Re: Brent Weeks Night Angel Epub Gratis
Jeanine Baselice
"Isn't that an address! Did you ever hear anything so delicious?Windy Poplars is the name of my new home and I love it. I also loveSpook's Lane, which has no legal existence. It should be TrentStreet but it is never called Trent Street except on the rareoccasions when it is mentioned in the Weekly Courier...and then people look at each other and say, 'Where on earth isthat?' Spook's Lane it is...although for what reason I cannottell you. I have already asked Rebecca Dew about it, but all shecan say is that it has always been Spook's Lane and there was someold yarn years ago of its being haunted. But she has neverseen anything worse-looking than herself in it.
"It's dusk, dearest. (In passing, isn't 'dusk' a lovely word? Ilike it better than twilight. It sounds so velvety and shadowy and...and...dusky.) In daylight I belong to the world...in the night to sleep and eternity. But in the dusk I'm freefrom both and belong only to myself...and you. So I'mgoing to keep this hour sacred to writing to you. Thoughthis won't be a love-letter. I have a scratchy pen and Ican't write love-letters with a scratchy pen...or a sharp pen...or a stub pen. So you'll only get that kind of letterfrom me when I have exactly the right kind of pen. Meanwhile, I'lltell you about my new domicile and its inhabitants. Gilbert,they're such dears.
"I came up yesterday to look for a boarding-house. Mrs. RachelLynde came with me, ostensibly to do some shopping but really, Iknow, to choose a boarding-house for me. In spite of my Arts courseand my B.A., Mrs. Lynde still thinks I am an inexperienced youngthing who must be guided and directed and overseen.
"It happened just as the train was coming to a stop at thestation. I got up and, stooping to pick up Mrs. Lynde's suitcase(she was planning to spend Sunday with a friend in Summerside), Ileaned my knuckles heavily on what I thought was the shiny arm of aseat. In a second I received a violent crack across them thatnearly made me howl. Gilbert, what I had taken for the arm of aseat was a man's bald head. He was glaring fiercely at me and hadevidently just waked up. I apologized abjectly and got off thetrain as quickly as possible. The last I saw of him he was stillglaring. Mrs. Lynde was horrified and my knuckles are sore yet!
"I did not expect to have much trouble in finding aboarding-house, for a certain Mrs. Tom Pringle has been boardingthe various principals of the High School for the last fifteenyears. But, for some unknown reason, she has grown suddenly tiredof 'being bothered' and wouldn't take me. Several other desirableplaces had some polite excuse. Several other places weren'tdesirable. We wandered about the town the whole afternoon and gothot and tired and blue and headachy...at least I did. Iwas ready to give up in despair...and then, Spook's Lane justhappened!
"'I've heard they want a boarder to pay Rebecca Dew's wages.They can't afford to keep Rebecca any longer unless a little extramoney comes in. And if Rebecca goes, who is to milk that oldred cow?'
"'Why, Aunt Kate and Aunt Chatty,' said Mrs. Braddock, as ifeverybody, even an ignorant B.A., ought to know that. 'Aunt Kate isMrs. Amasa MacComber (she's the Captain's widow) and Aunt Chatty isMrs. Lincoln MacLean, just a plain widow. But every one calls them"aunt." They live at the end of Spook's Lane.'
"'Oh, Captain MacComber called it that. It was his house, youknow. He planted all the poplars round it and was mighty proud ofit, though he was seldom home and never stayed long. Aunt Kate usedto say that was inconvenient, but we never got it figured outwhether she meant his staying such a little time or his coming backat all. Well, Miss Shirley, I hope you'll get there. Rebecca Dew'sa good cook and a genius with cold potatoes. If she takes a notionto you you'll be in clover. If she doesn't...well, she won't,that's all. I hear there's a new banker in town looking for aboarding-house and she may prefer him. It's kind of funny Mrs. TomPringle wouldn't take you. Summerside is full of Pringles and halfPringles. They're called "The Royal Family" and you'll have to geton their good side, Miss Shirley, or you'll never get along inSummerside High. They've always ruled the roost hereabouts...there's a street called after old Captain Abraham Pringle. There'sa regular clan of them, but the two old ladies at Maplehurst bossthe tribe. I did hear they were down on you.'
"'Well, a third cousin of theirs applied for the Principalshipand they all think he should have got it. When your application wasaccepted the whole kit and boodle of them threw back their headsand howled. Well, people are like that. We have to take them as wefind them, you know. They'll be as smooth as cream to you butthey'll work against you every time. I'm not wanting to discourageyou but forewarned is forearmed. I hope you'll make good just tospite them. If the widows take you, you won't mind eating withRebecca Dew, will you? She isn't a servant, you know. She'sa far-off cousin of the Captain's. She doesn't come to the tablewhen there's company...she knows her place then...but if you were boarding there she wouldn't consider you company,of course.'
