Mary Gray

Katharine Tynan

Description

Well-regarded poet and novelist Katharine Tynan was a key figure among the Irish and English literary intelligentsia in the early twentieth century. In the pleasant romance Mary Gray, a young girl overcomes poverty and difficult circumstances to find love.

Sujets

• Romance

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776591916
• Langue: English

Extrait

MARY GRAY
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KATHARINE TYNAN
 
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Mary Gray First published in 1909 Epub ISBN 978-1-77659-191-6 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77659-192-3 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Chapter I - Wistaria Terrace Chapter II - The Wall Between Chapter III - The New Estate Chapter IV - Boy and Girl Chapter V - "Old Blood and Thunder" Chapter VI - The Blue Ribbon Chapter VII - A Chance Meeting Chapter VIII - Groves of Academe Chapter IX - The Race with Death Chapter X - Dispossessed Chapter XI - The Lion Chapter XII - Her Ladyship Chapter XIII - The Heart of a Father Chapter XIV - Lovers' Parting Chapter XV - The General Has an Idea Chapter XVI - The Leading and the Light Chapter XVII - A Night of Spring Chapter XVIII - Halcyon Weather Chapter XIX - Wild Thyme and Violets Chapter XX - Jealousy, Cruel as the Grave Chapter XXI - Two Women Chapter XXII - Light on the Way Chapter XXIII - The News in the Westminster Chapter XXIV - The Friend Chapter XXV - The One Woman Chapter XXVI - Golden Days Chapter XXVII - The Intermediary Chapter XXVIII - Noel! Noel!
Chapter I - Wistaria Terrace
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The house where Mary Gray was born and grew towards womanhood was one ofa squat line of mean little houses that hid themselves behind a greatchurch. The roadway in front of the houses led only to the back entranceof the church. Over against the windows was the playground of the churchschools, surrounded by a high wall that shut away field and sky from thefront rooms of Wistaria Terrace.
The houses were drab and ugly, with untidy grass-plots in front. Theypresented an exterior of three windows and a narrow round-toppedhall-door which was a confession of poverty in itself. Five out of sixhouses had a ramping plaster horse in the fanlight of the hall door, afixture which went with the house and was immune from breakage becauseno one ever thought of cleaning the fanlights.
In the back gardens the family wash was put to dry. Some of the moreenterprising inhabitants kept fowls; but there was not much enterprisein Wistaria Terrace.
Earlier inhabitants had planted the gardens with lilac and laburnumbushes, with gooseberries and currants. There were no flowers there thatdid not sow themselves year after year. They were damp, grubby places,but even there an imaginative child like Mary Gray could findsuggestions of delight.
Mary's father, Walter Gray, was employed at a watchmaker's of repute. Hespent all his working life with a magnifying glass in his eye, peeringinto the mechanism of watches, adjusting the delicate pivots and springson which their lives moved. His occupation had perhaps encouraged in hima habit of introspection. Perhaps he found the human machine as worthyof interest as the works of watches and clocks. Anyhow, in his leisuremoments, which were few, he would discuss curiously with Mary the hiddensprings that kept the human machine in motion, the strange workings andconvolutions of it. From the very early age when she began to be acomfort and a companion to her father, Mary had been accustomed to suchspeculations as would have written Walter Gray down a madman if he hadshared them with the grown people about him rather than with a child.
Mary was the child of his romance, of his first marriage, which hadlasted barely a year.
He never talked of her mother, even to Mary, though she had vaguememories of a time when he had not been so reticent. That was before thestepmother came, the stepmother whom, honestly, Walter Gray had marriedbecause his child was neglected. He had not anticipated, perhaps, thelong string of children which was to result from the marriage, whosepresence in the world was to make Mary's lot a more strenuous one thanwould have been the case if she had been a child alone.
Not that Mary grumbled about the stepbrothers and sisters. Year afteryear, from the time she could stagger under the weight of a baby, shehad received a new burden for her arms, and had found enough love foreach newcomer.
The second Mrs. Gray was a poor, puny, washed-out little rag of a woman,whose one distinction was the number of her children. They had alwaysgreat appetites to be satisfied. As soon as they began to run about, therapidity with which they wore out their boots and the knees of theirtrousers, and outgrew their frocks, was a subject upon which Mrs. Graycould expatiate for hours. Mary had a tender, strong pity from theearliest age for the down-at-heel, over-burdened stepmother, whichlightened her own load, as did the vicarious, motherly love which cameto her for each succeeding fat baby.
