Sting of Death by Shelley Smith

Author:Shelley Smith [Smith, Shelley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

Now Linda had someone to confide in, and confide she did. She was never alone with this much-to-be-pitied Ivor without immediately plunging back into these sad seas wherein her mind eddied wretchedly round and round to the point of foundering. Ivor was quite remarkably patient.

She was endeavouring now to take more pains with her appearance. She usually remembered at least to dash some powder on her face and run a lipstick – though it was perhaps rather too garish a red – over her mouth. Often she managed to get her hair set, and she bought herself a highly unsuitable dress in the altogether vain hope that Edmund would find her more interesting if she changed her style and became more sophisticated, as she imagined the American girl to be. She had the idea that she should compete with her on her own ground.

As it happened, on the rare occasions when Edmund came down, it was not to stay – a mere rushed few hours, for one purpose or another, generally business, and either she forgot to put the dress on, or if she did he didn’t notice it. With her bare legs and sandals, she only succeeded in looking like a girl dressed up when she did wear the frock. She never could remember to wear stockings, for they only got ripped into holes in the garden or split with a sudden crack when she knelt to her domestic chores, and, “one simply couldn’t afford the coupons,” she said. Her little ruined hands were red and their nails hopelessly bitten still. Really she looked better when she didn’t try so hard, and was just her simple take-it-or-leave-it self. However, Ivor said nothing to dishearten her, and she was not entirely unaware of the way his eyes rested on her. She found it not unpleasing. Yet she was wholeheartedly shocked and furious when he kissed her.

It happened one evening when Ivor had been more than usually sympathetic and she had been wrought to the point of tears, a passion of weeping for Edmund, when suddenly Ivor lifted her face, tear-stained and forlorn, and with calm decisiveness kissed her parted lips in a manner that could hardly be mistaken by the most innocent for the chaste kiss of pure affection. Not till he chose to let her go could she express her outrage. She put her fist to her mouth, her eyes large with horror.

“You beast! ... How could you?” she cried in sincere dismay.

“Do you think I’m made of stone? Here you weep, almost in my arms. I should be less than human if I didn’t want to comfort you.”

“You weren’t trying to comfort me, you loathsome beast! Don’t make it worse by lying.”

“Very well, then. I was trying to comfort myself. What do you think it’s like for me day after day, listening to you talk all the time about another man, seeing you so miserable, and being so helpless? Have you ever given it a thought? You know I’m madly in love with you, don’t you?”

“Of course I didn’t.

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