Through a Glass Darkly: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

feeding into others, some being approached only through odd little halls and narrow little stairs. During the day, she could hear her brothers and sisters reciting their lessons. She was nearby when they cried at night. Nearby to comfort, to scold, to love, for she had always taken care of them.
       She was queen of this small kingdom; her dearest subjects slept in adjoining rooms; her bedchamber held her kingdom's treasures. Birds' nests she had lovingly saved. (You had to be so careful; harming a robin was bad luck. If you took their eggs, your legs would break. If you were holding one when it died, your hands would always shake…Annie said so.) And in them, not eggs, for she could not have borne to keep the young from their mother, but instead a potpourri of herbs and flowers she made herself every autumn. A small French box of fragrant, inlaid wood holding hair ribbons that curled into obedient circles, her few jewels. The toilette set her grandmother had given her for her thirteenth birthday, composed of ivory and silver, the comb, brush, mirror, and matching candlesticks laid out carefully and with great pride on a small table. An old Dutch chest, inside which lay some of her mother's ball gowns, lavender sprinkled among their folds.
       She would brush her hair until it crackled with life and then try on those gowns. Anne and Charlotte hung on her every movement as she swayed about the room in an old pair of high–heeled shoes she had stolen from her grandmother's wardrobe. "Oh, Bab, you are so beautiful!" The gowns rustled; they shimmered. They were the symbol of all she would one day possess— when she became a woman. How carefully she would fold them away (Anne and Charlotte begging to help), caressing the velvet, the lace, and then closing the lid, somehow secure that one day the secret they represented would be known to her. This chamber was her cocoon; she was the chrysalis, encased, content, putting away bright gowns as she put away dreams. But tonight she felt that her wings had unfolded and were as shimmering with magic as those gowns. This room was suddenly too small. Tamworth was too small. The world was too small to hold her soaring spirit—
       "Bab!"
       Harry's white face was floating in her doorway She scrambled across the covers and lit a candle before he could run into anything. The smell of brandy burned her nostrils at the same time as the smell of smoking wick. She felt her wings fold back into themselves. He had been drinking. He would be difficult, ready to quarrel. He would not be able to share her joy.
       And then she saw his face as he sat down on the edge of the bed. Its handsome darkness was marred. His beautiful, violet eyes ("I want your eyes!" she always told him. "I have more need of them than you do!") were swollen with weeping. His mouth, with its full lips, was grim and unnaturally thin. And she remembered that while she had gained her heart's desire this day, he had lost his. He sat down heavily on the bed, and she pulled the covers up to her shoulders and rubbed her feet against the sheet for warmth, her own joy forgotten.
       "Harry, I am so sorry…" The words fell between them softly like the faded petals of a summer flower. He put his hands to his face. She saw his shoulders heave, but he made no sound. She sat quiet and still, awed by the emotion radiating from him. This, too, was love, she thought, the words slipping through her mind quicksilver slick, dropping into the well that was her feeling for Roger. This pain, this desperation. I will know it. I will know it all. The good with the bad…oh, Roger. She felt rich, powerful, blessed. The wings on her back gave a strong flutter.
       "Did she tell you?" His hands were away from his face now, the words quick and harsh. She breathed in the brandy. The shadows of the room hid his feelings, but his voice did not. It betrayed him. She shivered.
       "I…she…I overheard."
       He made a bitter