Head of the House of Coombe

Hodgson Burnett Frances

Description

Left to her own devices after her husband's death, Robin's vain, scatterbrained mother is wholly incapable of taking care of herself, much less her young daughter. Amidst this tumultuous environment, does Robin stand a chance of growing up to be a fully functioning adult? Read Frances Hodgson Burnett's gripping domestic drama The Head of the House of Coombe to find out how this tale unfolds.

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776581153
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF COOMBE
* * *
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
 
*
The Head of the House of Coombe First published in 1922 Epub ISBN 978-1-77658-115-3 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77658-116-0 © 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
*
Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV Chapter XVI Chapter XVII Chapter XVIII Chapter XIX Chapter XX Chapter XXI Chapter XXII Chapter XXIII Chapter XXIV Chapter XXV Chapter XXVI Chapter XXVII Chapter XXVIII Chapter XXIX Chapter XXX Chapter XXXI Chapter XXXII Original Publishers' Note
Chapter I
*
The history of the circumstances about to be related began manyyears ago—or so it seems in these days. It began, at least, yearsbefore the world being rocked to and fro revealed in the pausebetween each of its heavings some startling suggestion of a newarrangement of its kaleidoscopic particles, and then immediatelya re-arrangement, and another and another until all belief in apermanency of design seemed lost, and the inhabitants of the earthwaited, helplessly gazing at changing stars and colours in a degreeof mental chaos.
Its opening incidents may be dated from a period when peoplestill had reason to believe in permanency and had indeed many ofthem—sometimes through ingenuousness, sometimes through stupidityof type—acquired a singular confidence in the importance andstability of their possessions, desires, ambitions and forms ofconviction.
London at the time, in common with other great capitals, feltitself rather final though priding itself on being much more fluidand adaptable than it had been fifty years previously. In speakingof itself it at least dealt with fixed customs, and conditionsand established facts connected with them—which gave rise tobrilliant—or dull—witticisms.
One of these, heard not infrequently, was to the effect that—inLondon—one might live under an umbrella if one lived under it inthe right neighbourhood and on the right side of the street, whichaxiom is the reason that a certain child through the first sixyears of her life sat on certain days staring out of a windowin a small, dingy room on the top floor of a slice of a house ona narrow but highly fashionable London street and looked on atthe passing of motors, carriages and people in the dull afternoongrayness.
The room was exalted above its station by being called The DayNursery and another room equally dingy and uninviting was known asThe Night Nursery. The slice of a house was inhabited by the verypretty Mrs. Gareth-Lawless, its inordinate rent being reluctantlypaid by her—apparently with the assistance of those "ravens" whoare expected to supply the truly deserving. The rent was inordinateonly from the standpoint of one regarding it soberly in connectionwith the character of the house itself which was a gaudy littlekennel crowded between two comparatively stately mansions. On oneside lived an inordinately rich South African millionaire, andon the other an inordinately exalted person of title, which factscombined to form sufficient grounds for a certain inordinatenessof rent.
Mrs. Gareth-Lawless was also, it may be stated, of the fibrewhich must live on the right side of the street or dissolve intonothingness—since as nearly nothingness as an embodied entity canachieve had Nature seemingly created her at the outset. So lightand airy was the fair, slim, physical presentation of her beingto the earthly vision, and so almost impalpably diaphanous thetexture and form of mind and character to be observed by humanperception, that among such friends—and enemies—as so slight athing could claim she was prettily known as "Feather". Her realname, "Amabel", was not half as charming and whimsical in itsappropriateness. "Feather" she adored being called and as it wasthe fashion among the amazing if amusing circle in which she spenther life, to call its acquaintances fantastic pet names selectedfrom among the world of birds, beasts and fishes or inanimateobjects—"Feather" she floated through her curious existence. Andit so happened that she was the mother of the child who so oftenstared out of the window of the dingy and comfortless Day Nursery,too much a child to be more than vaguely conscious in a chaotic waythat a certain feeling which at times raged within her and made herlittle body hot and restless was founded on something like actualhate for a special man who had certainly taken no deliberate stepsto cause her detestation.
