letter to him. ”
Marianne smiled to herself at the characteristic suggestion that she had been distracting her friend, and bent once more over the piece of household mending that had lain concealed, during Mr. Emsworth’s visit, under the more ladylike embroidery.
Her letter once despatched, Mrs. Mauleverer turned herself eagerly to the business of preparing the house for her son’s reception. She seemed in no doubt that he would come, and Marianne wondered in just what alarmist terms she had written. The preparations she ordered seemed excessive, unless Mark Mauleverer was likely to bring a whole regiment of friends with him, but, said Gibbs, you never could tell with the master. So a whole range of guest bedchambers were aired and beeswaxed, Holland covers were taken off the furniture of the formal drawing room where Mrs. Mauleverer never sat, and the lustered candelabra there and in the dining room were polished till they shone, rainbow-bright in May sunshine.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Mauleverer, satisfied with having initiated this great spring cleaning, turned herself to the more satisfactory task of refurbishing her wardrobe in case, as she put it, “Mark brought down a party of his elegant town friends.” Luckily, Marianne had persuaded her to subscribe to La Belle Assemblée and she and Martha pored over the latest number for hours. Velvet, alas, was out of fashion, and Martha who combined dressmaking with her other capacities, was soon hard at work on the carriage dress of emerald green gros de Naples that was recommended as all the rage. Since this involved such intricacies as a threefold cuff, a bias-trimmed skirt, and a matching pelerine, it was as much as anyone’s life was worth even to speak to her for a few days and Marianne, whose conscience often pricked her about Thomas, found her, for once, glad to have him taken off her hands.
She found him crying in the corridor one morning. Martha had boxed his ears. Gibbs had told him to “run along, do.” The whole house was topsy-turvey again that day, for Mrs. Mauleverer had belatedly remembered about the chimneys. The master sweep, summoned from Exton, had arrived when they were still at breakfast, accompanied by a little black - faced, sniveling boy, whose dangerous job it was to go up the huge chimneys and sweep them clean with his scarred and scabby elbows and knees. Marianne had exclaimed in horror at the very idea of this and Mrs. Mauleverer had been quite surprised at her suggestion that the boy, who could not have been more than eight years old, might not quite like the prospect. “ But it is always done so, my dear. Where can you have grown up?” And she settled cheerfully to her day’s task of helping Gibbs refurbish her feathers by dipping them in hot water.
She looked up in surprise when Marianne made her request. “Take the child for a picnic in the long meadow? Why, yes, if you really wish to.” Her shrug suggested that people who wanted to picnic in May were little better than lunatics, but Marianne, who had been housebound for a week supervising and cleaning, found her spirits rise remarkably as she collected a simple meal, a large chip hat that Mrs. Mauleverer had given her because it was “too shabby for anything,” and the first volume of Anne of Geierstein in case Thomas left her in peace to read it.
He scampered along by her side gaily enough and she found herself troubled, as she had often been before, by the fact that she could not like him better. But there was a sharpness in his little gray eyes that she found disconcerting. She knew so little about children: Were they all so incorrigibly given to mischief? Martha seemed to find what she called his “little ways” endearing, but Marianne was not so sure. Did nice little boys occupy themselves with pulling the shells off carefully collected snails? He was happily chasing a butterfly now—a charming pursuit if one did not know that he wanted to tear off its wings.
Perhaps she
Marianne smiled to herself at the characteristic suggestion that she had been distracting her friend, and bent once more over the piece of household mending that had lain concealed, during Mr. Emsworth’s visit, under the more ladylike embroidery.
Her letter once despatched, Mrs. Mauleverer turned herself eagerly to the business of preparing the house for her son’s reception. She seemed in no doubt that he would come, and Marianne wondered in just what alarmist terms she had written. The preparations she ordered seemed excessive, unless Mark Mauleverer was likely to bring a whole regiment of friends with him, but, said Gibbs, you never could tell with the master. So a whole range of guest bedchambers were aired and beeswaxed, Holland covers were taken off the furniture of the formal drawing room where Mrs. Mauleverer never sat, and the lustered candelabra there and in the dining room were polished till they shone, rainbow-bright in May sunshine.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Mauleverer, satisfied with having initiated this great spring cleaning, turned herself to the more satisfactory task of refurbishing her wardrobe in case, as she put it, “Mark brought down a party of his elegant town friends.” Luckily, Marianne had persuaded her to subscribe to La Belle Assemblée and she and Martha pored over the latest number for hours. Velvet, alas, was out of fashion, and Martha who combined dressmaking with her other capacities, was soon hard at work on the carriage dress of emerald green gros de Naples that was recommended as all the rage. Since this involved such intricacies as a threefold cuff, a bias-trimmed skirt, and a matching pelerine, it was as much as anyone’s life was worth even to speak to her for a few days and Marianne, whose conscience often pricked her about Thomas, found her, for once, glad to have him taken off her hands.
She found him crying in the corridor one morning. Martha had boxed his ears. Gibbs had told him to “run along, do.” The whole house was topsy-turvey again that day, for Mrs. Mauleverer had belatedly remembered about the chimneys. The master sweep, summoned from Exton, had arrived when they were still at breakfast, accompanied by a little black - faced, sniveling boy, whose dangerous job it was to go up the huge chimneys and sweep them clean with his scarred and scabby elbows and knees. Marianne had exclaimed in horror at the very idea of this and Mrs. Mauleverer had been quite surprised at her suggestion that the boy, who could not have been more than eight years old, might not quite like the prospect. “ But it is always done so, my dear. Where can you have grown up?” And she settled cheerfully to her day’s task of helping Gibbs refurbish her feathers by dipping them in hot water.
She looked up in surprise when Marianne made her request. “Take the child for a picnic in the long meadow? Why, yes, if you really wish to.” Her shrug suggested that people who wanted to picnic in May were little better than lunatics, but Marianne, who had been housebound for a week supervising and cleaning, found her spirits rise remarkably as she collected a simple meal, a large chip hat that Mrs. Mauleverer had given her because it was “too shabby for anything,” and the first volume of Anne of Geierstein in case Thomas left her in peace to read it.
He scampered along by her side gaily enough and she found herself troubled, as she had often been before, by the fact that she could not like him better. But there was a sharpness in his little gray eyes that she found disconcerting. She knew so little about children: Were they all so incorrigibly given to mischief? Martha seemed to find what she called his “little ways” endearing, but Marianne was not so sure. Did nice little boys occupy themselves with pulling the shells off carefully collected snails? He was happily chasing a butterfly now—a charming pursuit if one did not know that he wanted to tear off its wings.
Perhaps she
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