Private Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    Elizabeth nodded toward John Gentry and said, "Look at Papa."

    Their grandfather was sitting in his chair with his knees apart and his body
    squarely situated. His hat was pushed back on his head, and he was wiping his brow.
    Margaret said, "It's hot."

    "His face is very red."

    "Look at Mr. Bell. His cheeks are steaming."

    Elizabeth murmured, "Proximity to Beatrice has given him a case of humidity,"
    then laughed, and Margaret smiled. One of the great loves of her life was Elizabeth's low,
    rippling laugh, never girlish or coy, but always gay and sassy. Margaret said, "I think
    Papa likes Mr. Bell."

    "It's true that he has made no disparaging references to Mr. Bell's nose, his height,
    his horse, his waistcoats, or his ancestry."

    Margaret and Elizabeth exchanged a glance, and they nodded. They both knew
    that the task was to win Mr. Bell, not to approve him.

    Lavinia was watching the procession of the German-American Betterment
    Society. Their uncle Anton was in the second rank, wearing his hat and his short pants
    and carrying his Bavarian walking stick. The entire association was singing a song
    Margaret didn't know, in German.

    "Oh dear," said Elizabeth, standing up.

    John Gentry had fallen off his chair, and the chair had fallen over. Lavinia at once
    knelt down beside him, and the man behind her moved the chair. Everyone turned to
    look. Mr. Bell bustled over, and Beatrice stood. Mr. Bell sent a young man out, and then
    her mother helped her grandfather to sit up. The young man returned with a cup of water;
    Lavinia administered a few sips. John Gentry took a deep sigh, put his hat on, removed it
    again, put it on again. His face was dreadfully red, Margaret thought. Outside the
    window, the Rebel soldiers passed, their rifles on their shoulders and their marching feet
    making the only noise. The crowd in the street was quiet--the Rebels' participation in the
    parade was more startling than anyone had anticipated. Who had seen those uniforms in
    thirty-three years?

    Mr. Bell and another man helped John Gentry back into his chair, and he drank
    the rest of the water. He shook his head. He shook his head again, then he reached for
    Beatrice's hand. Mr. Bell moved Beatrice's chair so that she was sitting a bit closer, and
    Elizabeth resumed her seat next to Margaret. With her other hand, Beatrice gently
    smoothed her grandfather's hair back from his forehead, a kindly thing to do, and
    something Margaret would not have thought of. It was often remarked in her family that
    Margaret did not have a fine sensibility, or, even, a female sensibility. When she read
    aloud about the death of Little Nell, her voice was steady and her progress unremitting.
    When she read aloud Miss Alcott's book, which was sent to Lavinia by her aunt Harriet,
    it did not occur to her to weep at the passing of Beth. She thought that, for all of Jo's
    boyishness, she was a sentimental thing. Lavinia found her mysterious when Margaret
    shed no tears the day their cat Millie was caught in a raccoon trap or when Alice and
    Beatrice contracted the cholera and it seemed as though one or the other of them--or
    both--were set to pass on. But, apart from the fact that the first thing Margaret felt about
    these lamentable events was that they were interesting as well as sad , there was always
    also what she was feeling now, watching John Gentry, Beatrice, and Robert Bell, that a
    play had begun suddenly, perhaps when she wasn't looking. Now, Mr. Bell's leaning over
    Beatrice with a smile had something to do with Papa's collapse and something to do with
    the marching of the Rebels in the parade and something to do with the paper on the table,
    and these events were designed to go together. Her task seemed to her at these times to be
    not to leap into the action, but to observe it and discern a pattern, though what she would
    do once she had discerned it, she could not imagine. In all the times she had entertained
    this sensation, she had