Good and Dead by Jane Langton

Author:Jane Langton [Langton, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery & Detective, General, Cozy, Fiction
ISBN: 9781453252314
Google: IjL_gk9rsJgC
Amazon: B007OZA7OI
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2012-04-16T18:30:00+00:00

21

But scarce the maid to thirteen summers lives;

Ere with soft joys her ripening bosom heaves.

The brilliant moisture sparkles from her eyes,

And o'er her cheek the bloomy colours rise...

But not in all the progress is the same,

Some youths, till twenty scarce discern the flame.

—Reverend Charles Stearns, Lincoln The Ladies' Philosophy of Love, 1797

Next Sunday morning the sun rose bright and clear once again and hurled down radiant bolts of light through the windows of Old West Church. They sparkled on rings and bracelets and the wristbands of watches; they glittered on the metal frame of the wheelchair belonging to Claire Bold, who was home from the hospital at last. But today the sun had summoned the full force of its heat and light to illuminate young Eleanor Bell. It was Eleanor's turn to be shone upon. Sitting between her mother and father, she was directly in the path of a blazing shaft.

Eleanor had come to church of her own free will, but Bo Harris, sitting across the aisle, was there only because his mother had put her foot down. "Once in a while, that's all I ask," Mrs. Harris had said, standing over his bed. "Once in a blue moon your royal highness can condescend."

Yet now, sitting next to him, Mrs. Harris felt unconnected to her son. Bo was so large, he was such a huge and complex piece of protoplasm, such a great chunk of flesh! His destiny would work itself out long after she was dead. Ethel Harris was astonished to think she had once brought him into the world, a helpless, bawling newborn babe.

Lorraine Bell, too, was thinking sorrowfully about her offspring. She was uncomfortably aware that Eleanor at this instant had reached some kind of dizzy pinnacle. The sunlight was suffusing her shoulders, touching her slightly parted lips. Every separate strand of her bright hair glistened along its length. Sitting there so quietly in the path of the sunlight, Eleanor was soaking up its warmth and sending it out again in waves of longing. Lorraine could feel the assault from her daughter's flushed cheeks. It was thrusting against her, rolling past her to fill the church; it was pressing against the doors and billowing outside to batter the windows of cars passing on Farrar Road. Eleanor was in full bloom; she was a flower with the last petal opening. Lorraine wanted to stand up and shake her fist at nature's plot to continue the race. It was too soon. Eleanor wasn't ready. She was too young. Why couldn't the savage process be delayed until the poor child could handle it? Gently, Lorraine patted Eleanor's knee. It felt warm to her touch. No, Eleanor wasn't a flower, she was something more insistent, more intense. She was a bonfire, she was burning like a torch. Oh, it was too soon, it was much too soon.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.