Summer's Awakening by Anne Weale

and middle-class people generally had good teeth, but not often as well-spaced and straight as her own and James Gardiner's teeth. In fact she had never before met an Englishman with what she called American teeth—he was the first one.
    'Will you come to Florida for Christmas?' Emily asked.
    Her face fell when he answered, 'No, but I'll probably fly down there some time in January or February.'
    Summer had been worrying about Christmas before his arrival. Even if Emily's relationship with her parents had not been close, Christmas at Cranmere had been celebrated in a style she was bound to miss, especially this first year.
    The house had always been filled With guests, all of whom had brought presents for her. Not only would she be denied the excitement of opening a large number of presents, but, at a deeper level, she could not fail to be conscious of her aloneness; of having no family any more.
    When her uncle had paid the bill, Emily said, 'Instead of coming with you to the estate agent, Summer, could I go back to the bookshop, and have another browse?
    'I don't see why not. You've got your puffer with you?'
    Emily nodded and produced the small aerosol inhaler from which, if she started to wheeze or thought she might start, she could give herself a puff of bronchodilator.
    'Have you any money?' her uncle asked.
    'No, but I don't want to buy anything, only to look.'
    'Buy yourself two or three paperbacks for the journey.' He gave her a crisp new banknote.
    Her eyes widened. 'Golly! Ten pounds.'
    He said, 'If you get tired, come back here and sit in the lounge till we come. If we haven't turned up by four, order some tea.'
    The offices of the town's oldest-established estate agent were a short walk from the hotel. As she hurried along beside him, Summer seized the opportunity presented by Emily's absence to bring up the subject of Christmas.
    She began by saying, 'Where will you be spending Christmas, Mr Gardiner?'
    'Skiing at Gstaad.'
    His reply shocked her. She had assumed he must have an important reason for not coming to Florida, but that she might be able to convince him that nothing was more important than that Emily should not feel bereft and miserable.
    His casual announcement that he would be enjoying himself in Switzerland took her breath away. Was this how he meant to discharge his responsibility? By being lavish with pin-money, but niggardly with the love and attention his niece needed far more?
    'Oh, a white Christmas in the Alps—how nice. Emily would love that. As it's her first Christmas as an orphan'—she used the emotive word deliberately—'couldn't she spend it there, with you? She wouldn't interfere with your skiing. She's always perfectly happy as long as she has something to read.'
    'If I were staying in an hotel it might be possible, although difficult, to get them to squeeze her in somewhere,' he agreed. 'But I'm staying at a private ski lodge and my hosts wouldn't take kindly to having a child foisted on them.'
    'Are you sure? I should have thought most people would stretch a point in these special circumstances. After all, loving kindness is what Christmas is all about.'
    'Not to most people, Miss Roberts,' he said dryly. 'In general, it's an excuse for eating and drinking and that unwinding I was talking about earlier.'
    His cynicism repelled her. She had never believed the people—Miss Ewing among them—who claimed that the true spirit of Christmas was lost nowadays, swamped by commercialism. The Christmases of her childhood had been magic festivals. Her parents had always included one or two old or lonely people in their celebrations, and many of the gifts she had helped her mother to wrap had been for recipients who otherwise might not have shared in the annual upsurge of loving and giving.
    'You could explain to them and ask them?' she persisted.
    He shook his head, starting to frown. 'I shouldn't dream of putting them in the awkward position of having to refuse; not only on their own