Atonement -- Fiction; Clergy -- England -- Fiction; Illegitimate children -- Fiction
Well, she was destined to be the boy's good angel, though he never
mistook her for one again; and sometimes she looked the part. The dark
eyes, so ardent in the pursuit of knowledge, or of any other of her
heart's desires, could yet sparkle with childish glee, or soften with
the tenderness of the ideal Madonna. The self-willed mouth and nose were
only sweet as Georgie saw them; and none but he knew the warmth of the
pale brown cheek or the crisp electric touch of the dark brown hair.
Little knowing it before, and never dreaming of it now, Gwynneth had
long been hankering for all that the little child gave her out of the
fulness and purity of his tiny heart. She supposed that she was happy
because at last she was being of some trifling use to somebody; it made
her think more of herself. Looking deeper (as she thought), through the
deceptive lenses of her inner consciousness, Gwynneth took a still less
favourable view of her latest interest in life. It was that and not much
more to the imperfect introspection of her morbid mood.
Nevertheless, this was the happiest time that she had ever known.
Georgie and she became inseparable, even when the boy was well again;
and on him Gwynneth was really lavishing all the love and tenderness
which had been gathering in her heart since the hour when she had kissed
a dead forehead for the last time. The fact was that the girl had an
inborn capacity for passionate devotion, and was now once more enabled
to indulge this sweet instinct to the full. She still went to her weekly
lecture, read every book in the syllabus, and wrote her essay with as
much care for detail as her innate energy would permit. Nor was her work
the worse for the counter-attraction which now filled her young life to
the brim. Georgie spoke of Gwynneth as his "lady," with a sufficient
emphasis upon the possessive pronoun, and to her by a succession of pet
names of their joint invention.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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