Wonder Show Read Online Free PDF
Author: Hannah Barnaby
rest can’t hurt you.
CAROLINE : One thing?
PORTIA : Yes. One.
CAROLINE : Being alone in the dark.
PORTIA : You’re not.
CAROLINE : Not yet.
Bluebeard Takes a Bride
Time, as they say, passed. Portia had hoped to spend a few weeks at most in Mister’s house—she had envisioned herself moving in and barely unpacking before she seized her magic file and ran off to find Max. Or at least took a few steps in the right direction. But the regimented schedule of housework, cooking, and daily chores, the numbing regularity of life in Mister’s house, made time disappear. It was as if some unseen force stole Portia’s days and weeks whenever her back was turned. She was washing the kitchen windows one day and was shocked to see alabaster blossoms populating the orchard trees, and her bicycle rides into Brewster Falls no longer required a coat.
The trips to town had been sanctioned by Mister only a few weeks earlier, after much pleading by Portia to Caroline. Portia could not abide asking Mister for such a thing directly, but he had become more and more fond of Caroline in their months of working together and allowed her nearly anything she requested.
Caroline was, of course, repelled by Mister’s attention. But Portia reminded her almost daily of the praise that was sure to come from Caroline’s family when they found time to respond to her letters. Caroline wrote to her mother at least twice a week, detailing her duties as Mister’s assistant in his many intellectual pursuits. In truth, neither Caroline nor Portia was quite sure what Mister hoped to accomplish by documenting his lineage, as it was quite clear that no one in Brewster Falls wanted any association with the McGreavey name. Nor could they tell what kind of readership Mister might find for his various “doctrines,” which were opinionated and difficult to follow, and bore titles like “The Arrogance of Flight” (in which the actor Howard Hughes was compared to Lucifer). Portia wondered what a man who had apparently never left his house could possibly have to say about Hughes’s record-breaking flight around the world, but she listened with great fascination to Caroline’s account of Mister’s fierce expression and ever-reddening countenance as he dictated long sentences that made no sense to her whatsoever. Many of Mister’s opinions seemed to come, Caroline said, from some inner well of religious conviction. Which, too, seemed strange, since Mister never went to church, excepting the Sundays when Father Sipperly came out from town and held services in the decrepit chapel that the departed Mrs. McGreavey had built in the northeast corner of the orchard. And he allowed Father Sipperly’s visits only in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety.
One man, unmarried, living alone with so many girls. Mister was aware of how it looked.
“I am aware of how it looks,” he said to Portia one evening as he watched her making meat loaf for dinner. He was very particular about his food and often “supervised” her cooking. “Perhaps it is time I took a wife.”
He said it as if he were talking about acquiring a new mule. Portia was glad her back was turned to him so he could not see her grimace.
“It is only a question of who would be most . . . suitable,” he went on. “Not too young, not too headstrong.”
This clearly put Portia out of the running, a fact that she celebrated by garnishing the meat loaf with extra parsley. But what Mister said next nearly made her drop the platter altogether.
“I believe I shall speak to Caroline about this. She has become rather . . . dear to me.” He spoke absently, trying out the words as he might experiment with some foreign dialect he did not understand. It was as if he had forgotten Portia was there, and she dared not move, dared not remind him. “Yes,” he murmured. “I shall speak to her first thing after dinner.”
Which gave Portia (in her estimation) just enough time to mash the
CAROLINE : One thing?
PORTIA : Yes. One.
CAROLINE : Being alone in the dark.
PORTIA : You’re not.
CAROLINE : Not yet.
Bluebeard Takes a Bride
Time, as they say, passed. Portia had hoped to spend a few weeks at most in Mister’s house—she had envisioned herself moving in and barely unpacking before she seized her magic file and ran off to find Max. Or at least took a few steps in the right direction. But the regimented schedule of housework, cooking, and daily chores, the numbing regularity of life in Mister’s house, made time disappear. It was as if some unseen force stole Portia’s days and weeks whenever her back was turned. She was washing the kitchen windows one day and was shocked to see alabaster blossoms populating the orchard trees, and her bicycle rides into Brewster Falls no longer required a coat.
The trips to town had been sanctioned by Mister only a few weeks earlier, after much pleading by Portia to Caroline. Portia could not abide asking Mister for such a thing directly, but he had become more and more fond of Caroline in their months of working together and allowed her nearly anything she requested.
Caroline was, of course, repelled by Mister’s attention. But Portia reminded her almost daily of the praise that was sure to come from Caroline’s family when they found time to respond to her letters. Caroline wrote to her mother at least twice a week, detailing her duties as Mister’s assistant in his many intellectual pursuits. In truth, neither Caroline nor Portia was quite sure what Mister hoped to accomplish by documenting his lineage, as it was quite clear that no one in Brewster Falls wanted any association with the McGreavey name. Nor could they tell what kind of readership Mister might find for his various “doctrines,” which were opinionated and difficult to follow, and bore titles like “The Arrogance of Flight” (in which the actor Howard Hughes was compared to Lucifer). Portia wondered what a man who had apparently never left his house could possibly have to say about Hughes’s record-breaking flight around the world, but she listened with great fascination to Caroline’s account of Mister’s fierce expression and ever-reddening countenance as he dictated long sentences that made no sense to her whatsoever. Many of Mister’s opinions seemed to come, Caroline said, from some inner well of religious conviction. Which, too, seemed strange, since Mister never went to church, excepting the Sundays when Father Sipperly came out from town and held services in the decrepit chapel that the departed Mrs. McGreavey had built in the northeast corner of the orchard. And he allowed Father Sipperly’s visits only in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety.
One man, unmarried, living alone with so many girls. Mister was aware of how it looked.
“I am aware of how it looks,” he said to Portia one evening as he watched her making meat loaf for dinner. He was very particular about his food and often “supervised” her cooking. “Perhaps it is time I took a wife.”
He said it as if he were talking about acquiring a new mule. Portia was glad her back was turned to him so he could not see her grimace.
“It is only a question of who would be most . . . suitable,” he went on. “Not too young, not too headstrong.”
This clearly put Portia out of the running, a fact that she celebrated by garnishing the meat loaf with extra parsley. But what Mister said next nearly made her drop the platter altogether.
“I believe I shall speak to Caroline about this. She has become rather . . . dear to me.” He spoke absently, trying out the words as he might experiment with some foreign dialect he did not understand. It was as if he had forgotten Portia was there, and she dared not move, dared not remind him. “Yes,” he murmured. “I shall speak to her first thing after dinner.”
Which gave Portia (in her estimation) just enough time to mash the