Melissa by Caldwell Taylor;

Author:Caldwell, Taylor;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2018-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 29

The room opened out before Melissa like a huge golden cave, brilliantly sparkling with crystal, dazzling her eyes, assaulting her senses. She had been frightened. Now she was blinded, overwhelmed. Phoebe had described this room to her, but she had been incredulous. Confusion fell over her. Wherever her terrified eye fell, it encountered fresh and impossible beauties and splendors. She was dimly aware that she was being introduced to strange people and bobbing faces, but she could only give them a bemused glance before she returned to the staggered contemplation of the room. She had been in this house three times in her early childhood and girlhood, but she had entered the library only, never the drawing-rooms.

Someone was leading her to a chair before the fire. She lifted her astounded eyes to the mantelpiece and stared at the golden cupids with their uplifted candles. A glass of wine was in her hand. She gazed at the colorful painting on the wall above the great roaring fire. Someone was speaking to her. She said “yes,” in a faint dim voice; she looked at the golden chairs, the golden tables, the golden love-seats, the golden draperies. Her heart was beating strangely, as if with fear and amazement. She felt herself caught up in a blaze of golden light and shadow, and once she put up her hand and touched her cheek in a bewildered gesture.

Finally it came to her that she was behaving like a shinned peasant. Proudly, she lifted her head, forced herself to look at these strangers from whom she instinctively shrank. They knew of her father, she must do him justice. She must shake the golden mist from her eyes and conduct herself as a daughter of Charles Upjohn. When she saw Arabella glancing with mean and smiling significance at a very unprepossessing and pallid lady in black, who reclined languidly in her chair, a hot wave of shame and anger ran over the girl and her face settled in its old expression of rigor and sternness. She must remember that these women were fools and parasites, of no use whatsoever in the world—and that she was the daughter of Charles Upjohn.

“From what gallery did you steal this ravishing creature, Dunham?” a gentleman’s soft and admiring voice was saying. “I swear, she is direct from the hand of Phidias himself!” Melissa became aware of the blur of voices about her and what seemed a veritable cloud of faces.

If Melissa was stupefied, the guests were ill at ease. Their lessons in etiquette, while young, had not taken cognizance of how one should behave when a sudden, unexpected and fantastic marriage takes place in one’s very midst, especially when all the circumstances are as odd and bewildering as these were. None of them were intimate friends of Geoffrey’s; most of them disliked him, or, at best, had only an indifferent regard for him. Even the latter thought him somewhat ruthless, often irascible, sometimes brutal with his tongue, though they admitted that, in his way, he was a forthright and honest man.

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.