A Popular Schoolgirl Angela Brazil (best novels for beginners TXT) đ
- Author: Angela Brazil
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The tall dark figure of the music master was striding through the doorway, carrying his small son, who hugged his toy with one arm, and waved a friendly goodbye with the other.
âWhat possessed you to drop all your music, child?â said Quenrede, rather patronizingly to Ingred. She was still trying to live up to the plum-colored hat. âYou played ever so decently afterwards, thoughâ âyou did, really! Donât tell me again that youâre nervous, for itâs all rubbish. You looked as if you enjoyed it.â
âEnjoyed it!â echoed Ingred. âIf youâd gone through the palpitations that I felt this afternoon youâd want to go to a specialist, and consult him for heart trouble! Iâve lived through it this once, but if Iâm ever asked to play again in public, youâd better go to the cemetery beforehand, and choose a picturesque corner for my grave, and buy a weeping willow ready to plant upon it. Yes, and order a headstone too, with the simple words: âDied of fright.â I mean it! âEnjoyed it!â indeed! Why, Iâve never in the whole of my life been in such an absolutely blue funk!â
XIII Quenrede Comes OutThe Saxon family celebrated Christmas at the bungalow with mixed feelings. As Ingred said, it was like the curateâs eggâ âparts of it were very nice. It was the first Christmas they had spent all together for many years, and if they could only have forgotten Rotherwood, and their altered circumstances, they would have enjoyed it immensely. Mrs. Saxon, the unfailing sunshine-radiator of the household, tried to ignore the tone of discontent in her husbandâs voice, the grumpy attitude of Egbert, Quenredeâs fit of the blues, and Athelstaneâs rather martyred pose. She insisted on bundling everybody out for a blow on the moors.
âIf weâd been living in Grovebury,â she remarked, âwe should probably have taken a jaunt to Wynch-on-the-Wold as a special treat. Let us think ourselves lucky in being on the spot and only having to turn out of our own door to be at once in such lovely scenery. Itâs like having a country holiday at Christmas instead of midsummerâ âa thing I always hankered after and never got before!â
Certainly winter on the wold held a charm of its own. The great waste of brown moor stretching under the gray sky showed rich patches where yellow grass and rushes edged dark boggy pools, the low-growing stems of sallows and alders were delicate with shades of orange and mauve; here and there a sprig of furze lingered in flower, and black flights of starlings and fieldfares, driven from colder climates in quest of food, swept in long lines across the horizon. The weather was open for the time of year, the wind strong but not too keen, and had it not been for the lowness of the sun in the sky the day might have been autumn instead of December. It was glorious to walk to the top of Wetherstone Heights and see, miles away, the spire of Monkswell Church and the gleam of the distant river, then to hurry back in the gloaming with the rising mists creeping up like advancing specters, and to find the lamps lighted and tea ready in the cheery bungalow. Nobody wanted to quarrel with Yule cake and muffins, and even Mr. Saxon temporarily forgot his worries and relapsed into quite amusing reminiscences of certain adventures in France.
If only our spirits would keep up to the point to which, with much effort, we screw them, all would be well: unfortunately they often have a tiresome knack of descending with a run. When tea was finished and cleared away Mr. Saxon found the presence of his family a hindrance to reading, and at a hint from their mother the younger members of the party took themselves off into the little drawing-room. Here, round a black fire, which, despite Herewardâs poking, refused to burn brightly, the grumble-cloud that had been lowering all day burst at last.
âIf weâd only got the Rotherwood billiard table thereâd be something to do!â groused Egbert gloomily.
âThere isnât a corner in this poky hole where a fellow can fiddle with photography,â chimed in Athelstane, âeven if there was time to do it. When I get back from Birkshaw itâs nothing but grind, grind, grind at medical books all the evening.â
âRather have your job than mine, though,â said Egbert. âYou havenât to sit under the Paterâs eye all day long, and have him down on you like a cartload of bricks if you make the slightest slip. Iâm the worst off of the whole lot of us!â
âWhat about me at that odious Grammar School?â asked Hereward, pressing his claims to the palm of dissatisfaction.
âOr me at the hostel!â urged Ingred, not to be outdone.
âI donât think you, any of you, realize how slow it is just to stop at home!â sighed Quenrede. âThere were sixteen dozen things Iâd made up my mind to do, and I canât do one of them. Itâs going to be a hateful New Year for all of usâ âjust a New Year of going without and scraping and saving and economizingâ âugh! What a life!â
âLifeâs mostly what we make it,â said Mother, who had quietly joined the circle. âAfter all, what we think we want doesnât always give the greatest happiness. Suppose each of us tries to let this be the best year weâve ever had? Very little in the way of material wealth may come to us, but the other kind of wealth is far better worth working for. I think this hard time gives us the chance to show what weâre made of. During the fighting, the lads at the front went steadily through severe privations, and the women at home worked in the same brave, cheery fashion. Now the strain of the war is over, are we going to let all this splendid spirit drop? Suppose we fight our own battles as we fought our countryâs? Let me feel Iâve still got
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