Mary Wollaston

Henry Kitchell Webster

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• Publié par: mephong
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 98
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mary Wollaston,
by Henry Kitchell Webster
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at
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Title: Mary Wollaston
Author: Henry Kitchell Webster
Release Date: February 19, 2004 [EBook #11161]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK MARY WOLLASTON ***
Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon,
Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.MARY WOLLASTON
BY HENRY KITCHELL WEBSTER
1920CONTENTS
I THE CIRCASSIAN GRAND
II SEA DRIFT
III THE PEACE BASIS
IV THE PICTURE PUZZLE
V JOHN MAKES A POINT OF IT
VI STRINGENDO
VII NO THOROUGHFARE
VIII THE DUMB PRINCESS
IX IN HARNESS
X AN INTERVENTION
XI NOT COLLECTABLE
XII HICKORY HILLXIII LOW HANGS THE MOON
XIV A CLAIRVOYANT INTERVAL
XV THE END OF IT
XVI FULL MEASURE
XVII THE WAYFARER
XVIII A CASE OF NECESSITY
XIX THE DRAMATIST
XX TWO WOMEN AND JOHN
XXI THE SUBSTITUTE
XXII THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE
XXIII THE TERROR
XXIV THE WHOLE STORY
XXV DAYBREAK
XXVI JOHN ARRIVESXXVII SETTLING PAULA
XXVIII THE KALEIDOSCOPEMARY WOLLASTONCHAPTER I
THE CIRCASSIAN GRAND
Miss Lucile Wollaston was set to exude sympathy,
like an aphid waiting for an overworked ant to
come down to breakfast. But there was no
sympathizing with the man who came in from a
doctor's all-night vigil like a boy from a ball-game,
gave her a hard brisk kiss on the cheek-bone, and
then, before taking his place at the table, unfolded
the morning paper for a glance at the head-lines.
If there was something rigorous about the way she
lighted the alcohol lamp under the silver urn and
rang for Nathaniel, the old colored butler, it was
from a determination not to let this younger brother
of hers put her into a flurry again as he so often
did. A very much younger brother indeed, he
seemed when this mood was on him.
Miss Wollaston was born on the election day that
made James Buchanan president of the United
States and Doctor John within a few days of
Appomattox. But one would have said, looking at
them here at the breakfast table on a morning in
March in the year 1919, that there was a good deal
more than those ten years between them. He
folded his paper and sat down when the butler
suggestively pulled out his chair for him and his
manner became, for the moment, absent, as hiseye fell upon a letter beside his plate addressed in
his daughter, Mary's, handwriting.
"I want a big platter of ham and eggs, Nat, sliced
thick. And a few of Lucartha's wheat cakes." He
made some sort of good-humored, half articulate
acknowledgment of the old servitor's pleasure in
getting such an order, but one might have seen
that his mind was a little out of focus, for it was not
exactly dealing with the letter either. He sliced it
open with a table knife with the precise movement
one would have expected from a surgeon and
disengaged it in the same neat way from its
envelope. But he read it as if he weren't very
sharply aware of what, particularly, it had to say
and he laid it beside his plate again without any
comment.
"Did you have any sleep last night, at all?" Miss
Wollaston asked.
It brought him back like a flash. "Not a wink," he
said jovially.
This was a challenge and the look that went with it,
one of clear boyish mischief, was one that none of
John Wollaston's other intimates—and among
these I include his beautiful young wife and his two
grown-up children by an earlier marriage—ever
saw. It was a special thing for this sister who had
been a stately young lady of twenty when he was a
bad little boy of ten. She had watched him,
admiring yet rather aghast, ever since then.
To the world at large his social charm lay in—orTo the world at large his social charm lay in—or
was at least inseparable from—his really exquisite
manners, his considerateness, the touch of old-
fashioned punctilio there was about him. His first
wife would have agreed with her successor about
his possession of this quality though they would
have appraised it rather differently. Only this
elderly unmarried sister of his felt the fascination of
the horrible about him.
This was to some extent inherent in his profession.
He had a reputation that was growing to amount to
fame as a specialist in the very wide field of
gynecology, obstetrics and abdominal surgery. The
words themselves made Miss Wollaston shudder.
When he replied to her question, whether or not he
had had any sleep at all, with an open grin and that
triumphant "Not a wink," she had a prophetic sense
of what was going to happen. She was going to
ask him more questions and he was going to tell
her something perfectly ghastly.
She felt herself slipping, but she pulled up. "What's
in Mary's letter?" she asked.
She knew that this was not quite fair, and the look
that it brought to his face—a twinge of pain like
neuralgia—awakened a sharp compunction in her.
She did not know why—at least not exactly why—
his relation with his daughter should be a sore spot
in his emotional life, but she knew quite well that
this was true. There was on the surface, nothing,
or nowhere near enough, to account for it.