BOOKS.RESEAU.ORG - English-French Library

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Page 1 : SISTERS by Ada Cambridge CHAPTER I. Guthrie Carey began life young. He was not a week over twenty-one when, between two voyages, he married Lily Harrison, simply because she was a poor, pretty, homeless little girl, who had to earn her living as a nondescript lady-help in hard situations, and never had a holiday. He saw her in a Sandridge boarding-house, slaving beyond her powers, and made up his mind that she should rest. With sailor zeal and promptitude, he got the consent of her father, who was glad to be rid of her out of the way of a new wife; took the trembling, clinging child to the nearest parson, and made her a pensioner on his small wages in a tiny lodging of her own. They honeymooned for a fortnight, off and on, as his ship could spare him--the happiest pair of mortals in the wide world--and then parted in tears and anguish unspeakable for the best part of a twelvemonth. He came back to find himself a father.

Page 14 : "My brother and I, we never hit it off, somehow. So when my father died I cleared. You don't remember his funeral, I suppose? No, no--that was before your time. They hung the church all over with black broadcloth of the best. That was the way in those days, and the cloth was the parson's perquisite. The funeral hangings used to keep him in coats and trousers. And they used to deal out long silk hat-scarves to all the mourners--silk that would stand alone, as they say--and the wives made mantles and aprons of them. They went down from mother to daughter, like the best china and family spoons. That's how women took care of their clothes when I was young. They didn't want new frocks and fallals every week, like some folks I could name." And he pinched his daughter's ear. "Talk to Deb, father," said Mary. "I have not had a new frock for a great many weeks." "Aye, Deb's the one! That girl's got to marry a millionaire, or I don't know where she'll be.

Page 27 : And here came Deb, gliding towards him by a path that he could not see, holding her lace skirts tightly bunched in her nervous hands. Youth to youth, beauty to beauty, man to woman, woman to man, the magnet to the steel--they were just elements of the elements, for once in their lives. "How fortunate that I put on black tonight," thought Deb, as she pursued her stealthy way at the back of bushes--"and something that does not rustle!" "How beautiful she was tonight!" thought Claud. "How a dark dress throws up that superb neck of hers! I'll take her to Europe, and show her to the sculptors and painters; but where's the hand that could carve that shape, or the paint that could give her colour? I'll have a London season with her, and see her snuff out the milk-and-water debutantes. No milk-and-water about Deb--wine and fire!--and withal so proud and unapproachable. That hulking brute imagines--but he'll find his mistake if he attempts to cross the line.

Page 40 : "Miss Pennycuick," he continued, as she kept silence, "I want to get the hang of this thing. Will you tell me straight--yes or no--have you been giving it out that I left Redford two years ago engaged to you?" Her first impulse was to cry out: "Oh, no, no! Not quite so bad as that!" But on second thoughts she said: "Yes--practically." Sudden rage seemed to seize him. He sat up, he crossed his knees, he uncrossed them, he twisted this way and that, he muttered "Good God!" as if the pious ejaculation had referred to the Other Person, and his stare at her was cruel. "But--but--I have been racking my brains to remember anything-- surely I never gave you--I am perfectly convinced, I have the best reason for being absolutely certain, that I could not have given you-- " "Never!" she broke in. "Of course not. It was all my own invention." "You admit it? Thank you.

Page 53 : The whole Goldsworthy family was transferred to Redford, while, on the pretext of disinfecting it, the parsonage was painted and papered what Deb called "decently", and its more offensive furniture replaced. Mary was provided with a trousseau and many useful wedding presents, a cheque from her father for 500 pounds amongst them. They did not forgive her, but they pretended excellently that they did. Without any pretence at all, they tried to make the best of a bad job. To this end, they gathered their friends together as usual at Christmas. Mr Thornycroft and the Urquharts needed no pressing; they came to see Mary the day she returned home, and showed her the old affection without asking questions. Mr Thornycroft's wedding presents to her were magnificent--a complete service of silver plate and house linen of the finest. Deb wrote to Claud: "I suppose we shall see you, as usual?"-- for he had always spent Christmas at Redford unless away on the other side of the world.

