The Princess Priscilla's FortnightVon Arnim, Elizabeth
General
The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight
Von Arnim, Elizabeth
Germans -- England -- Fiction; Princesses -- Fiction
Creeper Cottage, it will be remembered, consisted of two cottages,
each with two rooms, an attic, and a kitchen, and in the back yard the
further accommodation of a coal-hole, a pig-stye, and a pump. Thanks
to Tussie's efforts more furniture had been got from Minehead. Tussie
had gone in himself, after a skilful questioning of Fritzing had made
him realize how little had been ordered, and had, with Fritzing's
permission, put the whole thing into the hands of a Minehead firm.
Thus there was a bed for Annalise and sheets for everybody, and the
place was as decent as it could be made in the time. It was so tiny
that it got done, after a great deal of urging from Tussie, by the
Tuesday at midday, and Tussie himself had superintended the storing of
wood in the coal-hole and the lighting of the fire that was to warm
his divine lady and that Ill Luck found so comforting to her toes. The
Shuttleworth horses had a busy time on the Friday, Saturday, and
Monday, trotting up and down between Symford and Minehead; and the
Shuttleworth servants and tenants, not being more blind than other
people, saw very well that their Augustus had lost his heart to the
lady from nowhere. As for Lady Shuttleworth, she only smiled a rueful
smile and stroked her poor Tussie's hair in silence when, having
murmured something about the horses being tired, he reproved her by
telling her that it was everybody's duty to do what they could for
strangers in difficulties.
Priscilla's side of Creeper Cottage was the end abutting on the
churchyard, and her parlour had one latticed window looking south down
the village street, and one looking west opening directly on to the
churchyard. The long grass of the churchyard, its dandelions and
daisies, grew right up beneath this window to her wall, and a tall
tombstone half-blocked her view of the elm-trees and the church. Over
this room, with the same romantic and gloomy outlook, was her bedroom.
Behind her parlour was what had been the shoemaker's kitchen, but it
had been turned into a temporary bathroom. True no water was laid on
as yet, but the pump was just outside, and nobody thought there would
be any difficulty about filling the bath every morning by means of the
pump combined with buckets. Over the bathroom was the attic. This was
Annalise's bedroom. Nobody thought there would be any difficulty about
that either; nobody, in fact, thought anything about anything. It was
a simple place, after the manner of attics, with a window in its
sloping ceiling through which stars might be studied with great
comfort as one lay in bed. A frugal mind, an earnest soul, would have
liked the attic, would have found a healthy enjoyment in a place so
plain and fresh, so swept in windy weather by the airs of heaven. A
poet, too, would certainly have flooded any parts of it that seemed
dark with the splendour of his own inner light; a nature-lover, again,
would have quickly discovered the spiders that dwelt in its corners,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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