przez Fringilla » 19 listopada 2008, o 19:32
ja wybaczcie, ale z troche innej beczki:
WTF? kto rozpozna fragment z jakiej to książki (uprzedzam, że w mojej wersji pl tego nie było - albo mam pecha i ktos powyrywał kartki, albo... rany, napiszcie, ze mam po prostu trefny egemplarz...)?
<span style="font-style: italic">“Mama,” called Colly Wilton on the afternoon of Twelfth Night, “there”s someone at the door!”
Christabel glanced up from sewing a button eye on to a handsome brown hobbyhorse. “Will you let them in, please, dearest? I expect it”s that nice man from the shop in Manchester.”[/b]
When Samuel had delivered her and Colly home a few days ago, he had insisted he could not leave until he’d given Christabel a purse of money from his master. At first she had been reluctant to take the gift. It felt too much like pay for her services in the bedchamber to suit her conscience. But seeing she might have Samuel as a permanent house guest if she refused, she had made up her mind to accept this final token of Mr Frost’s generosity with good grace.
Besides, an idea had been brewing in the back of her mind for a way she might provide for her son. All she needed was a small amount of capital to get started. A trip to Manchester had yielded both the necessary supplies and orders from two shops for her hobbyhorses. It would take hard work and good luck to make a small income from the venture, but Christabel felt some of her old optimism returning. Besides, she needed a task to occupy her energies so she would not brood about Mr Jonathan Frost any more than she could help.
She heard Colly pull open the door, followed by the sound of a man”s footsteps approaching.<span style="font-weight: bold">
“Just a moment!” she called. “I’m almost finished this one, then you can have the lot.”
“I’m afraid I am not in the market for a hobbyhorse,” a familiar voice answered.
“Pardon me!” Christabel rose abruptly, dropping the poor beast she had been working on. “I thought you were someone else.” Why hadn’t Colly warned her it was Mr Frost?
</span>As if he read her thoughts, Frost said, “I sent him out to pet the horses and eat ginger biscuits with Samuel. Who were you expecting, pray?”
She explained briefly about her business venture and the order she meant to dispatch to Manchester that day.
Frost nodded his approval. “Most enterprising of you. Aunt Fanny is quite devoted to the one you gave her from Christmas. Sleeps with it every night. Seems to remember it from one day to the next. She remembered you, too.. .for a little while at least.”
That thought brought a pang to Christabel’s heart. “She may forget me, but I will not soon forget her, I promise you.”
She picked up the hobbyhorse from the floor, then resumed her seat and began sewing again. Mr Frost or no Mr Frost, she had an order she’d promised to fill.<span style="font-weight: bold"> “May I ask why you’ve come? </span>I thought we”d said everything there was to say before we parted on New Year”s Day.”
“So did I.” Frost strode towards the hearth, then stooped to chafe his hands before the fire. “But afterwards I began to wonder if, for all our talking, we truly understood one another. That is one of the reasons I have come. The other is.. .this.” He pulled a letter out of his pocket and handed it to her.
Abandoning any pretence of work, Christabel propped the hobbyhorse up beside her chair, then took the letter. “What is this? And where did you get it?”<span style="font-weight: bold">
“It is from a solicitor employed by your late father. I met him in London. He was very pleased to hear of your whereabouts. He has been trying to find you ever since your father’s death.”</span>
“What were you doing in London at this time of year?” <span style="font-weight: bold">She opened the letter and began to read it. “Oh, my!” she said at last. “Oh, my word! Can this be true?”
“I assure you it is. It appears Major Wilton was right about your father after all. Not long before his death, he made a provision in his will for you and the boy, but you could not be found.”</span>
“Do you see what this means?” Christabel fanned her face with the paper. Suddenly she felt as if her fever had returned. “My father forgave me. He did not die angry and disappointed with me.” Almost as much as the prospect of a comfortable life for her and Colly, that knowledge elated her.
“I was tolerably certain that would be the case,” said Frost, “which was why I sought out your father’s solicitor, with the help of my own.”
She was almost too overcome to speak, but she did manage to murmur, <span style="font-weight: bold">“How can I ever thank you?”
“By listening.” He sank to his haunches before her and reached for her hand. “Truly listening, I mean. </span>Not hearing what you think I must be saying. For my part, I will make myself more plain, as I should have from the beginning.”
