登陆注册
5250500000070

第70章 THREE 1929-1932 Paddy(2)

The materials arrived, so did the painters and the upholsterer; Meggie and Cat were sent up ladders to wash and polish the top windows while Mrs. Smith and Minnie coped with the bottom ones and Fee strode around watching everything with an eagle eye.

By the second week in January it was all done, and somehow of course the news leaked out on the party lines. Mrs. Cleary had made the Drogheda drawing room into a palace, and wouldn't it be only the civil thing for Mrs. Hopeton to accompany Mrs. King and Mrs. O'Rourke on a welcome-to-the-big-house visit? No one argued that the result of Fee's efforts was absolute beauty. The cream Aubusson carpets with their faded bunches of pink and red roses and green leaves had been strewn rather haphazardly around the mirror-finished floor. Fresh cream paint covered the walls and the ceiling, every molding and carving painstakingly picked out in gilt, but the huge oval-shaped flat spaces in the paneling had been papered with faded black silk bearing the same bunches of roses as the three carpets, like stilted Japanese paintings in cream and gilt surrounds. The Waterford chandelier had been lowered until its bottom pendant chimed a bare six and a half feet from the floor, every prism of its thousands polished to a flashing rainbow, and its great brass chain tethered to the wall instead of being bunched up. On spindly cream-and-gilt tables Waterford lamps stood next to Waterford ashtrays and Waterford vases stuffed with cream and pink roses; all the big comfortable chairs had been re-covered in cream watered silk and placed in small cozy groupings with large ottomans drawn up to each one invitingly; in one sunny corner stood the exquisite old spinet with an enormous vase of cream and pink roses on it. Above the fireplace hung the portrait of Fee's grandmother in her pale pink crinoline, and facing her at the other end of the room was an even larger portrait of a youngish, red-haired Mary Carson, face like the youngish Queen Victoria, in a stiff black gown fashionably bustled. "All right," said Fee, "now we can move up from the creek. I'll do the other rooms at my leisure. Oh, isn't it lovely to have money and a decent home to spend it on?"

About three days before they moved, so early in the morning the sun had not yet risen, the roosters in the fowl yard were cock-a-doodling joyously. "Miserable wretches," said Fee, wrapping old newspapers around her china. "I don't know what they think they've done to crow about. Not an egg in the place for breakfast, and all the men at home until we finish moving. Meggie, you'll have to go down to the chook yard for me; I'm busy." She scanned a yellowed sheet of the Sydney Morning Herald, snorting over an advertisement for wasp-waisted stays. "I don't know why Paddy insists we get all the newspapers; no one ever has time to read them. They just pile up too fast to burn in the stove. Look at this! It's older than our tenancy of the house. Well, at least they're handy for packing."

It was nice to see her mother so cheerful, Meggie thought as she sped down the back steps and across the dusty yard. Though everyone was naturally looking forward to living in the big house, Mum seemed to hunger for it as if she could remember what living in a big house was like. How clever she was, what perfect taste she had! Things no one had ever realized before, because there had been neither time nor money to bring them out. Meggie hugged herself with excitement; Daddy had sent in to the Gilly jeweler and used some of the five thousand pounds to buy Mum a real pearl disbbhoker and real pearl earrings, only these had little diamonds in them as well. He was going to give them to her at their first dinner in the big house. Now that she had seen her mother's face freed of its habitual dourness, she could hardly wait for the expression it would wear when she received her pearls. From Bob to the twins, the children were agog for that moment, because Daddy had shown them the big flat leather case, opened it to reveal the milky opalescent beads on their black velvet bed. Their mother's blossoming happiness had affected them deeply; it was like seeing the start of a good drenching rain. Until now they had never quite understood how unhappy she must have been all the years they had known her.

The chook yard was huge, and held four roosters and upward of forty hens. At night they inhabited a tumble-down shed, its rigorously swept floor lined around the edges with straw-filled orange crates for laying, and its rear crossed by perches of various heights. But during the day the chooks strutted clucking around a large, wire-netted run. When Meggie opened the run gate and squeezed inside, the birds clustered about her greedily, thinking they would be fed, but since Meggie fed them in the evenings she laughed at their silly antics and stepped through them into the shed.

"Honestly, what a hopeless lot of chookies you are!" she lectured them severely as she poked in the nests. "Forty of you, and only fifteen eggs! Not enough for breakfast, let alone a cake. Well, I'm warning you here and now-if you don't do something about it soon, the chopping block for the lot of you, and that applies to the lords of the coop as well as wives, so don't spread your tails and ruffle up your necks as if I'm not including you, gentlemen!"

With the eggs held carefully in her apron, Meggie ran back to the kitchen, singing.

Fee was sitting in Paddy's chair staring at a sheet of Smith's Weekly, her face white, her lips moving. Inside Meggie could hear the men moving about, and the sounds of six-year-old Jims and Patsy laughing in their cot; they were never allowed up until after the men had gone. "What's the matter, Mum?" Meggie asked.

