The Tale of Hawthorn House by Susan Wittig Albert Read Free Book Online

down a rough partition and opened the room to its original generous size. She papered the walls in an airy green print, installed an antique oak cupboard for her collection of dishes, and put down a sea-grass rug and a smaller, shaggy blue one in front of the cast-iron range. With red curtains at the window and a pot of red geraniums on the table, the room was comfortable and homey. And all the other rooms suited her, too: the downstairs parlor with its marble fireplace and richly paneled walls; her very own bedroom upstairs, with its window overlooking the garden; and the treasure room she had created for her collection of favorite things. Indeed, Beatrix’s artist’s eye told her that the house was perfect in every way, and her heart told her that this was home. It was a great pity that she could not get away from London more often.
    But you must not think that Beatrix allowed herself to feel sad about something she could not change. If that had been the case, she must have been very melancholy indeed, for the same fairy godmother who had given her the farm had not given her everything she wanted. Not by any means! She had thought that happiness might be within her reach, but her fiancé, Norman Warne, had died suddenly, unexpectedly, and very tragically in 1905, just a month after their engagement and only a few months before she took possession of Hill Top.
    Even her engagement was not the happy, uncomplicated event it should have been, for her parents had strenuously disapproved. Her mother and father, both of whom became more difficult as they grew older, took great pride in the knowledge that their daughter should never have to marry a man who worked for his living. And although Norman was certainly respected and respectable enough—he was Beatrix’s editor, in his family’s publishing house—he didn’t belong to their social class. He wasn’t “good enough,” in their terms, for their daughter, who ought not to marry “beneath her.” They refused their permission, quite selfishly, we would say now, although perhaps they didn’t think it was selfish, at least not consciously. They were behaving as many parents in their position behaved. They were keeping their beloved daughter from making an appalling mistake.
    But Beatrix thought it very selfish. She loved Norman and she insisted on accepting his ring, which of course provoked a huge family row. Still, she owed a duty to her parents, so it was agreed that she and Norman would keep their engagement a secret and postpone their marriage to some indefinite future time. The prospect of postponement was painful, because every year that passed would make it less likely that they would have children. And Norman, boyish, ebullient Norman, was born to be a father. Coming from a large and happy family, he delighted in his nieces and nephews, loving nothing better than to build dollhouses for them and play games with them and read stories to them— her stories, of course. When Beatrix saw him with little Winifred and Eveline and Fred, she knew how much he wanted children and how much she wanted that for him.
    Three years had gone by since Norman’s death—an infinity of time, it seemed. The day of his death seemed a terrible sword, cutting her off from her past and from her future, leaving her, alone and lonely, in some interminable present. What would have happened had he lived? The question had no answer, but when she forced herself to think of it truthfully, she had to admit that they might not have been happy. Norman would have urged their marriage, and her mother and father would have resisted. She would have been dreadfully torn, longing to marry Norman and leave her parents, yet feeling she could do neither. There would have been one awful argument after another, until she was thoroughly miserable and Norman had repented of his devil’s bargain.
    She hated to think it, but perhaps things had turned out for the best. Anyway, this was the way it had turned