Winter Wonderland Read Online Free PDF

else seemed to work, she’d even sunk to tears. All to no avail.
    And tears are no avail now , she reminded herself, sitting up on her bed. It was all spilt milk. All the tears in the world would not change the past. She dashed them away, got up and went to her dressing table. If her brother-in-law and his wife should appear on the doorstep soon—as seemed likely—she was in no condition to receive them. She took off her apron, brushed the dust from her skirts and turned her attention to her unkempt hair. Hardly glancing at her reflection in the mirror (for her pale, gaunt face gave her little pleasure these days), she gathered her flyaway locks into one long, ropy coil, twisted it into a bun and began to pin it up to the back of her head.
    She remembered how Rodney had disliked this way of doing up her hair. He’d always liked it hanging loose. Of course, after the glow of romance had worn thin, he rarely bothered to look at her. By the end of the first year, he was already accusing her of being nagging and burdensome. In fact, the more she indulged in pleas or scolds, the greater was his dislike of the married state. He began to come home at night badly foxed, and sometimes he did not come home at all. Still, she’d found it hard at first to believe that he’d taken a mistress. Later, of course, it was easy to believe. Over the years, he’d kept a succession of them.
    She glanced at herself in the mirror. Her hair was neat enough, and her dress—a muslin roundgown with long sleeves and a high neck—was suitable for an evening at home. It had seen better days, but it would have to do. Rodney’s brother and his wife would not expect her to greet them in formal attire. But she would make one concession to the occasion and wear her cameo. She took it out of her jewel-box, slipped it on a silver chain and hung it round her neck. It was a lovely piece—a miniature of a lady with a small diamond at her neck. Rodney had bought it for her on their honeymoon. It was not very valuable, Miranda supposed, but it was precious to her. It was her only reminder that she’d once been very, very happy.
    But she’d not been at all happy since. Nor did she have any prospects of a change for the better. She wondered, as she stared at the pale, unfamiliar face in the dressing-table mirror, if she should have tried harder to change her life—to leave the man who’d so consistently humiliated her. But what could she have done? She had no parents to run to. Aunt Letty had no home of her own. Miranda had once thought of running off to become an actress on the stage, but it was a childish impulse; she had no talent for such an enterprise. Most women who tried it became, in the end, little better than lightskirts.
    All those years, she’d felt quite hopeless. In a society in which divorce was almost unheard of, and where a wife had no rights, there was no way to free herself. Nevertheless, she felt inadequate. She’d failed in the one thing in which a woman was expected to succeed—as a wife. With this awareness of her failure, she had grown more withdrawn. She lost all interest in what had once been her major preoccupation: the pursuit of pleasure. She neither gave nor accepted invitations. She rarely went from home. She withdrew from society in shame.
    Was it my fault? she asked her reflection in the mirror. Was I not charming enough, or beautiful enough, or clever enough? She knew she’d bored her husband. Her affection bored him. Her disapproval bored him. But then, everything bored him. He was so bored with his life that he could only find relief by gambling. Taking wild risks. Cards, horses or the market, it didn’t matter which. All her attempts to reason with him failed. In an attempt to compensate for her husband’s wild profligacy, she practiced economy in her home as much as possible, keeping the number of servants to a minimum, ceasing to buy anything but the