Rainbow Cottage by Grace Livingston Hill

Author:Grace Livingston Hill [Hill, Grace Livingston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-62416-114-8
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2013-10-04T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Jacqueline came fluttering down ten minutes after the dinner bell rang in a startling outfit of silver and black velvet. More pajamas! Silver ones and a black velvet jacket!

Her lips were painted more vividly than ever, so red they looked as if they were bleeding; her face was chalky white with powder, and her eyelashes made so black and heavy with mascara that she looked a caricature of a human face.

Sheila gazed at her with horror. She had never seen such makeup before. Even at the junction cabaret it was not practiced to that extent.

Jacqueline wore very long jade earrings, reaching down on her shoulders, and a necklace made like a green snake twining around her throat. She wore a jade ring two inches long on her little finger and another tiny serpent with jeweled eyes crept round her wrist. Her sleek hair was plastered out on her cheeks in sharp arrowheads and fitted around her small head like a felon’s cap.

Grandmother surveyed her in great disgust.

“Now, before you sit down, Jacqueline, you may as well go back upstairs and take off those snakes. You know what I think about wearing such things, and I won’t stand it. I haven’t come to the point of eating in company with serpents—yet.”

Jacqueline thrilled a faint little ripple of laughter; her eyes twinkling wickedly.

“Oh now, Aunt Myra, don’t you like my sweet little pets yet? I thought you had got used to them. See, what pretty colors they have. The jewels are so cunningly arranged. The workmanship is choice!”

“Yes,” said Grandmother, shutting her lips thinly together, “I know. It speaks in the Bible about that! You probably never read it.”

“In the Bible!” echoed Jacqueline, surprised out of her impishness for the instant. “The Bible speaks about my serpents?”

“Yes,” said Grandmother, “the serpent that yours are an imitation of. He was the anointed cherub, you know—Satan, that old serpent. It says ‘every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, the topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle and gold.’ It talks about workmanship, too.”

“Oh precious!” said Jacqueline, squealing with wicked glee. “Now, what do you know about that! But really, Aunt Myra, you oughtn’t to dislike them then if the Bible talks about them.”

“Go take them off!” commanded the old lady, fairly bristling. “I won’t sit here and eat with that thing creeping ’round your neck.”

“Oh well, I’ll take it off just to please you then.”

Jacqueline proceeded to unwind the slippery creature from her neck and coiled it neatly on the tablecloth beside her plate.

“Take it away, I tell you. Out of my sight this minute!”

“Oh, all right!” said Jacqueline meekly and swept her two little jeweled snakes off onto the floor as Janet was bringing in a platter of chicken.

Janet gave a little half-suppressed scream and nearly dropped the platter.

Grandmother arose from her seat. “Janet, put the platter down, and then you may bring the brush and dustpan and take up those two nasty beasts and carry them up to Miss Jacqueline’s room.

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