Page 66 : "With pleasure," said Rose. And then: "Oh, if you like."--"Well, only one more round one."--"I belong to the house, and must distribute myself."--"No, no, that's enough; leave room for all the nice girls I am going to introduce you to--Miss Alice Urquhart--Mr Breen, dear-- Mrs Simpson's nephew, and a friend of mine in town." It slipped out unawares. Peter's air, as he scribbled "Miss Urquhart" on his card, was seraphic. Later, Alice snatched a chance to whisper to Rose: "What a good-looking fellow! Who is he?" And Rose hastened to explain that she knew him only very slightly. They had their first waltz together, and he danced delightfully. This was a fresh agreeable surprise to Rose--as if drapers did not take dancing lessons and make use of them like other people; she was almost indiscreet in her eulogies on his performance.

Page 79 : Impulsively--too impulsively, considering how weak he was--she kissed his damp forehead, and rushed weeping from his sight. In the hot evening, while the trained nurse had her tea at grateful leisure in the housekeeper's room, Deb again took that nurse's place. She sat by the pillow of the patient, leaning against it, holding his hand in hers. Only the sound of the cruel north wind and his more cruel breathing disturbed the stillness that enveloped them. She hoped he was sleeping, until he spoke suddenly in a way that showed him only too wide awake. "Debbie," he said, "if I was quite sure I would not get well this time, I should put that question to you again." "What question, dear?" she queried softly. "The question I asked you just before you left Redford." "I don't remember--Oh!" "Yes--that one. But if you consented, I might recover--it would be enough to make me; then you would repent." She was silent, agitated in every fibre of her, but thinking hard.

Page 92 : "It was very hard on you," Deb said gently--contradicting the Deb of an earlier time and different state of things--"to have those expectations, which were certainly justified, and to be disappointed as you were. I feel that we Pennycuicks were to blame in that--" "Oh, dear, no!" he earnestly assured her. "And that an obligation rests on me, now that I have the means, to make some compensation to you--to Mary, rather." "It is like you to think of that.

Page 105 : "Goodness! I'd no idea that my face was such a tell-tale. I believe I was. That funny old room, with ridges in the floor, and the ceiling nearly on your head--how DID we manage to dance in it?" "Well, we did manage somehow, didn't we?" They gazed at the figures wheeling past them, blankly unresponsive to casual stares and smiles. They seemed to hear the rotten flood-gates, shut so long ago, creak on their rusty hinges. "Heard anything of the Urquharts lately?" "Yes. Alice was married the other day--to a widower with fourteen children. She has not been very happy at home, I fear, with Harold's wife. Harold has the place now, you know. Jim gave it up to him when he married." "When who married?" "Harold." "What's Jim doing?" "He is my manager at Redford." Mr Dalzell smiled darkly. "He likes that, I suppose?" "I don't know whether he likes it or not, I'm sure, but I do. I know that everything's right when he is there.

Page 118 : "I can't help it," she apologised. "I would if I could. Debbie, don't go! Oh, my dear, don't think I envy you! Don't go yet! I want to tell you something. I may never have another chance." "Of course I won't go --I want to stay," said Deb at once. And she stayed. The coachman was dismissed to get his meal, and instructed to telephone to Bob to do the same. The sisters had a little picnic dinner by themselves, washing up their plates and dishes in the neat kitchen, Deb insisting upon taking part in the performance, and sat long by the fireside afterwards. Fortunately, although the season was late spring, it was a cold day; for the clear red fire was the one bit of brightness to charm a visitor to that poor house. It crackled cosily, toasting their toes outstretched upon the fender-bar, melting their mood to such glowing confidences as they had not exchanged since Mary was in her teens. No lamps were lighted.