Take Courage by Phyllis Bentley Read Free Book Online Page B

child passed swiftly through Aesop’s Fables and Cato’s Maxims and came to Caesar and Tully, and found those authors easy, and on Fridays when the Grammar School boys translated their week’s translations back into Latin, David’s lines were often commended most highly of any for the grace and purity of their latinity. Will was so proud of his brother that he constantly boasted of him, and would sometimes even reproach Francis for being a worse scholar than a so much younger child.
    This was not wise of Will, for though Francis cared little for scholarship, at any such hint his face was apt to cloud. Francis was in general free of all mean grudges, having only an honourable emulation towards those who surpassed him in sports, which indeed few did; but towards David he was never perfectly open and free. Nor was Davidso to Francis. John and David on the other hand had a fast though silent friendship. At that time, though I knew this difference in the cousins, I did not rightly know its cause; later I understood it very well.
    At that time, indeed, I was only a child in spite of my grave ways and lofty (as I believed) thinking; though I perceived clearly enough the difference in those around me, I did not trouble about it, but loved them all in their different ways, and was able to be happy with each in turn.
    My life then was indeed a quietly happy one. Under Sarah’s guidance I learned the management of our house; I took pains that everything in it should be clean and neat, our table well furnished with my brothers’ favourite dishes—as for my father, he ate little and could not tell you what he had put in his mouth if you asked him—and our linen and apparel well repaired. In all matters of the house, I consulted Mrs. Thorpe if I were in some special difficulty; in matters of the needle, I went to Mrs. Ferrand, who, by example though not by precept, of which she was incapable, taught me her own delicate taste. In the day I laboured thus gladly for those I loved; in the evening I listened to Francis, or talked to John, or heard David his lesson, or—and this was still my dearest joy—sat reading to my father. Mr. Thorpe often said teasingly that my father would spend his last penny on a pamphlet. There were many such publications stirring, and often when Mr. Thorpe heard that my father had a new one, he came to our house to hear it read and explained. Others too came gladly to hear my father at these times; and I was happy to see him so well respected, his true worth recognised, and took pride in helping him by reading to him with understanding, carefully and well.

6
TRUE LOVE FLOWERS
    After a time i began to feel a strangeness in Mrs. Ferrand’s manner to me.
    I was ever a favourite with Mr. Ferrand, for he was a carnally minded man, setting great store on shows and appearances, and he was pleased to consider that I had some beauty. When I was a child, and he drew me to him and fondled me, as he often did, calling me his pretty little penny and such foolish but kindly names, Mrs. Ferrand was wont to pout and protest, saying pettishly: “Giles, you will spoil the child,” and the like; but once he had desisted from his caress, she seemed not to hold it against me. But now that I was growing from a child into a girl, her manner changed on such occasions; she made no protests, and simply sat in silence as if indifferent, her eyes not meeting mine; but I felt beneath her compliant air a secret hostility. While the men spoke of politics and affairs, she would draw me to one side and admire my gown—this was such a palpable untruth that it embarrassed me, for my dress was always dark and plain and ill-cut by comparison with hers. At other times, when we were alone, I having sought her advice about some needlework, she would talk to me of Francis, and then her speech was so strange, and so at variance with itself, that I was hard put to it to understand her. For she told in