For a man who meant to make himself plain, he was certainly talking in riddles. But if he had something to tell her, she owed it to him to listen.. .not that it would change anything between them. No doubt she was a fool to hope that might be the reason he’d come.<span style="font-weight: bold">
“Mrs Wilton.. .Christabel.. .my dear Christabel, for six years I have striven to put you out of my heart and carry on with my life. If it had not been for Aunt Fanny”s situation, good sense might even have persuaded me to woo and wed some other lady. </span> Or perhaps I was only using my aunt as an excuse to keep from doing something I secretly could not bear to.”
Christabel could hardly bear to listen. Jonathan Frost had loved her? Under different circumstances that knowledge might have brought her the greatest joy. But how could she rejoice at the thought of having broken his heart? She’d bitterly repented her treatment of him when she had believed herself guilty of nothing worse than injuring his pride.
Her feelings for him, so fresh and tender, and her heartache in believing them unreturned, gave her a harsh taste of what he must have suffered. How could she begin to forgive herself?
Frost looked a trifle daunted by the anguish he must have seen on her face, but he did not falter. “When Fate thrust you back into my life again, I tried to keep my distance and thwart any return of those old feelings. But you rekindled them a hundred times warmer. You were a merry, kind-hearted girl when we were first acquainted, but the years and perhaps your misfortunes have refined those qualities.”
Was this how sinners felt in the face of compassionate eternal judgement? Christabel wondered. Feeling the pain of every offence and the crushing certainty that they were not worthy of forgiveness? Yet it waited, ready to wrap them in its cleansing embrace of rebirth if only they could find the faith to accept.
“I am not sorry I made love to you on New Year’s Eve,” Frost continued with gentle defiance. “Only that I did not first tell you of my feelings and ask once again for the honour of your hand. Then you would have had no cause to suppose I’d been compelled to propose by some other consideration.”
This provoked Christabel to master her voice. “No! You have nothing to reproach yourself for! I should have confessed my feelings so you would not suppose I had tried to entrap you to secure a comfortable home for myself and my son.”
“Your feelings? And what are those, pray? When you refused my proposal, I thought you meant you could not countenance a marriage in which you did not love. Then Aunt Fanny said something that made me hope I might have been mistaken. And that is the other reason I went to London.”
He placed a second folded paper upon her lap. “Now that your father’s will has secured the future for you and your son, you will have no need to wed again. Unless...”
With trembling fingers, Christabel unfolded the paper. It was a special licence that would grant them leave to marry immediately rather than waiting the accustomed three weeks for banns to be read in the parish church.
There it was, represented by a single piece of paper—the kind of love that bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things, endured all things. The kind of love that was the most rare and precious gift in the world.
“Unless,” said Christabel, fighting back tears, “I loved a man with all my heart and wanted nothing more in the world than to make a home with him.”
There was a suspicious moisture in Frost’s eyes when he shrugged and chuckled. “Yes, I suppose that would be adequate reason. Do you know of such a fortunate fellow?”<span style="font-weight: bold">
Christabel flung her arms about his neck.</span> “If you do not know the answer to that, Jonathan Frost, then you have taken leave of all your good sense! Will you do me the honour of accepting my hand in marriage?”
Frost cradled her face in his hands and gazed deep into her eyes. “Here is my answer.” He pressed his lips to hers in a kiss of tender passion that set Christabel all a-tingle and eager for their wedding night.
When at last he drew back, he had one final word to add. “I know Aunt Fanny will never get better. If you would rather wait...”
“Not another moment!” Christabel sprang from her chair and hoisted her bridegroom to his feet. “Iam certain if we stop in at Gosslyn vicarage on the way back to Candlewood, Reverend Jessup will be pleased to marry us. And his sister more than pleased to stand as a witness. <span style="font-weight: bold">I am eager to help you make a happy home for your aunt and my son.. .and the children I hope we will have together!”</span>
Frost’s handsome face broke into a smile of such glowing, transparent joy it quite took Christabel’s breath away.[b]
“On the twelfth day of Christmas,” he whispered, “my true love gave to me a gift beyond compare.”
And from that moment on, not a day went by that did not bring some small gift of happiness to the Frost family. And it was said by all who knew them that every day in their home was as happy as Christmas.</span>