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One Day At Arle By: Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) |
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By Frances Hodgson Burnett Copyright, 1877
One day at Arle a tiny scattered fishing hamlet on the northwestern
English coast there stood at the door of one of the cottages near the
shore a woman leaning against the lintel post and looking out: a woman
who would have been apt to attract a stranger's eye, too a woman young
and handsome. This was what a first glance would have taken in; a second
would have been apt to teach more and leave a less pleasant impression.
She was young enough to have been girlish, but she was not girlish in
the least. Her tall, lithe, well knit figure was braced against the
door post with a tense sort of strength; her handsome face was just at
this time as dark and hard in expression as if she had been a woman with
years of bitter life behind her; her handsome brows were knit, her lips
were set; from head to foot she looked unyielding and stern of purpose. And neither form nor face belied her. The earliest remembrances of the
coast people concerning Meg Lonas had not been over pleasant ones. She
had never been a favorite among them. The truth was they had half feared
her, even as the silent, dogged, neglected child who used to wander up
and down among the rocks and on the beach, working harder for her scant
living than the oldest of them. She had never a word for them, and never
satisfied their curiosity upon the subject of the treatment she received
from the ill conditioned old grandfather who was her only living
relative, and this last peculiarity had rendered her more unpopular than
anything else would have done. If she had answered their questions
they might have pitied her; but as she chose to meet them with stubborn
silence, they managed to show their dislike in many ways, until at last
it became a settled point among them that the girl was an outcast in
their midst. But even in those days she gave them back wrong for wrong
and scorn for scorn; and as she grew older she grew stronger of will,
less prone to forgive her many injuries and slights, and more prone to
revenge them in an obstinate, bitter fashion. But as she grew older she
grew handsomer too, and the fisher boys who had jeered at her in her
childhood were anxious enough to gain her good will. The women flouted her still, and she defied them openly; the men found
it wisest to be humble in their rough style, and her defiance of them
was more scornful than her defiance of their mothers and sisters. She
would revenge herself upon them, and did, until at last she met a wooer
who was tender enough, it seemed, to move her. At least so people said
at first; but suddenly the lover disappeared, and two or three months
later the whole community was electrified by her sudden marriage with a
suitor whom she had been wont to treat worse than all the rest. How she
treated him after the marriage nobody knew. She was more defiant and
silent than ever, and gossipers gained nothing by asking questions. So
at last she was left alone. It was not the face of a tender wife waiting for a loving husband, the
face that was turned toward the sea. If she had hated the man for whom
she watched she could not have seemed more unbending. Ever since her
visitor had left her (she had had a visitor during the morning) she had
stood in the same place, even in the same position, without moving, and
when at last the figure of her husband came slouching across the sands
homeward she remained motionless still. And surely his was not the face of a happy husband. Not a handsome
face at its dull best, it was doubly unprepossessing then, as, pale
and breathless, he passed the stern form in the doorway, his nervous,
reluctant eyes avoiding hers. "Yo'll find yo're dinner aw ready on th' table," she said to him as he
passed in. Everything was neat enough inside. The fireplace was clean and bright,
the table was set tidily, and the meal upon it was good enough in its
way; but when the man entered he cast an unsteady, uncomprehending
glance around, and when he had flung himself into a chair he did not
attempt to touch the food, but dropped his face upon his arm on the
table with a sound like a little groan... Continue reading book >>
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Genres for this book |
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Literature |
Romance |
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