Diary fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Mystery fiction; Short stories, English
trouble, the Worse shows no signs of coming yet!
The bead purse is getting on fast. Red and blue, in a pretty striped
pattern.
21st.--A busy day. We go to Appletreewick to-morrow. Paying bills and
packing up. All poor William’s new canvases and painting-things huddled
together into a packing-case. He looked so sad, sitting silent with
his green shade on, while his old familiar working materials were
disappearing around him, as if he and they were never to come together
again, that the tears would start into my eyes, though I am sure I
am not one of the crying sort. Luckily, the green shade kept him from
seeing me: and I took good care, though the effort nearly choked me,
that he should not hear I was crying, at any rate.
The bead purse is done. How are we to get the steel rings and tassels
for it? I am not justified now in spending sixpence unnecessarily, even
for the best of purposes.
22d.-----
23d. _The Farm of Appletreewick._--Too tired, after our move yesterday,
to write a word in my diary about our journey to this delightful place.
But now that we are beginning to get settled, I can manage to make up
for past omissions.
My first occupation on the morning of the move had, oddly enough,
nothing to do with our departure for the farmhouse. The moment breakfast
was over I began the day by making Emily as smart and nice-looking as I
could, to go to the doctor’s with the purse. She had her best silk frock
on, showing the mending a little in some places, I am afraid, and her
straw hat trimmed with my bonnet ribbon. Her father’s neck-scarf, turned
and joined so that nobody could see it, made a nice mantilla for her;
and away she went to the doctor’s, with her little, determined step,
and the purse in her hand (such a pretty hand that it is hardly to
be regretted I had no gloves for her). They were delighted with the
purse--which I ought to mention was finished with some white beads; we
found them in rummaging among our boxes, and they made beautiful rings
and tassels, contrasting charmingly with the blue and red of the rest
of the purse. The doctor and his little girl were, as I have said,
delighted with the present; and they gave Emily, in return, a workbox
for herself, and a box of sugar-plums for her baby sister. The child
came back all flushed with the pleasure of the visit, and quite helped
to keep up her father’s spirits with talking to him about it. So much
for the highly interesting history of the bead purse.
Toward the afternoon the light cart from the farmhouse came to fetch us
and our things to Appletreewick. It was quite a warm spring day, and
I had another pang to bear as I saw poor William helped into the cart,
looking so sickly and sad, with his miserable green shade, in the
cheerful sunlight. “God only knows, Leah, how this will succeed with
us,” he said, as we started; then sighed, and fell silent again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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