"'And don't hurt Aunt Chatty's feelings, will you? Her feelingsare so easily hurt. She's so sensitive, poor thing. You see, shehasn't quite as much money as Aunt Kate...though AuntKate hasn't any too much either. And then Aunt Kate liked herhusband real well...her own husband, I mean...but AuntChatty didn't...didn't like hers, I mean. Small wonder! LincolnMacLean was an old crank...but she thinks people hold itagainst her. It's lucky this is Saturday. If it was Friday AuntChatty wouldn't even consider taking you. You'd think Aunt Katewould be the superstitious one, wouldn't you? Sailors are kind oflike that. But it's Aunt Chatty...although her husbandwas a carpenter. She was very pretty in her day, poor thing.'
"'Kate and Chatty won't explore your belongings when you're out.They're very conscientious. Rebecca Dew may, but she won't tell onyou. And I wouldn't go to the front door if I was you. They onlyuse it for something real important. I don't think it's been openedsince Amasa's funeral. Try the side door. They keep the key underthe flower-pot on the window-sill, so if nobody's home just unlockthe door and go in and wait. And whatever you do, don't praise thecat, because Rebecca Dew doesn't like him.'
"I promised I wouldn't praise the cat and we actually got away.Erelong we found ourselves in Spook's Lane. It is a very short sidestreet, leading out to open country, and far away a blue hill makesa beautiful back-drop for it. On one side there are no houses atall and the land slopes down to the harbor. On the other side thereare only three. The first one is just a house...nothing more tobe said of it. The next one is a big, imposing, gloomy mansion ofstone-trimmed red brick, with a mansard roof warty withdormer-windows, an iron railing around the flat top and so manyspruces and firs crowding about it that you can hardly see thehouse. It must be frightfully dark inside. And the third and lastis Windy Poplars, right on the corner, with the grass-grown streeton the front and a real country road, beautiful with tree shadows,on the other side.
"I fell in love with it at once. You know there are houses whichimpress themselves upon you at first sight for some reason you canhardly define. Windy Poplars is like that. I may describe it to youas a white frame house...very white...with green shutters...very green...with a 'tower' in the corner and adormer-window on either side, a low stone wall dividing it from thestreet, with aspen poplars growing at intervals along it, and a biggarden at the back where flowers and vegetables are delightfullyjumbled up together...but all this can't convey its charm toyou. In short, it is a house with a delightful personality and hassomething of the flavor of Green Gables about it.
"I was glad we didn't have to go in by the front door. It lookedso forbidding...a big, double-leaved, grained-wood affair,flanked by panels of red, flowered glass. It doesn't seem to belongto the house at all. The little green side door, which we reachedby a darling path of thin, flat sandstones sunk at intervals in thegrass, was much more friendly and inviting. The path was edged byvery prim, well-ordered beds of ribbon grass and bleeding-heart andtiger-lilies and sweet-William and southernwood and bride's bouquetand red-and-white daisies and what Mrs. Lynde calls 'pinies.' Ofcourse they weren't all in bloom at this season, but you could seethey had bloomed at the proper time and done it well. There was arose plot in a far corner and between Windy Poplars and the gloomyhouse next a brick wall all overgrown with Virginia creeper, withan arched trellis above a faded green door in the middle of it. Avine ran right across it, so it was plain it hadn't been opened forsome time. It was really only half a door, for its top half ismerely an open oblong through which we could catch a glimpse of ajungly garden on the other side.
"Just as we entered the gate of the garden of Windy Poplars Inoticed a little clump of clover right by the path. Some impulseled me to stoop down and look at it. Would you believe it, Gilbert?There, right before my eyes, were three four-leafed clovers!Talk about omens! Even the Pringles can't contend against that. AndI felt sure the banker hadn't an earthly chance.
"The side door was open so it was evident somebody was at homeand we didn't have to look under the flower-pot. We knocked andRebecca Dew came to the door. We knew it was Rebecca Dew because itcouldn't have been any one else in the whole wide world. And shecouldn't have had any other name.
"Rebecca Dew is 'around forty' and if a tomato had black hairracing away from its forehead, little twinkling black eyes, a tinynose with a knobby end and a slit of a mouth, it would look exactlylike her. Everything about her is a little too short...arms andlegs and neck and nose...everything but her smile. It is longenough to reach from ear to ear.
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