Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Maugham

Author:W. Somerset Maugham [Maugham, Somerset]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101661567
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 1992-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

8

MRS KEMP was in the habit of slumbering somewhat heavily on Sunday mornings, or Liza would not have been allowed to go on sleeping as she did. When she woke, she rubbed her eyes to gather her senses together and gradually she remembered having gone to the theatre on the previous evening; then suddenly everything came back to her. She stretched out her legs and gave a long sigh of delight. Her heart was full; she thought of Jim, and the delicious sensation of love came over her. Closing her eyes, she imagined his warm kisses, and she lifted up her arms as if to put them round his neck and draw him down to her; she almost felt the rough beard on her face, and the strong heavy arms round her body. She smiled to herself and took a long breath; then, slipping back the sleeves of her nightdress, she looked at her own thin arms, just two pieces of bone with not a muscle on them, but very white and showing distinctly the interlacement of blue veins; she did not notice that her hands were rough, and red and dirty with the nails broken, and bitten to the quick. She got out of bed and looked at herself in the glass over the mantelpiece; with one hand she brushed back her hair and smiled at herself; her face was very small and thin, but the complexion was nice, clear and white, with a delicate tint of red on the cheeks, and her eyes were big and dark like her hair. She felt very happy.

She did not want to dress yet, but rather to sit down and think, so she twisted up her hair into a little knot, slipped a skirt over her nightdress, and sat on a chair near the window and began looking around. The decorations of the room had been centred on the mantelpiece; the chief ornament consisted of a pear and an apple, a pineapple, a bunch of grapes, and several fat plums, all very beautifully done in wax, as was the fashion about the middle of this most glorious reign. They were appropriately coloured – the apple blushing red, the grapes an inky black, emerald green leaves were scattered here and there to lend finish, and the whole was mounted on an ebonised stand covered with black velvet, and protected from dust and dirt by a beautiful glass cover bordered with red plush. Liza’s eyes rested on this with approbation, and the pineapple quite made her mouth water. At either end of the mantelpiece were pink jarswith blue flowers on the front; round the top in Gothic letters of gold was inscribed: ‘A Present from a Friend’ – these were products of a later, but not less artistic age. The intervening spaces were taken up with little jars and cups and saucers – gold inside, with a view of a town outside, and surrounding them, ‘A Present from Clacton-on-Sea,’ or, alliteratively, ‘A Memento of Margate.

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