同类推荐
  • 施设论卷

    施设论卷

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 上清道类事相

    上清道类事相

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 六十种曲鸾鎞记

    六十种曲鸾鎞记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 摄大乘论释

    摄大乘论释

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 南史演义

    南史演义

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 快穿攻略之反派逆袭

    快穿攻略之反派逆袭

    每个世界的反派总会花样作死,而顾凉就是被系统选中去拯救反派的人。第一个位面:哥,别追了,我不认识你。第二个位面:叔,你好眼熟奥。第三个位面:小子,我们以前是不是见过。第四个位面:。。。。。。
  • 让学生迷上学习的66个故事

    让学生迷上学习的66个故事

    励志就是勉励自己勤奋向学,集中心思致力于某种事业。志,就是心愿所往,心之所向,是未表露出来的长远的打算。汉代班固《白虎通·谏诤》里“励志忘生,为君不避丧生”的话,讲的就是这个意思。励志是一门学问,这门学问应该从小学起,终生不辍。
  • 随身空间之嫡女神医

    随身空间之嫡女神医

    莫名穿越,附赠随身空间,开启神医之路。在她成为强者的路上,遇到了许多不离不弃的朋友,也遇到了一个妖孽至极,霸道无比的男人。精彩片段:“小清儿,你是我的!”“谁是你的了??我是我自己的!”这男人要不要这么大言不惭?“是!小清儿是你自己的,那我是你的好了!”帝无殇眼带宠溺轻笑着说到。“就你长成这样,我会很有压力的!我特别惜命的!”云清头疼的抚额,要知道那些如狼似虎的女人眼神比刀子还锐利,试问谁想每天都被千刀万剐,反正她是不想了,这感觉别提多蛋疼了。(空间,神医,宠文,霸道腹黑,一对一)
  • 秦中富人

    秦中富人

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 五年,等一个怀抱

    五年,等一个怀抱

    高中时,姜白因为很单纯的一眼,就落入了很俗套的环节——只因多看了你一眼,就喜欢上了的剧情。那时的姜白,还属少年时期,没过多的心思,单纯的秉性让她没什么犹豫就选择去追。一年的时间,姜白把所有心思都废在了那个男生身上,却在一年后,他的一句话让她选择不再纠缠。改了志愿,改了因他而改变的装扮,去了相隔一个市的同名C大。本以为这是这段单方面“恋情”的结束,不料对他来说,只是开始,她所以为的结束引燃了他自相矛盾的情绪……
  • 快穿之花式逆袭男神方案

    快穿之花式逆袭男神方案

    这是一本男神详细攻略手册。温馨提示:收藏本书,更多人物等您解锁。
  • 古今医鉴

    古今医鉴

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 山海经

    山海经

    《山海经》是中国先秦重要典籍,该书并非成于一时,亦非一人所写。《山海经》传世版本共18卷,包括《山经》5卷,《海经》13卷,其内容主要是民间传说中的地理知识,包括山川、矿物、民族、物产、药物、祭祀、巫医等,保存了包括夸父逐日、女娲补天、精卫填海、大禹治水等在内的不少脍炙人口的远古神话传说和寓言故事。《山海经》具有非凡的文献价值,对中国古代历史、地理、文化、中外交通、民俗、神话等的研究均有参考价值。本书是《山海经》的白话文全译本,且对生僻字词、名物有适当的注释。此外,还配有大量古本《山海经》中所绘的插图。
  • 汤姆叔叔的小屋(语文新课标课外必读第八辑)

    汤姆叔叔的小屋(语文新课标课外必读第八辑)

    国家教育部颁布了最新《语文课程标准》,统称新课标,对中、小学语文教学指定了阅读书目,对阅读的数量、内容、质量以及速度都提出了明确的要求,这对于提高学生的阅读能力,培养语文素养,陶冶情操,促进学生终身学习和终身可持续发展,对于提高广大人民的文学素养具有极大的意义。
  • 空壳(上)

    空壳(上)

    宇宙犹如一条永恒的蛇,咬住了自己的尾巴。走在铁轨上,高毅的心里冷不丁地冒出这句话。锈迹斑斑的铁轨此时也像一条大蟒,蜿蜒向前,不见首尾。两旁的野草枯萎得只剩下了根茎,裸露在红土外,光秃秃地、丑陋地蔓延,铺满了铁轨两边的山丘。附近没有树,能看到矮丘后较高的群山。一轮残阳斜倚在其中一座之后,欲坠不坠。如果世间一切,包括宇宙都能够循环反复的话,自己是否就可以通过咬住自己的尾巴,以吞噬自己的身体为代价,回到过去?手机里有一款蛇的游戏。游戏规则是蛇头永远不能碰到自己的尾巴。这条规则很简单,一招决定生死,就连小孩都会玩。