Shadow of Life

Douglas Sedgwick Anne

Description

Is it possible to love a person so much that you refuse to remain together with him or her -- because you know that your union is destined to bring unhappiness? Is this choice selfless or selfish? That's the philosophical question at the heart of this rather dark romance from Anne Douglas Sedgwick. Despite sharing a passionate affinity that has persisted for decades, a couple's chance at lasting togetherness is dashed because one partner is fearful that he is not worthy of the love he has been given.

Sujets

• Romance

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776590933
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE SHADOW OF LIFE
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ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK
 
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The Shadow of Life First published in 1906 Epub ISBN 978-1-77659-093-3 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77659-094-0 © 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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PART I Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI PART II Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII PART III Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X
PART I
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Chapter I
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Elspeth Gifford was five years old when she went to live at Kirklands.Her father, an army officer, died in her babyhood, and her mother a fewyears later. The uncle and aunts in Scotland, all three much hermother's seniors, were the child's nearest relatives.
To such a little girl death had meant no more than a bewilderedloneliness, but the bewilderment was so sharp, the loneliness so aching,that she cried herself into an illness. She had seen her dead mother,the sweet, sightless, silent face, familiar yet amazing, and more thanany fear or shrinking had been the suffocating mystery of feelingherself forgotten and left behind. Her uncle Nigel, sorrowful and grave,but so large and kind that his presence seemed to radiate a restoringwarmth, came to London for her and a fond nurse went with her to theNorth, and after a few weeks the anxious affection of her aunts Racheland Barbara built about her, again, a child's safe universe of love.
Kirklands was a large white house and stood on a slope facing south,backed by a rise of thickly wooded hill and overlooking a sea ofheathery moorland. It was a solitary but not a melancholy house. Lichensyellowed the high-pitched slate roof and creepers clung to the roughly"harled" walls. On sunny days the long rows of windows were goldensquares in the illumined white, and, under a desolate winter sky, glowedwith an inner radiance.
In the tall limes to the west a vast colony of rooks made their nests;and to Eppie these high nests, so dark against the sky in the vaguelygreen boughs of spring or in the autumn's bare, swaying branches, had aweird, fairy-tale charm. They belonged neither to the earth nor to thesky, but seemed to float between, in a place of inaccessible romance,and the clamor, joyous yet irritable, at dawn and evening seemed full ofquaint, strange secrets that only a wandering prince or princess wouldhave understood.
Before the house a round of vivid green was encircled by the drive thatled through high stone gates to the moorland road. A stone wall, runningfrom gate to gate, divided the lawn from the road, and upon each pillara curiously carved old griffin, its back and head spotted with yellowlichens, held stiffly up, for the inspection of passers-by, the familyescutcheon. From the windows at the back of the house one looked up atthe hilltop, bare but for a group of pine-trees, and down into a deepgarden. Here, among utilitarian squares of vegetable beds, wentovergrown borders of flowers—bands of larkspurs, lupins, stocks, andcolumbines. The golden-gray of the walls was thickly embroidered withclimbing fruit-trees, and was entirely covered, at one end of thegarden, by a small snow-white rose, old-fashioned, closely petaled; andhere in a corner stood a thatched summer-house, where Eppie played withher dolls, and where, on warm summer days, the white roses filled theair with a fragrance heavy yet fresh in its wine-like sweetness. AllEppie's early memories of Kirklands centered about the summer-house andwere mingled with the fragrance of the roses. Old James, the gardener,put up there a little locker where her toys were stored, and shelveswhere she ranged her dolls' dishes. There were rustic seats, too, and atable—a table always rather unsteady on the uneven wooden floor. Thesun basked in that sheltered, windless corner, and, when it rained, thelow, projecting eaves ranged one safely about with a silvery fringe ofdrops through which one looked out over the wet garden and up at thewhite walls of the house, crossed by the boughs of a great, darkpine-tree.
