Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. A Woman Named Smith by Marie Conway Oemler (bts books to read .TXT) 📖
- Author: Marie Conway Oemler
- Performer: -
Book online «A Woman Named Smith by Marie Conway Oemler (bts books to read .TXT) 📖». Author Marie Conway Oemler
"Sophronisba Two!" The doctor looked at, me piteously.
"Why didn't you ask Alicia?" I persisted, inexorably.
"I did!" gulped the doctor. "But she said she couldn't. She said, why didn't I care for you instead of her? You were so much better—and—and I'd be happier with you, for I'd have the most unselfish angel—" he stopped miserably.
"Well?"
"Well, I kept turning it over in my mind; and the more I thought of it, the clearer I perceived that with a wife like you I'd be a better and a more worth-while man. I—I think so much of you, Sophy, that I'm telling you the whole truth," he finished.
"That's why I'm going to keep on being friends with you—better friends than ever," I told him.
"You're going to marry me, then, Sophy?"
"Didn't you just hear me tell you I meant to keep on being friends with you?"
"You won't, then?"
"I won't, then."
"Yet there are good reasons why you might reconsider your decision," he said, after a pause. "We are so diametrically opposed it would seem inevitable we should marry each other. Why, Sophy, we've got enough to quarrel happily about for the rest of our lives. For instance, do you sleep with all your windows open?"
"I close two, and leave two open."
"Every window open, day and night, hot or cold, rain or shine," said the doctor, firmly. "Do you use pillows?"
"Two."
"None at all. Sleep with your head flat. How many blankets?"
"Two, and a comfort."
"One army blanket, except in extremely cold weather," said the doctor. "Do you like a pipe?"
"It always makes me sick. I peculiarly and particularly loathe and detest a pipe."
"A pipe, my dear, deluded woman, is a comfort, a stay, a prop to a man's soul, an aid to meditation and repose. I insist upon a pipe—within moderation, of course. Do you like parrots? Sophy, are you capable of supporting a parrot? I have already perceived your reprehensible fondness for cats." He looked at his scratched hand.
"I have always wanted a parrot. I think they're the most—"
"Damnable brutes!" finished the doctor. "Gad, I'd as lief live in the house with Sophronisba One! It is not moral to like a parrot. What do you think of stewed rhubarb?"
I made a wry face. I abhor stewed rhubarb. Somehow, it always makes me think of orphans in long-waisted gingham dresses with white china buttons down the back. One way of punishing children for losing their parents is to make them wear dark gingham dresses with china buttons down the back and to eat stewed rhubarb for dessert.
"Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are," pronounced the doctor. "It's a sign of moral rectitude to eat stewed rhubarb. Now, as to science: what is your attitude toward evolution?"
"Well, I think plenty of men turn themselves into monkeys, but I refuse to believe that God ever turned a monkey into a man."
"Ha!" mused the doctor, pulling his nose; "I see! Do you insist upon a sacrosanct meal hour? Are your meal hours fixed, even as the laws of the Medes and the Persians?"
"How else, pray, shall one run one's house with any degree of system?" I wanted to know.
"Bunk!" snorted the doctor. "I eat when I'm hungry! Now, lastly, sister, tell me truthfully: are you a Democrat or a Republican?"
"I don't see much difference: they're both of them nothing but men."
"I knew it!" The doctor shook his head with sad triumph. "She'd scratch Brown, because she didn't like the expression of his ears, and vote for Jones, because he had such beautiful whiskers! My dear, dear woman, can't you see that it's almost a law of nature for you and me, who don't agree about anything, to marry each other?"
"I don't even agree with you as to that!" said I, and fell into helpless laughter.
"It rather looks like flying in the face of Providence not to," he warned me. "In the meantime—"
"In the meantime, let us be grateful Alicia didn't put the notion into your head to ask somebody who might have taken you seriously."
"That means you don't, and won't." He drew a long breath. "But we're good friends; aren't we, Sophy?"
"If a man never does anything worse than ask a woman to marry him, he will probably retain her friendship until she dies," I replied.
"Provided she refuses him," the doctor said, gratefully. And bending down, he kissed me brotherly on the cheek, an honest and resounding smack; at which opportune moment Alicia walked in.
Wholly unabashed, the doctor spoke pleasantly to Alicia, shook hands with me effusively, and went off whistling. All was right with the world. I'd refused him, you understand! Instead of being enraged and offended, I found myself giggling.
That night, as Alicia didn't come in my room, I went into hers.
"I know what you've come to tell me, Sophy dear," she said, directly. "I've seen it for some time. And I'm glad as glad—glad with all my heart, Sophy." Her voice was tenderness itself, her eyes melted. But the hand on my hand was cold. "I love you a great deal, Sophy," she whispered. "More than anybody else in the world, I think."
"And was it because you loved me, dear girl, that you put the absurd notion of asking me to marry him into Doctor Geddes's head?"
"Absurd notion?" repeated Alicia. "Absurd notion? But he asked you! Didn't he ask you?"
"As to that, he told me I could marry him if I wanted to," I admitted. "Oh, Leetchy, it was funny, though! If you could have seen the poor dear, trying to martyr himself, just to oblige you—"
"You refused him?" breathlessly.
"Of course. There wasn't anything to say but 'No.'"
"But—I saw—"
"You saw him kiss me on the cheek? Honey, that wasn't love: that was gratitude!"
"I don't understand!" stammered Alicia, twisting her hands. "Why, you cared for him—I thought you cared."
"Of course I care for him! But not like that! Good heavens, Alicia, however did you get such a notion? My dear, if I loved you less, or him more, I should never, never be able to forgive either of you. As it is, we'll forget it."
