the centre of her life since Richard's death. Moreover, it was perfectly proper that in William's estimation, no one could possibly take the place of his own father. Anne convinced Henry that given time William would get over his sense of outrage.
A=e Kame became Mrs. Henry Osborne in October of that year at the Old North Church just as the golden and red leaves were beginning to fall, a little over ten months after they had met. William feigned illness in order not to attend the wedding and remained firmly ht school. The grandmothers did attend, but were unable to hide their dis - approval of Anne's remarriage, particularly to someone who appeared to be so much younger than herself. 'It can only end in disaster,' said Grandmother Kane.
The newlyweds sailed for Greece the following day, and did not return to the Red House on the Hill till the second week of December, just in time to welcome William home for the Christmas holidays. William was shocked to find the house had been redecorated, leaving almost no trace of his father. Over Christmas, William's attitude to his step - father showed no sign of softening despite the present as Henry saw it - bribe as William construed it - of a new bicycle. Henry Osborne accepted this rebuff with surly resignation. It saddened Anne that her splendid new husband made so little effort to win over her son's affection.
William felt ill at ease in his invaded home and would often disappear for long periods during the day. Whenever Anne inquired where be ' was going, she received little or no response: it certainly was not to the grandmothers. When the Christmas holidays came to an end, William was only too happy to return to school and Henry was not sad to see him go.
Only Anne was uneasy about both the men in her rife.
Chapter 9
'Up, boy. Up, boy.'
One of the soldiers was digging his rifle butt into Wladek's ribs. He sat up with a start and looked at the grave of his sister and those of Leon and of the Baron, and he did not shed a single tear as he turned towards the soldier.
'I will live, you will not kill me,' he said in Polish. 'This is my home, and you are on my land!
The soldier spat on Wladek and pushed him back to the lawn where the servants were waiting, all dressed in what looked like grey pyjamas with numbers on their backs. Wladek was horrified at the sight of them, realising what was about to happen to him.