Inside the house the chief room was the fine old library, where, fromlong windows, one looked south over the purples and blues of themoorland. Books filled the shelves from floor to ceiling—old-fashionedtomes in leather bindings, shut away, many of them, behind brassgratings and with all the delightful sense of peril connected with thelofty upper ranges, only to be reached by a courageous use of thelibrary steps.
Here Uncle Nigel gave Eppie lessons in Greek and history every morning,aided in the minor matters of her education by a submissive nurserygoverness, an Englishwoman, High Church in doctrine and plaintive in acountry of dissent.
A door among the book-shelves led from the library into the morning-roomor boudoir, where Aunt Rachel and Aunt Barbara sewed, read, dispensedsmall charities and lengthy advice to the village poor—a cheerfullittle room in spite of its northern aspect and the shadowing trunk ofthe great pine-tree just outside its windows. It was all faded chintzes,gilt carvings, porcelain ornaments in corner cabinets; its paper waswhite with a fine gilt line upon it; and even though to Eppie it had sadassociations with Bible lessons and Sunday morning collects, it retainedalways its aspect of incongruous and delightful gaiety—almost offrivolity. Sitting there in their delicate caps and neatly appointeddresses, with their mild eyes and smoothly banded hair, Aunt Rachel andAunt Barbara gathered a picture-book charm—seemed to count less aspersonalities and more as ornaments. On the other side of the hall,rather bare and bleak in its antlered spaciousness, were the dining-andsmoking-rooms, the first paneled in slightly carved wood, painted white,the last a thoroughly modern room, redolent of shabby comforts, withdeep leather chairs, massive mid-century furniture, and an aggressivelycheerful paper.
The drawing-room, above the library, was never used—a long, vacantroom, into which Eppie would wander with a pleasant sense oftrespassing and impertinence; a trivial room, for all the dignity of itsshrouded shapes and huge, draped chandelier. Its silver-flecked graypaper and oval gilt picture-frames recalled an epoch nearer and uglierthan that of the grave library and sprightly boudoir below, though evenits ugliness had a charm. Eppie was fond of playing by herself there,and hid sundry secrets under the Chinese cabinet, a large, scowlingpiece of furniture, its black lacquered panels inlaid withmother-of-pearl. Once it was a quaintly cut cake, neatly sealed in asmall jeweler's box, that she thrust far away under it; and once aminute china doll, offspring of a Christmas cracker and too minute forpersonality, was swaddled mummy fashion in a ribbon and placed besidethe box. Much excitement was to be had by not looking to see if thesecrets were still there and in hastily removing them when a cleaningthreatened.
The day-nursery, afterward the school-room, was over the dining-room,and the bedrooms were at the back of the house.
The Carmichaels were of an ancient and impoverished family, theirestates, shrunken as they were, only kept together by careful economy,but there was no touch of dreariness in Eppie's home. She was a happychild, filling her life with imaginative pastimes and finding on everyside objects for her vigorous affections. Her aunts' mild disciplinesweighed lightly on her. Love and discipline were sundered principles inthe grandmotherly administration, and Eppie soon learned that theformalities of the first were easily evaded and to weigh the force ofher own naughtiness against it. Corporal punishment formed part of theMisses Carmichael's conception of discipline, but though, on the rareoccasions when it could not be escaped, Eppie bawled heart-rendinglyduring the very tremulous application, it was with little disturbance ofspirit that she endured the reward of transgression.
At an early age she understood very clearly the simple characters aroundher. Aunt Rachel and Aunt Barbara were both placid, both pious, bothfull of unsophisticated good works, both serenely acquiescent in theirlots. In Aunt Barbara, indeed, placidity was touched with wistfulness;she was the gentler, the more yielding of the two. Aunt Rachel could beinspired with the greater ruthlessness of conscientious conviction. Itwas she who insisted upon the letter of the law in regard to the Sundaycollect, the Sunday church-going, who mingled reproof with her villagecharities, who could criticize with such decision the short-comings,doctrinal and domestic, of Mr. MacNab, minister of the littleestablished church that stood near the village. Aunt Barbara was farless assured of the forms of things; she seemed to search and fumble alittle for further, fuller outlets, and yet to have found a greaterserenity. Aunt Rachel was fond of pointing out to her niece such factsof geology, botany, and natural history in general as the country lifeand her own somewhat rudimentary knowledge suggested to her as useful;Aunt Barbara, on the contrary, told pretty, allegorical tales aboutbirds and flowers—tales with a heavy cargo of moral insinuation, towhich, it must be confessed, Eppie listened with an inner sense ofstubborn realism. It was Aunt Barbara who sought to impress upon herthat the inclusive attribute of Deity was love, and who, wh