Elizabeth Mansfield Read Online Free PDF Page A

truth, you know. I’ve tried to remember his face, but I can’t seem to bring it to mind. Can you?”
    “Can I what? Remember my beloved brother’s face? What an absurd question.”
    “I mean actually
see
him in your mind whenever you wish to. Can you do it now, this moment? Close your eyes, Aunt Ethelyn, right now, and try to remember him. Tell me if you see him clearly, just as he was.”
    “But of
course
I …” Ethelyn stared at the child looking innocently up at her. Then she shut her eyes tightly. After a moment she blinked her eyes open and glanced down at her niece who still held her hand and was watching her closely. “Well, I
think
I …” She shut her eyes again. Her heavy cheeks quivered, and her brow wrinkled as her effort intensified. “Isn’t that strange?” she murmured. “I see the
portrait
of him that we’ve hung on the drawing room wall, but …”
    “I remember his nose,” Oswald put in reflectively. “Had a slight hook in it, from having been tossed from a horse during that hunt—”
    “Oswald, don’t speak like a fool!” Ethelyn barked, her eyes still shut. “Desmond’s nose was perfect.”
    “Remembering that his nose had a hook doesn’t count, Uncle Oswald,” Pippa explained reasonably. “You’re remembering a fact, not seeing a face.”
    “Ummm,” he nodded, shutting his eyes to try again.
    Camilla sank back against the sofa cushions and looked at the others in wonder. There they were, the three of them, trying to conjure up the face of the deceased Desmond in their minds merely at the behest of the little girl. Her ingenious daughter had managed to turn what could have been an unpleasant scene into a little game. Pippa was truly an amazing child.
    Of course, Camilla herself could see Desmond’s face all too clearly in her mind. She didn’t even need to close her eyes to conjure up a vision of those steely eyes, that thin-lipped mouth, that wiry,grey hair that had been steadily receding from his forehead in recent years. Even after almost a year, the memory of his face could make her blood run cold. In her dreams she still heard the cutting sarcasm of his voice and the sound of his icy scoldings. At unexpected times of the day she still found herself stiffening when she heard a certain sort of footstep on the stairs. And sometimes at night, when she blew out her bedside lamp, she had to remind herself to relax … to will herself to recall that he could no longer pay his devastating fortnightly visits to her bed.
    “The child’s right,” Oswald admitted. “I can’t bring his face to mind either.”
    “I think it’s shocking!” Ethelyn muttered irritably. “We must ask our Blessed Lord’s forgiveness this evening at prayers. Perhaps with His Divine Assistance we may find the strength to overcome this lapse in our mental powers. Meanwhile, Philippa, I will refrain from any further comment on the unfeeling words you spoke when I entered. I suppose you meant no harm.”
    “Thank you, Aunt Ethelyn,” the child said pleasantly.
    “Now, my dear, I desire you to run off and occupy yourself elsewhere,” Ethelyn ordered. “I have something of importance to discuss with your mother.”
    Pippa, with a sidelong glance at her mother, bobbed obediently and turned to go. Her mother handed her her book with a reassuring smile.
    “What have you there?” Ethelyn demanded as the girl skipped to the door. “I hope, Philippa, that it isn’t one of those dreadful novels for which you seem to have such an appetite.”
    “It’s only
Evelina.
And it can’t be
very
dreadful, for it was written by Fanny Burney whom you told me you’d met in your youth.” With that the girl smiled, waved a cheery goodbye to her uncle, gave her mother an encouraging wink which seemed to say,
Don’t let the old dragon bully you
, and whisked herself out of the room.
    Lady Ethelyn glared at the door as if trying to decide whether to call the child back for a scold or let her go. After a moment,