Mary was nurse and nursery-governess to all the family. Wistaria Terracehad one great recompense for its humble and hidden condition. It waswithin easy reach of the fields and the mountains. For an adventurousspirit the sea was not at an insuperable distance. Indeed, but for thehigh wall of the school playground, the lovely line of mountains hadbeen well in view. As it was, many a day in summer Mary would carry offher train of children to the fields, with a humble refection of breadand butter and jam, and milk for their mid-day meal; and these occasionsallowed Mrs. Gray a few hours of peace that were like a foretaste ofParadise.
She never grumbled, poor little woman, because her husband shared histhoughts with Mary and not with her. Whatever ambitions she had had torise to her Walter's level—she had an immense opinion of hislearning—had long been extinguished under the accumulation of toils andburdens that made up her daily life. She was fond of Mary, and leant onher strangely, considering their relative ages. For the rest, she toiledwith indifferent success at household tasks, and was grateful for havinga husband so absorbed in distant speculations that he was insensible ofthe near discomfort of a badly-cooked dinner or a buttonless shirt.
The gardens of the houses opened on a lane which was a sort ofrubbish-shoot for the houses that gave upon it. Across the lane was arow of stabling belonging to far more important houses than WistariaTerrace. Beyond the stables and stable yards were old gardens with shadystretches of turf and forest trees enclosed within their walls. Beyondthe gardens rose the fine old-fashioned houses of the Mall, big Georgianhouses that looked in front across the roadway at the line of elm-treesthat bordered the canal. The green waters of the canal, winding placidlythrough its green channel, with the elm-trees reflected greenly in itsgreen depths, had a suggestion of Holland.
The lane was something of an adventure to the children of WistariaTerrace. There, any day, you might see a coachman curry-combing hissatin-skinned horses, hissing between his teeth by way of encouragement,after the time-honoured custom. Or you might see a load of hay lifted upby a windlass into the loft above the stables. Or you might assist atthe washing of a carriage. Sometimes the gate at the farther side of thestable was open, and a gardener would come through with a barrowful ofrubbish to add to the accumulation already in the lane.
Through the open gateway the children would catch glimpses of Fairyland.A broad stretch of shining turf dappled with sun and shade. Tallsnapdragons and lilies and sweet-williams and phlox in the garden-beds.A fruit tree or two, heavy with blossom or fruit.
Only old-fashioned people lived in the Mall nowadays, and the glimpsesthe children caught of the owners of those terrestrial paradises fittedin with the idea of fairyland. They were always old ladies andgentlemen, and they were old-fashioned in their attire, but verymagnificent. There was one old lady who was the very Fairy Godmother ofthe stories. She was the one who had the magnificent mulberry-tree inher garden. One day in every year the children were called in to stripthe tree of its fruit; and that was a great day for Wistaria Terrace.
The children were allowed to bring basins to carry away what they couldnot eat; and benevolent men-servants would ascend to the overweightedboughs of the tree by ladders and pick the fruit and load up thechildren's basins with it. Again, the apples would be distributed intheir season. While the distribution went on, the old lady would standat a window with her little white dog in her arms nodding her head in awell-pleased way. The children called her Lady Anne. They had no suchpersonal acquaintance with the other gardens and their owners, so theirthoughts were very full of Lady Anne and her garden.
When Mary was about fourteen she made the acquaintance of Lady Anne—herfull name was Lady Anne Hamilton—and that was an event which had aconsiderable influence on her fortunes. The meeting came about in thisway.
Mary had gone marketing one day, and for once had deserted the shabbylittle row of shops which ran at the end of Wistaria Terrace, at rightangles to it. She had gone out into the great main thoroughfare, thenoise of which came dimly to Wistaria Terrace because of the huge massof the church blocking up the way.
She had done her shopping and was on her way home, when, right in thetrack of the heavy tram as it came down the steep descent from thebridge over the canal, she saw a helpless bit of white fur, as it mightwell seem to anyone at a distance. The thing was almost motionless, orstirring so feebly that its movements were not apparent. Evidently thedriver of the tram had not noticed it, or was not troubled to save itslife, for he stood with the reins i