Secret BreadJesse, F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson)
General
Secret Bread
Jesse, F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Fiction
Left alone, Phoebe sat a moment longer, then rolled over on the bed
with a kitten-like motion and, stretching her arms above her head, lay
taut for a second, then relaxed suddenly. Head tucked in the pillow, she
apparently was lost in thought, for her brown eyes, slightly narrowed,
stared vacantly at the frilling of the pillow-slip. Then she gave a soft
little sound that had it not been so pretty would have been a giggle,
wriggled round, and slipped off the bed. She ran to the mirror and began
to take down her tumbled hair. As she raised her arms her round breast
swelled like a bird's when it lifts its head; her bright eyes and pursed
mouth, full of hairpins, were bird-like too. She was perpetually, to the
seeing eye, suggesting comparison with the animal creation; she was
bird-like, mouse-like, kitten-like, anything and everything that was
soft and small and obviously easy to hurt and crush physically. That was
her allure, her most noticeable quality--that she presented
unconsciously, but unmistakably, the suggestion that it would be easy to
hurt her, easy and sweet.
She made trial of her hair in the fashion the new Princess had
started--drawn back _a la chinoise_, with a long rolled curl, known for
some reason as a "_repentir_," brought forward to lie over one shoulder.
Then she went to the washstand and took more care than usual over the
cleansing of her hands. That done, she deliberated whether or not to
put on her grey chip hat with the pink plume that on her arrival she had
flung on the bed, where it still lay. She tried herself with it and
without, then debated as to whether it looked better to give the
impression of being one of the family by appearing bonnetless, or
whether, on the other hand, it would not be more interesting to Ishmael
if he got the impression of a visitor ... of someone who was not always
about the house, who was to be seen outside. She finally decided on the
latter. Then she sat down to wait, though the time was bound to be more
than an hour, since Vassie and John-James had only now started in to
Penzance in the smart new market-cart to meet the eagerly awaited
arrival, Ishmael Ruan.
Downstairs Annie too had her deliberations, her changes of mind, her
sudden impulses of affection and of resentment, as her ill-regulated
brain had always had them. She had not changed much in the years that
had brought them past Ishmael's eighteenth birthday. All of worn tissues
and faded tints had been hers long before, and except for an increased
jerkiness she seemed the same. In attire she had altered, and her black
silk dress, with its scallops and trembling fringes, suited ill enough
with her badly-arranged hair and work-worn hands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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