*
"Feather" had not been called by that delicious name when she marriedRobert Gareth-Lawless who was a beautiful and irresponsibly ratherthan deliberately bad young man. She was known as Amabel Darreland the loveliest girl in the lovely corner of the island of Jerseywhere her father, a country doctor, had begotten a large family oflovely creatures and brought them up on the appallingly inadequateproceeds of his totally inadequate practice. Pretty female thingsmust be disposed of early lest their market value decline. Thereforea well-born young man even without obvious resources represents asail in the offing which is naturally welcomed as possibly belongingto a bark which may at least bear away a burden which the backcarrying it as part of its pack will willingly shuffle on to othershoulders. It is all very well for a man with six lovely daughtersto regard them as capital if he has money or position or generousrelations or if he has energy and an ingenious unfatigued mind. Buta man who is tired and neither clever nor important in any degreeand who has reared his brood in one of the Channel Islands with afaded, silly, unattractive wife as his only aid in any difficulty,is wise in leaving the whole hopeless situation to chance and luck.Sometimes luck comes without assistance but—almost invariably—itdoes not.
"Feather"—who was then "Amabel"—thought Robert Gareth-Lawlessincredible good luck. He only drifted into her summer by merestchance because a friend's yacht in which he was wandering about"came in" for supplies. A girl Ariel in a thin white frock and withbig larkspur blue eyes yearning at you under her flapping hat asshe answers your questions about the best road to somewhere willnot be too difficult about showing the way herself. And there youare at a first-class beginning.
The night after she met Gareth-Lawless in a lane whose banks werethick with bluebells, Amabel and her sister Alice huddled closetogether in bed and talked almost pantingly in whispers over thepossibilities which might reveal themselves—God willing—througha further acquaintance with Mr. Gareth-Lawless. They were eager andbreathlessly anxious but they were young—YOUNG in their eagernessand Amabel was full of delight in his good looks.
"He is SO handsome, Alice," she whispered actually hugging her, notwith affection but exultation. "And he can't be more than twenty-sixor seven. And I'm SURE he liked me. You know that way a man has oflooking at you—one sees it even in a place like this where thereare only curates and things. He has brown eyes—like dark brightwater in pools. Oh, Alice, if he SHOULD!"
Alice was not perhaps as enthusiastic as her sister. Amabel hadseen him first and in the Darrel household there was a sort ofunwritten, not always observed code flimsily founded on "First comefirst served." Just at the outset of an acquaintance one mightsay "Hands off" as it were. But not for long.
"It doesn't matter how pretty one is they seldom do," Alicegrumbled. "And he mayn't have a farthing."
"Alice," whispered Amabel almost agonizingly, "I wouldn'tCARE a farthing—if only he WOULD! Have I a farthing—have you afarthing—has anyone who ever comes here a farthing? He lives inLondon. He'd take me away. To live even in a back street IN LONDONwould be Heaven! And one MUST—as soon as one possibly can.—OneMUST! And Oh!" with another hug which this time was a shudder,"think of what Doris Harmer had to do! Think of his thick red oldneck and his horrid fatness! And the way he breathed through hisnose. Doris said that at first it used to make her ill to look athim."
"She's got over it," whispered Alice. "She's almost as fat as heis now. And she's loaded with pearls and things."
"I shouldn't have to 'get over' anything," said Amabel, "if thisone WOULD. I could fall in love with him in a minute."
"Did you hear what Father said?" Alice brought out the wordsrather slowly and reluctantly. She was not eager on the whole toyield up a detail which after all added glow to possible prospectswhich from her point of view were already irritatingly glowing.Yet she could not resist the impulse of excitement. "No, you didn'thear. You were out of the room."
"What about? Something about HIM? I hope it wasn't horrid. Howcould it be?"
"He said," Alice drawled with a touch of girlishly spitefulindifference, "that if he was one of the poor Gareth-Lawlesses hehadn't much chance of succeeding to the title. His uncle—LordLawdor—is only forty-five and he has four splendid healthyboys—perfect little giants."
"Oh, I didn't know there was a title. How splendid," exclaimed Amabelrapturously. Then after a few moments' innocent maiden reflectionshe breathed with sweet hopefulness from under the sheet, "Childrenso often have scarlet fever or diphtheria, and you know theysay those very strong ones are more likely to die than the otherkind. The Vicar of Sheen lost