• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 5063 0

Sarah with her parents. The rector was a pursy man in clericals and sure enough, while they stood there, he began to scratch his stomach. Sarah disliked quick and unkind judgments and yet there seemed to be some striking stiffness and dryness in the man and something so pompous, monotonous and crusty in the notes of his voice that she felt irritable. Mrs. Young was a short woman, a little plump, and decked out with furs, gloves and a hat sewn with pearls—one of those middle-aged women of means, it seems, whose emptyheadedness smacks of tragedy. “The funny thing about the scarab bracelet,” she said, “was that I thought Rosalie lost it in Europe. She went abroad last year, you know. Eight countries. Well, I thought she lost her bracelet in Europe and I was so surprised to find it in my bureau drawer.”

“Won’t you come in?” Sarah asked.

“No thank you, no thank you. It’s a quaint old house, I can see that. I love quaint old things. And some day when I’m old and James has retired I’m going to buy a quaint, run-down old house like this and do it all over myself. I love quaint old run-down places.”

The priest cleared his throat and felt for his wallet. “We have a little pecuniary matter to settle,” he said, “before Rosalie comes down. I’ve talked it over with Mrs. Young. We thought that twenty dollars might help repay you for …” Then Sarah began to cry, to cry for them all—Coverly, Rosalie and Moses and the stupid priest—and she felt such a sharp pain in her breast that it seemed as if she was weaning her children. “Oh, you must excuse me for crying,” she sobbed. “I’m terribly sorry. You must excuse me.—

“Well, here’s thirty dollars then,” the priest said, handing her the bills.

“Oh, I don’t know what’s come over me,” Sarah sobbed. “Oh dear. Oh dear.” She threw the money into the garden. “I’ve never been so insulted in my life,” she sobbed, and went into the house.

Upstairs in the spare room Rosalie, like Mrs. Wapshot, was crying. Her bags were packed but Sarah found her lying face down on the bed and she sat beside her and put a hand tenderly on her back. “You poor child,” she said. “I’m afraid they’re not very nice.”

Then Rosalie raised her head and spoke, to Sarah’s astonishment, in anger. “Oh, I don’t think you should talk like that about people’s parents,” she said. “I mean they are my parents, after all, and I don’t think it’s very nice of you to say that you don’t like them. I mean I don’t think that’s very fair. After all they’ve done everything for me like sending me to Allendale and Europe and everybody says he’s going to be a bishop and …” She turned then and looked at Sarah tearfully and kissed her good-by on the cheek. Her mother was calling her name up the stairs. “Good-by, Mrs. Wapshot,” she said, “and please say good-by to Lulu and Mr. Wapshot for me. I’ve had a perfectly divine time.…” Then to her mother she called, “I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming,” and she banged with her suitcases down the stairs.

PART TWO

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Writer’s epistolary style (Leander wrote) formed in tradition of Lord Timothy Dexter, who put all punctuation marks, prepositions, adverbs, articles, etc., at end of communication and urged reader to distribute same as he saw fit. West Farm. Autumn day. 3 P.M. Nice sailing breeze from NW quarter. Golden light. Glittering riffle on water. Hornets on ceiling. An old house. Roofs of St. Botolphs in distance. Old river-bottom burg today. Family prominent there once. Name memorialized in many things in vicinity; lakes, roads, hills even. Wapshot Avenue now back street in honkytonk beach resort further south. Smell of hot dogs, popcorn, also salt air and grinding music from old merry-go-round calliope. Matchwood cottages for rent by day, week or season. Such a street named after forebear who rode spar in Java sea for three days, kicking at sharks with bare feet.

There’s nothing but the blood of shipmasters and schoolteachers in writers’ veins. All grand men! A true pork and beaner and something of a curiosity these days. Memories important or unimportant as the