[{{mminutes}}:{{sseconds}}] X
Пользователь приглашает вас присоединиться к открытой игре игре с друзьями .
A BELTAINE AND SUSPENDERS
(0)       Используют 4 человека

Комментарии

Ни одного комментария.
Написать тут
Описание:
ESTHER M. FRIESNER A BELTAINE AND SUSPENDERS
Автор:
xcislav
Создан:
до 15 июня 2009 (текущая версия от 7 октября 2011 в 07:59)
Публичный:
Да
Тип словаря:
Книга
Последовательные отрывки из загруженного файла.
Содержание:
209 отрывков, 103190 символов
1 ESTHER M. FRIESNER
A BELTAINE AND SUSPENDERS
I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU say, Olivia; it's no natural place." John Herrick, Vicar
of Staddle-upon-Truss, dashed the papers onto the pew beside him and lifted his
well-chiseled chin in a manner straight out of the more popular female romances.
To the casual observer, Father Herrick did not seem a typical servant of the
Lord, unless it were Lord Byron.
"You dropped one," said Telemachus Battle-Purfitt, frantically wiggling long,
pale fingers at the errant sheet.
2 The vicar retrieved the page and gave it a superficial glance. "Oh, that's
merely a copy of an especially intriguing passage from the Stilby-Nash. You may
have it for your records, if you like. I've the original." He offered it to
Telemachus.
"No, no thanks, nonono, not to bother." Telemachus fairly gasped out the words,
backpedaling swiftly until his shoulders were nearly pressed flat against the
bizarre mural on the parish church wall which he had been at such pains to
uncover and restore for these past seven months.
3 Flakes of plaster clung to his
jacket and blobs of freshly applied tempera stained his cuffs, but it did not
seem to matter to him so much as his successful escape from accepting the
vicar's paper.
"Do give it up, Father John," said Olivia Drummond in her clear, capable voice.
In heavy walking tweeds and thick brogues, she lounged against another pew as if
she were the squire of some rural seat come to exercise political bonhomie by
mixing with the locals at the pub.
4 "He won't touch a thing that's been on the
floor, even if it is a consecrated one. You know our Tilly and germs."
A weak smile fairly doubled over Telemachus' meagre-fleshed face. "Just a
precaution," he quavered, scampering back up the scaffolding to the safety of
his scrapers and palette knives. "Mummy says one never knows, especially after
all those London mites trampling through the house."
Father Herrick stacked his papers smartly.
5 "I don't know why your mother ever
agreed to take in so many city kids during the Blitz, old boy. Not if it was
half the strain you paint it."
A spark of alien fire kindled in Telemachus' shallow blue eyes, a fugitive Bolt
of gumption striking his book-curved spine abruptly stiff. "Whatever her
personal feelings in the matter, Mummy has never been known to shirk the
performance of her duty."
"Too right." Olivia laughed until her skinny shoulders shook beneath their
burden of woven wool.
6 "England expects, but Lady Battle-Purfitt forestalls. Oh,
don't look at me that way, Tilly! You know I'd die before disdaining your
sainted mummy's devotion to what's expected of her in this world. In fact, I'd
give a good deal to meet her. Admirable woman. She saved those poor little
guttersnipes from the German bombs all the same, whether she did it out of
Christian charity or because it went with the image of lady of the manor."
"They were just so .
7 . . unsanitary." Telemachus shuddered. He daubed at a badly
faded section of the mural with a camel's hair brush. "So precocious, too."
"Don't tell us again about how your mother caught a pair of them making the
beast with two backs in the pergol." Olivia strolled up to the scaffolding and
rested an elbow on the wooden frame. Telemachus gave a small squawk to feel the
timbers shake ever so slightly and Olivia desisted.
8 "How could they?" Telemachus shook his head, patting his bedewed brow dry with a
folded pocket handkerchief. "They were only infants!" A hot flush overwhelmed
his sallow cheeks. "And I do not wish to discuss such--such carnal matters while
we are under this sacred roof!"
"Don't fret about Miss Drummond's choice of language for my sake, Telemachus,"
the vicar replied with a superior chuckle. "I am quite understanding, even if
the Church is not.
9 Back to the soft. It always proves to he too much for your
urbanized souls, no matter the age. The ancient fertility of the land. The Great
Mother's siren song. I'm not at all surprised. Your neck of the woods is rife
with nodes of chthonic power, Telemachus. Doesn't a day go by that some young
sprig of a folklorist isn't discovering a strangely isolated village in the
hinterlands whose inhabitants still cling stubbornly to the Old Religion, bound
to the earth by more than a tenant's agreement, serving arcane and ageless
deities, worshipping the fructifying forces in ways that aren't quite C.
10 of E."
He lifted one corner of his perfect lips in a knowledgeable smile. "Don't look
so altogether scandalized, it's only good business practice to familiarize
oneself with the competition."
"Oh, for pity's sake!" Exasperation made Olivia's cheesy complexion acquire just
the hint of color along the hatchet-blades of her cheeks. "The Great Mother had
no more to do with it than my mother. These so-called 'kids' Tilly's mum caught
having it off in the pergola were a hot young village stallion of about twenty
and the sixteen-year-old sis of one of the Blitz babies.
 

Связаться
Выделить
Выделите фрагменты страницы, относящиеся к вашему сообщению
Скрыть сведения
Скрыть всю личную информацию
Отмена