Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read this ebook for free! No credit card needed, absolutely nothing to pay.
Words: 121808 in 36 pages
This is an ebook sharing website. You can read the uploaded ebooks for free here. No credit cards needed, nothing to pay. If you want to own a digital copy of the ebook, or want to read offline with your favorite ebook-reader, then you can choose to buy and download the ebook.
ey was not there to help me. When I reached the inn I looked into the room where we had our meals; but he was not there. And he was nowhere in our great barn of a bedroom. His portmanteau was there, and all his things, so I knew he could not stay long away. I made signs to Chiara, the maid, for I cannot speak Italian or German; but she did not understand me. So I went to bed and cried myself to sleep.
Now I have told exactly how it happened. It is nearly three weeks ago; and every hour I have expected to see Sidney come back. He has left most of his money behind in my care; there are nearly eighty pounds in foreign money that I do not understand. Quite plenty; I'm not vexed about that. But I want him to be here taking care of me. What am I to do if he is not here in time? Chiara is kind enough; only we cannot understand one another, and what will become of me? Oh! if Aunt Rachel could only be here!
It is a very rough place, this inn. My bedroom is paved with red tiles like our kitchen at home; and there is no fire-place, only an immense white stove in one corner, which looks like a ghost at night, when there is any moonlight. There is a big deal table, and a kind of sofa, as large as a bed, placed on one side of it. The bed itself is so high I have to climb into it by a chair. There are four windows; and when I look out at them there is little else to be seen but the great high, awful rocks, shutting out the sky from my sight; they frighten me. Downstairs, the room below mine is the kitchen. It is like a barn, too; paved with rough slabs of stone. There is an enormous table, with benches on each side. At one end of the kitchen is a sort of little room, with six sides, almost round; and in the middle of it is a kind of platform, built of brick, about two feet high; and this is their fire-place, where all the cooking is done. There is always a huge fire of logs burning, and there are tall chairs standing round it, tall enough for people to put their feet on the high hearth. I've sat there myself, with my cold feet on the hot bricks, and very comfortable it is on a frosty night. And above it hangs an enormous, enormous extinguisher, which serves as a chimney, but which can be lowered by chains. At nights all the rough men in the village come and sit round this queer fire-place; and oh! the noises there are make me shiver with terror.
Chiara is very careful of me; too careful. She makes me go out a little every day, when I would rather stay in, and watch for Sidney. I always go as far as the old crucifix, for it seems to comfort me. I always say to it, "Oh, he must come back to-day, I can't bear it any longer. And oh! I'll never, never vex him any more." And the sad face seems to understand, and the head bows down lower as if to listen to me. It seems to heed me, and to be very sorry for me. I wonder if it can be wicked to feel in this way. But in England I should not want any crucifix, I should have Aunt Rachel.
I am afraid Sidney forgot that I should want him near me. Suppose he does not come back till I am well and strong again, and can put my baby into his arms myself. There is a pretty shrine on the other road to the village, not the road where he left me, and in it is Mary with a sweet little child lying across her knees asleep. Suppose he should come and find us like that, and I could not wake the baby, and he knelt down before us, and put his arms round us both. Oh, I should never be in a passion again.
I have not written all this at once. Oh, no! Chiara takes the pen and ink away, and shakes her funny old head at me. She makes me laugh sometimes, even now. Whenever I hear the tramp, tramp of her wooden shoes, I fancy she is coming to say Sidney is here, and afraid to startle me; but it would not startle me, for I expect him all the time.
Some day he will drive me in a carriage and pair, along the streets at home, and all the neighbors will see, and say, "Why, there's Sophy Goldsmith come back, riding in her own carriage!" And I shall take my baby, and show him to my aunts and father, and ask them if it was not worth while to be sorry and anxious for a time to have an ending like this.
This moment I have made up my mind that they shall not be sorry nor anxious any longer. I will send this long story I have written to Aunt Rachel; and I will send our portraits which Sidney had taken in Florence. Oh, how handsome he is! And I, don't you think I am very pretty? I did not know I looked like that. Good-by, Sidney and myself. I must make Chiara buy me ever so many postage stamps to-morrow morning.
Dearest father and Aunt Rachel, come and take care of me and my little baby. Forgive me, forgive me, for being a grief to you!
SOPHY.
AT INNSBRUCK.
When Sidney Martin turned away from his petulant young wife, and strode with long hasty strides up the mountain track which lay nearest to him, he did so simply from the impulse of passion. He was little more than a boy himself; just as she was little more than a wayward girl. It was scarcely a year since he left Oxford; and he was now spending a few months in traveling abroad as a holiday, before settling down to the serious business of life. His uncle was the head of the great firm of Martin, Swansea & Co., shipping agents, whose business lay like a vast net over the whole commercial world, bringing in golden gains from the farthest and least known of foreign markets. Sir John Martin, for he had already been knighted, and looked forward to a baronetcy, was a born Londoner, at home only in the streets of London, and unable to find pleasure or recreation elsewhere. But he was desirous that his nephew and heir should be a man of the world, finding himself unembarrassed and at home in any sphere of society; especially those above the original position of his family. To this end he had sent Sidney to Eton and Oxford; and had now given him a year's holiday to see those foreign sights presumed to be necessary to the full completion of his education.
Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg
(0)More posts by @FreeBooks