At that Alicia began to cry.
"Oh, what have I done?" she whimpered. "Sophy, you don't know—what I've done!"
"You haven't done anything that can't be undone," said I, comfortably. "You and I, my dear, fell into a Hynds House maze. Now we're out of it!" And thinking she would be better by herself, I kissed her good night.
Out of Hynds House maze, indeed! I had only to step back into my own room to have it again enmesh me. For on the prie-dieu that had once held Freeman Hynds's Bible and now held mine, was the lost diary.
CHAPTER XIII FIRES OF YESTERDAY
I wasn't frightened, of course. There isn't anything terrifying in finding a little old leather-covered book on a prie-dieu by one's bedside. But it was some minutes before I could induce myself to take up that yellowed old diary and examine it.
It begins the year of Freeman's return from college, "a Finish'd Young Gentleman." He has refused to go abroad, considering that "our Young Gentlemen have enough Fripperies & Fopperies at Home without bringing worse Ones from Abroad." Brother Richard has been abroad more than once, and Freeman does not "find him Improv'd save in Outer Elegancies."
The only person that "much Travelling hath not Spoil'd," he finds, is Mistress Emily Hope of Hope Plantation. "Shee was a Sweet Child," he remembers; and now that the dew of their youth is upon them both, he finds her "of a Graceful and Delicate Shape, with the Most Beautiful Countenance in the World, a Sweet & Modest Demeanour, a Sprightly Wit, an Accomplish'd Mind, & a Heart Fix'd upon Virtue."
The estates are near each other, the families intimate friends. Emily seems to like the boy. At any rate, she doesn't repel him. And then returns Richard—the gay, the handsome, the irresistible Richard—who adds to the stalwart comeliness of a colonial gentleman the style, the grace, the cultivated manners of the Old World.
Almost fiercely Freeman notes the effect he produces, and how "Women do catch an Admiration for him as't were a Pox."
Then he begins to set down, grimly, "The Sums my Father hath paid for My Brother's Debts." A little later, he adds: "You Might Pour the Atlantic Ocean full of Gold through his Pocketts & Overnight would He empty Them." Richard, also, "Makes Choice of rake-hell Companions," to his father's growing unease and indignation, his mother's distress. But "Good God! how is all Forgiven the Beautiful, the Gift'd!"
"Jezebel herself, that carries her Head so High, wears her Heart upon her Sleeve, een like a simple Milkmaid! 'Tis a Rare Spectacle. Sure there's a Fatality about this Man!"
"This Day dress'd I in my new Blue Cloathes, the which become me not Ill & riding over to Hope Plant'n did ask for Emily's Hand. Alas, 'Tis even as my Fears foretold! Shee loves me Not. 'Tis Richard alone hath her Heart.
"I do Fear Shee will sup Sorrow & drink Tears that setts her Affection upon the Unstable. Shee's too Mild, too Tender, hath not a Firm enough Hand to restrain him. He should een have ta'en Madame Jezebel. Hath a Grand Passion for him. Will not lightly wear the Willow."
"This Day did Richard my Brother Wed Emily Hope," he records, after a six-months' silence. "All say 'tis a most Noble Mating. My Mother in a Gown from London Town, & our Finest Gems, enow to make a Dutchess envious of a Carolina Lady. My Father in high Spiritts.
"I danc'd with the Bridesmaids, but Salut'd not the Bride, the Which noted Madame Jezebel. Was Handsomer than ever I did See her, many thinking her Handsomer than the Bride. Had a great Following, the which the Hussy treat'd with Disdain.
"'Have you Kiss'd the Bride, Sir?' says shee, a-mocking of me after her Wont. 'What a Fine Thing is a Love-Match, Master Freeman!'
"'Have you Wish'd the Bridegroom Joy?' says I. The woman anger'd me.
"'May Heaven send him all the Happiness he Deserves!' cries shee. 'Sure, you'll echo that yourself, Master Freeman!' 'Tis a jibing Wench. Would to God Richard had Wedded her!"
Then came dry notes of a visit to Kinsfolk in Virginia. Freeman seems to have been away from home for some time. When he returns, it is to chronicle in brief his brother's downward course. "They have sold Hope Plantation and Most of the Slaves. 'Tis an evil Chance."
"I shall be Twenty-one next month, though I feel a Thousand. We shall have a Ball, after the Custom of our House. 'Tis to be a Grand Affair. I do think my Parents are somewhat Tender of Conscience to meward. Though my Father Loves me not as he Loves my Brother, yet he begins to Lean upon me more & More Heavily. My poor Mother is a Little Envious of these Dry Virtues of mine, seeing her Darling is like to come to Shipwreck for Lack of them. Yet had he Fortune & Beauty & Emily!"
The next entry records the loss of the Hynds jewels. "'Tis a great Mystery!" One is sorely puzzled here. There is no getting at what Freeman really thinks. Coldly, tritely, he sets down the bald, bare facts of the tragedies that wrecked the Hyndses.
With a strange lack of emotion he chronicles Richard's death, and adds: "At the Pleasure of God his Birth fell upon a Wednesday, at Sun-rising, the which was by some Accounted Favourable. His Death came upon a Friday, at Noone, it Raining heavily."
Then comes his father's sudden death; and this curious item:
"Despite his Anguish & Affliction of Spiritt upon that Date, he did tell me Part, after the Custom of our House, the morning of my Twenty-first Birthday. Alas, when he was Stricken, upon the News of Richard's Demise, he had no Chance to tell me All, nor was there among his Papers the Keye nor any Clue to It. When J. call'd us, he was Beyond Speech & shee Hystericall with Affright.
Comments (0)