Mennyms in the Wilderness by Sylvia Waugh

Author:Sylvia Waugh [Sylvia Waugh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RHCP
Published: 1995-04-04T16:00:00+00:00

26

The Sorrows of Soobie

AFTER THE NIGHT ride, and all that followed it, Soobie plummeted into a gloom so deep that nothing would arouse him. The old life was gone, forty years fled away. The new life had given him one adventure which had ended not in triumph but in bitterness and gall. Vinetta had never ‘had a word with him’ about his rudeness to his grandmother. After the hurtful things Tulip had said she did not feel called upon to do so. That was without even knowing that her beloved son had heard every word.

Tulip had been very frosty for a couple of days, but then her conscience had caught up with her and she was ashamed of some of the things she had said in the heat of the moment. She did not apologise to Vinetta, but she allowed their relationship to return to normal. An unspoken, but well-understood, way of saying sorry.

And all this time, Soobie stayed in the library. It was a small room full of books. Bookshelves covered three of its four walls. In the middle of the fourth wall was a large dormer window, fastened in the middle, that went from the ceiling nearly to the floor. It was curtained in dark green velvet. There were no net curtains and whoever lay on the green plush sofa that faced this window would be able to see far to the west, if he looked. Soobie did not look. He lay on the sofa and he stared, uncaring and unseeing.

“Soobie never comes out of the library now,” said Wimpey to Poopie. “I mean – he never ever comes out. He doesn’t even go up to bed.”

She had braved the long, twisting passage and peeped in once or twice to see her brother, but he had just lain there and taken no notice. Once she had ventured to go up to the sofa and look right in his face. He scowled and Wimpey had retreated.

“It’s up to him what he does,” said Poopie.

“No it’s not,” said Wimpey. “He looks dead miserable lying there. I don’t want him to be miserable.”

“He doesn’t care whether you’re miserable or not. He’s not worth bothering about.”

Poopie, truth to tell, was cross with Soobie. He was always cross with anyone who made life feel uncomfortable. He was too young to know his own reasons properly, but he was old enough to feel cross.

Vinetta looked in on Soobie from time to time.

“Those books look interesting,” she said. “I’m sure you can’t have read all of them.”

Soobie ignored her.

Another day, Vinetta brought in a pair of ladders and vigorously cleaned the window.

Soobie twisted round on the sofa and turned his face to the backrest.

“You can see for miles from this window,” said Vinetta forlornly to the back of her son’s head.

Soobie did not answer.

After trying all sorts of gentle, polite questions and tactics, Vinetta decided it was time to tackle the problem head on. It was the end of October. Soobie had sulked for weeks.

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.